No. Not when you started writing, but when you fell in love with it. I’ll go first.
Freshman year, High School, Survey Literature. Mr. Clark didn’t know it, but his vocabulary list had me open. He thought I’d look up definitions. He was wrong. I devoured them. I tried using every new word in a sentence and like most people in love for the first time, I sounded like an idiot.
I became obsessed with their meanings, their pronunciations, how they looked on the page and, most importantly, how they made me feel. Seduced by the euphoria of getting words off my chest, letting the emotions ooze from my heart and out of my flesh; stitching my soul into the page one heartbeat at a time, and riding the wave of stillness while traveling through books. I fantasized about how words would pair; how they would rhyme, mix and match. The smells of metaphor, and the taste of simile calling out to me from the words of healing written in a language I didn’t quite understand and yet, knew it was a necessary part of my sanity. For if I could not depend on writing to be my stepping stone to mental clarity, then I was truly lost. Forgotten in a world without meaning. No explanation for the question mark of our existence. No saving grace. No salvation to play just the right scripture to guide us back to the music sheet. Writing. It was my music sheet and goodness, how I loved him.
What about you? Are you in love with writing? When did you fall for it?
Not in love yet? Here’s a post about how to get there! 6 Ways to Fall in Love with Writing
The PBS Blog 
I was at college in my first year about a thousand miles away from home, and thanksgiving came, and I was alone at my dorm…i felt lonely and prayed to God, for he had always been with me through thick and thin in my life…a knock was at my outside door, being 30 miles from the nearest town in SW Missouri I almost hesitiated to open the door. When I did a man walked in with a smile and a collar around his neck , and said to me Wendell God loves you…he went back out the door and I followed him but when I got outside he was not there, I went back inside my room and began to write poems for God, the first thanking him for sending me a reply by an Angel to let me know he loved me. I have never been lonely again that way, for even if no one else is near I know God is! This is the first poem I wrote for him;
“The Fire.”
My heart is filled with a fire
Burning deep within my soul
And hungry is my lonely heart
For the love, It shall not let go
And the fire burns so deeply
All who view my face now see
There is a constant yearning
For the love who belongs to me
And the fire is an endless fire
Which burns eternally for thee
Never losing its flaming glory
While burning deep inside of me
And hungry is my lonely heart
For the love, I will not let go
As my heart is filled with his fire
Which shall always burn in my soul.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And I still write all the time each day! God bless you!
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Wow, what a story! I love your poem too, excellent. Thank you Wendell for sharing.
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For me it was around 13 when I discovered similes and metaphors. They enabled me to be understood. To look up at the sky and describe how the clouds looked or how the river sparkled. I love the richness of words and I know that less is more these days but sometimes I just want to sink into words and read them for their own outstanding beauty.
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Nice. Thanks for sharing.
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I think I always could write, but didn’t fall in love with writing until I was past 50. In elementary school, I once began a script for the television series “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”. I also finished second and then first the next year in my school Spelling Bee. I spent a lot of time in the basement with my mother, going over words, their definition and pronunciation. I was left with a vocabulary greater than most my age. I always read and would take trips to the library alone while others were playing games.
In high school, I wrote wonderful essays and impressed my teachers, but I think there was no love. In college, I entered and won a University-wide essay contest. I did it to impress an instructor, and for the $200 prize. Professionally, I wrote reports but only out of need and not desire.
When I first actually knew I loved writing, I wrote letters to a woman. I realized how writing organized my thoughts and the influence my words could have on another. I later wrote about politics and education and family and love.
I now have a book being reviewed by beta-readers (I thought of asking you Yecheilyah) and another in the hands of an agent. In some ways, I prefer the immediacy of my blog or Facebook where I can get immediate feedback. But if I never got a like or comment or reply. I would still write Because I cannot not.
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“When I first actually knew I loved writing, I wrote letters to a woman.” << I love this part of the story! Yasss. Also, congrats on your impending book! I am humbled that you thought of me (aww) though I wouldn't say I'm a Beta Reader exactly. I do review books though and will start publishing some again to this blog this fall as early as September. If you're interested you can take a look at my Book Review Registry form and sign up. Though I do caution they're several people in front of you so I'm not sure about the immediacy.
Book Review Registry Form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe8OUsLFfRUFWLc_PEowK6eZ9t8-ZLyCDH03hmPueuNcVei1w/viewform?c=0&w=1
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Hard to remember when I fell in love with writing. Maybe I was nine or ten. i would write my own stories and poems. Then in university, took the English Lit BA. After, a first job, and illness, finally, came to terms, writing is my purpose and my love 🙂
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Yesss. Thanks for sharing.
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For me it was when I first started at like age 6 or 7 lol but it was more about story telling than just the writing, although that was certainly part of it. My true passion for prose didn’t manifest fully until I actually started to get good at it lol
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Excellent. Thank you for sharing!
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