I was eight years old when I watched Jurassic Park for the first time, and when I say "watched" I mean I stole peeks around the pillow I was hiding behind.
I absolutely loved it.
I loved it so much, in fact, I constantly asked my parents to play it for me. They refused most of the time, due to the fact it gave me nightmares, but after three years I was able to sit through the entire thing without hiding behind something or simply leaving the room.
My parents always thought my nightmares were troublesome, but I consider them one of my blessings. Without them, I may have never become a writer.
Let me explain.
I absolutely loved it.
I loved it so much, in fact, I constantly asked my parents to play it for me. They refused most of the time, due to the fact it gave me nightmares, but after three years I was able to sit through the entire thing without hiding behind something or simply leaving the room.
My parents always thought my nightmares were troublesome, but I consider them one of my blessings. Without them, I may have never become a writer.
Let me explain.
My nightmares of Jurassic Park were based on scenes from the movie, but they were always slightly different from the way they happened in the film. I reveled in these differences - the endless number of possible outcomes - and I wrote them down the next morning to think about later.
It was only natural for these little ideas to blossom into a story.
Granted, that story was only 24 pages long with point 16 font on Microsoft Word, but it was a story nonetheless, and it was the story that sparked more stories. And more stories. And more stories.
When I was 12 years old, I wrote my first novel-length story. It had awful grammar, absolutely no descriptors, and a plot that was more complex than a Celtic Knot. I didn't let anyone else read it, but it planted a seed in my mind.
I suddenly had the desire, the urge, the need to write a story worth being read by others.
For years I started and stopped multiple stories. They started strong, but a tiny voice in the back of my head told me they weren't good enough. So I stopped.
Enter NaNoWriMo.
I was introduced to the organization NaNoWriMo by my 8th grade English teacher, who was aware of my writing passion. He encouraged me to participate. I, however, was still feeling the after-effects of abandoning yet another story. Almost reluctantly, and more for his pleasure than mine, I signed up. I was introduced to a community of like-minded people - all my age too - with a common goal in mind: to write 50,000 words in one month. Any published author would look at NaNoWriMo's mission statement and argue "There's no way a child can write a book in one month".
And they're absolutely right.
NaNoWriMo's goal isn't to produce a fully-completed-and-publish-ready book in one month, it's to write.
As someone who always struggled getting the words down on paper, it was the perfect place for me.
NaNoWriMo has a great mindset. They tell participants to block their "inner Editor", as they call it. Translation: that little voice inside your head that whispers your story isn't good enough? Squash it. Shove it to the back of your brain. Don't allow yourself to go back and edit whatever you wrote. You can save that for later. NaNoWriMo is about quantity, not quality.
You can't work on the quality unless you have the quantity to work with.
I exceeded my own expectations and wrote over 60,000 words in one month. That's more than ever before.
I came back year after year, and even participated in their off-season "camps". For nearly three years I continued to write new stories, but I also kept that first NaNoWriMo story on the back-burner. I would edit it for a while, write further for a while, go back to editing, and then take a break. It was my dream to publish it.
I faced a lot of rejection. At one point I came close to deleting it and everything related to it.
But fate has a strange way of working in circles.
Within three days of each other, Jurassic World premiered in America and I received an offer from a publisher.
Who knew each step of my writing career would begin with dinosaurs?
It was only natural for these little ideas to blossom into a story.
Granted, that story was only 24 pages long with point 16 font on Microsoft Word, but it was a story nonetheless, and it was the story that sparked more stories. And more stories. And more stories.
When I was 12 years old, I wrote my first novel-length story. It had awful grammar, absolutely no descriptors, and a plot that was more complex than a Celtic Knot. I didn't let anyone else read it, but it planted a seed in my mind.
I suddenly had the desire, the urge, the need to write a story worth being read by others.
For years I started and stopped multiple stories. They started strong, but a tiny voice in the back of my head told me they weren't good enough. So I stopped.
Enter NaNoWriMo.
I was introduced to the organization NaNoWriMo by my 8th grade English teacher, who was aware of my writing passion. He encouraged me to participate. I, however, was still feeling the after-effects of abandoning yet another story. Almost reluctantly, and more for his pleasure than mine, I signed up. I was introduced to a community of like-minded people - all my age too - with a common goal in mind: to write 50,000 words in one month. Any published author would look at NaNoWriMo's mission statement and argue "There's no way a child can write a book in one month".
And they're absolutely right.
NaNoWriMo's goal isn't to produce a fully-completed-and-publish-ready book in one month, it's to write.
As someone who always struggled getting the words down on paper, it was the perfect place for me.
NaNoWriMo has a great mindset. They tell participants to block their "inner Editor", as they call it. Translation: that little voice inside your head that whispers your story isn't good enough? Squash it. Shove it to the back of your brain. Don't allow yourself to go back and edit whatever you wrote. You can save that for later. NaNoWriMo is about quantity, not quality.
You can't work on the quality unless you have the quantity to work with.
I exceeded my own expectations and wrote over 60,000 words in one month. That's more than ever before.
I came back year after year, and even participated in their off-season "camps". For nearly three years I continued to write new stories, but I also kept that first NaNoWriMo story on the back-burner. I would edit it for a while, write further for a while, go back to editing, and then take a break. It was my dream to publish it.
I faced a lot of rejection. At one point I came close to deleting it and everything related to it.
But fate has a strange way of working in circles.
Within three days of each other, Jurassic World premiered in America and I received an offer from a publisher.
Who knew each step of my writing career would begin with dinosaurs?