All good superheroes, supervillains and really most interesting people have an origin story. I’m not a super hero or villain but I tend to think of myself as an interesting person, which means I must have an origin story. And I do, which had been turned into multiple books really so instead I’ll share my origin story of how I became an author.
Something extremely common I hear is “I always wanted to write a book” usually followed by “how did you do it”. Countless amounts of people have told me that they want to write a book, and I used to be one of those people until one day I decided ‘what’s stopping me?’
I always considered myself a writer. I started writing as a child, usually plays or skits that I would then make my cousins help me perform for my mom and aunt (a captive audience). As a teenager I progressed into poetry and short stories. Throughout College and early years of parenting I stopped writing, time was the big problem there just wasn’t enough of it in the day. As I was cleaning the basement one day I came across some of my old poems and decided it was finally time to pick up the pen again.
I didn’t realize at the time that I was going to publish the book, it was simply something I enjoyed doing. Once I published my first book I was hooked and couldn’t wait to start on my next. And now 2 non-fictions and 1 children’s story published later (with another couple in the editing stages) I officially call myself an author. It’s no longer just something I do for fun (though I still really enjoy it) it is now my career.
As an employment counselor I used to tell people if you find a job you are passionate about, you will wake up wanting to start work instead of dreading it.
Even if you never publish your book but it is something you keep saying you want to do, ask yourself this ‘what is stopping you?’ And really the answer should be nothing, because the story you write is for you and if one day you pursue publishing that’s great, and if you don’t that’s great. The bottom line is if you really, truly want to write a book then just start writing and see where it takes you.
My first book took over 10 years to write, my soon to be released only took a year. Because now I trust myself and my direction with writing. What I want you to know about my origin story is that it was over my lifetime not a blink of the eye.