#PretendPanel The spark that ignited my writing?

I just know I always have, and always will. Why dark fiction? Blame my Irish grandmother who told fortunes in tea cups and with whom I watched old b/w horror movies when i was knee high.

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I was drawing stories from early on as a kid, then writing Star Wars, Aliens and Terminator "fan fic" from age 10-11. Then dark poems as a teen... and picking the pen back up after decades of teaching, with a man walking down a spiral staircase (this is a forever shelved dragon story).

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I dunno. I always made up elaborate stories and characters when playing with my toys when I was little and on-and-off I'd write them down. I mostly spent years writers blocked, though, with no real idea how to move forward.

Watched Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade too many times as a young Beird and figured "I wanna do that"

Then I tried making movies and wasted years of time and money

And then another foolhardy notion popped in my brain

"Just do it as a book innit?"

Out of the frying pan . . .

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I read a LOT as a kid and in 4th grade my teacher did a few creative writing assignments. I don't remember the minimum pages but I wrote several stories that were 5+ pages with my own drawings added 😂

She said she really enjoyed them and she told me to keep writing and to send her ⬇️

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#PretendPanel Do I have one? Lol I don't think so.

I started writing really young. I decided to start sharing when my brother passed away. He still had drawings I did him 20 years before. He also enjoyed writing, art, and music. I dunno, maybe someone needs my work and I'll never know.

Remember those 'About Me' projects from elementary school, #PretendPanel? Well, we have a vivid memory of an autobiography that we did in 3rd grade. It involved interviewing grandparents, parents, sibling, etc. Still to this day, we see that as our 'spark'. Maybe that's why we started with a memoir.

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-this week. I'm still a clumsy weirdo, a freak, all the above when I was going to high school and got bullied and laughed out of there, not being able to find my tribe.
I've been trying to find my audience who will hear me. It's really hard out there.

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-matters to so many, that voices matter here. It's about growing up nerd and a hope for a better tomorrow.
Sadly, I don't know if my writings will see the light of day in the near future. I'm still a failure, even though I've participated in the Write Anyway Summit..

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-with the power of the written word right there, hoping that someday I'd see my story everywhere from bookstores to libraries. It impacted someone in a positive way.
In my essay/ memoir collection Save Gallifrey, I try to show how important that neurodiversity...

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-ultimately turn into my YA WIP Crossing Conformity, and she gave me an A on the paper, with a note in the margins saying, "I'd love to read more!"
I think I still have that paper with the note inside, as the inspiration for me to keep writing. I fell in love...

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Another BIG question, may have to be posted in chunks.
It actually started freshman year of high school, more than 20 years ago. I know, a long time, I can't believe it's been that long.
My English teacher read a chapter of my YA coming of age story that would...

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I've always been an artist at heart, including writing. I guess it was an extension of a lifelong habit of acting things out. That extension became fanfics, then original stories, and now, I just have so many stories to tell that I often have trouble picking and choosing just one.

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I’m going to say that it was praise from a teacher in the third grade. I wrote a short story for class about zoo animals, surrounded by sharks, on a boat at sea—kinda Madagascarish before it was a movie, and Mrs. Blothenberg gave me an A+.

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I've always loved writing, ever since I was a kid. It started with coming up with stories for characters my sister and I made, and then I got into fanfics. I knew I wanted to be an author one day, so I made sure to learn more about writing technique with every fanfic I worked on~

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Alright I see everyone being open and vulnerable, my turn:
I have always had stories to tell, I got in trouble a lot as a kid for making things up or exaggerating which squished down my creativity for a long time. It kept popping up in different ways, art, poetry, but at my core

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To prove I can & follow my dreams.

Around the age of 7, I told my family I wanted to be an author. They laughed and said it was cute hobby and asked what my real dream job was. Nobody believed in me.

I had to believe in myself. Now I'm an editor and I'm still writing so...

Didn't like talking. Didn't think I was good at reading. Wrote stuff instead.

As for WIP1: fiddling around on the guitar, thinking about a story, inspired a song. Forgot about both until last year. Then wrote the story. Recorded the song after. WIP1 beget WIP2 which beget WIP3 etc...

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