This idea started rattling around in my head earlier today, when I had more pressing things to focus on and couldn’t get away from them long enough to actually start writing it.  Now that I’ve been whipped into a murderous frenzy by student loan-related affairs, here goes nothing.

I’ve been thinking about writing.  How I got into it, where I’d like to end up with it at some point (realistically and unrealistically), and what I’m doing to see what I can make possible with it.  Of course this also means I’m making the ballsy assumption people will be interested in reading about my life, but I’m also taking the liberty of applying the “this is my blog so I’ll post whatever I want within reasonable parameters because it does have a theme and that theme is not pictures of cats doing silly things” (even if I do love me some wacky cat antics).  I’ll probably even just use the cut feature on these posts so it doesn’t show up as a freaking mountain of text.

Naturally, I’m going to start this series of posts with when I started writing (because this isn’t an episode of Doctor Who, people, and so you’re getting things in a relatively poorly-remembered chronological order).

I wish I had some grand story about how I dreamed of being a well-known writer, or how it was totally my childhood dream job (Spoilers: it wasn’t; I wanted to be a mad scientist and take over the world.  Not even joking.), but it just sort of happened.  I wanted to be an actor for some stretch of time, but having people consistently tell me I was bad at it and lacked the kind of look for it reduced that desire.  Not in the oh-god-my-spirit’s-been-crushed way, but in the what-the-fuck-ever apathetic sort of way.  In hindsight, it may have been for the best.  However, also in hindsight, those people should have gone and fucked themselves for telling me I don’t have the “look”.  I’m fantastic, damn it.

Out of boredom, for whatever reason or another, I started writing short stories.  They were really simple and were often accompanied by MS Paint pictures, and were generally what happened when I didn’t want to do homework but was told I had to or no video games.  They occasionally, very blatantly, made fun of people I knew, which I would then learn isn’t something that goes over very well (I was young and stupid, as opposed to how I’m now older and still stupid, and I failed to realize equating a child’s lactose intolerance to being part of a terrorist organization would not go over very well; I’m not making this up).  However, people encouraged me anyway.

Fast forward a bit, because I can’t actually remember exactly what point I went from one bit to the next: I started writing a publication called The Pengy Press.  It was a one page, front and back, “newsletter”* that covered current events relevant to my interests.  It gained a smallish following, but died relatively quickly.  In my sophomore, junior, and senior years of high school, it would be resurrected.  At its highest point in circulation, it had about eighty subscribers (and I printed that from my home printer, which, also in hindsight, means I owe my parents a lot of thank yous and possibly money for all the ink cartridges I killed).  During my junior and senior years of high school, I also took on the task of writing for the school newspaper, which evolved into me essentially taking over much of the school newspaper.  Less short stories happened from this point until college, but I did write a novel-length work for my senior project.  I thought it was pretty neat at the time, but in a moment of complete honesty I’ve never afforded anyone before: it was absolutely terrible, and I’m glad I recognize as much now.  That way when I write my first real novel, I can look at it, smile, and then cast it into the fires of the sun because it, too, will be horrible.  I’m kidding, it’ll be amazing.  Or somewhere between those two extremes.

I eventually ended up at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, where I studied Writing specifically (because Journalism and Secondary Education and I weren’t connecting in that meaningful way, and by that meaningful way I mean those two things would probably get me jobs while Writing…Insert laughter-related acronym here).

I’d like to think my writing has evolved and improved from when I started doing so for fun up through now.  Probably because it has, and quite a deal, from then.

Next post, I think I’ll cover the hilarious process of me finding my voice as a writer, all while vomiting what I can only assume reads like mountains of narcissism all over the internet.  Huzzah!