It is my strong belief that every now and then you should take the time to ask yourself why you do a particular thing.  It could be anything about your life ranging from the trivial (Why is my favorite food spaghetti?) to the consequential (Why do I always procrastinate?).  So in that vein, why did you begin writing?  My explanation for why I began writing after the jump.

Still with me?  Sweet.

I can remember that my first stab at a story was right before Easter break back when I was in Kindergarten.   The teacher asked us to write an Easter story, but I didn’t really know how to write.  So instead, I just did a bunch of squiggles and thought I’d remember it later.

But my first real attempt at a story was on one day when I was sick in first grade.  I got some construction paper together, folded into a book, then stapled the ends.  Inside I drew pictures of dinosaurs, and then wrote stuff like “I like T-Rex,” and “My name is Lee,” inside.

Over the next two years, I wrote such triumphs as “What To Do In A Library,” and “My Tooth Fall Out.”  Then in third grade, I began to write actual stories about an Eagle scout named Fred, and his two female friends (Betty and Betsy, I think).  They are all saved on a B drive floppy disk somewhere, and involved such wacky adventures as rescuing a cat from a tree and driving to the supermarket, although one adventure did involve a time machine and dinosaurs.

It was in fifth grade, though, when I really began writing.  On one day when I was sick, I was looking through a book by Carl Sagan called “Cosmos.”  After I looked through it for a bit, I thought it would be fun to write a story called “Captain Cosmo.”  I probably wrote about twenty such Captain Cosmo stories, involving attacks by flying cows, intelligent lightbulbs, and the evil Mongoloids.

In the stories, there was Captain Cosmo, who was a dunce; his commander Pace, who was the intelligent one; the doctor Blankey, who always carried a blanket; Lt. Florr, who was a blue alien always interested in rings and bracelets;  and Ensign Boo-Boo, who was afraid of everything.  I frequently used my classmates as characters in the stories, and people actually liked reading them.

In high-school, though, I switched over to serious short fiction.  Way too serious in fact, and there is only one story I wrote then that I still like.  I wish the rest of it would disappear.

Then in College, I began trying to write novels, and never got past page 20.  Until finally sometime in senior year, I looked back and realized the best stories I ever wrote were my Captain Cosmo stories.  So I then began writing a Captain Cosmo novel, but I didn’t get very far.  Why though?

It all goes back to the reason I began writing the Dinosaur book in first grade.  Back then, I didn’t write for others; I wrote for myself.  It was the same with the Captain Cosmo stories.  I wrote them because I thought they were funny.  It was nice when other people found them funny too, but it ultimately didn’t really matter.

But I lost that somewhere in high-school, when I began writing for others.  My stories were actually pretty good then, but I hated them and still do.  Then in College, it got worse when I began writing in the hopes of getting a book published.

So to answer my own question, I began writing because it was something I enjoyed.  Not a very deep answer, but my stories have improved substantially since I began writing for myself again about two years ago.   One of those stories has its roots in the Captain Cosmo series, and I really, really like it.  At my current rate, I should be done with it in the next three to six months, and you can be sure I will be posting it in the Advanced Critiques forum on YWS.  Although, I won’t be posting it under my name!  I’ll use one of my alternate accounts instead…

SO, anyhow, why did you begin writing?