The First Time I Knew Had to be a Writer
This week, please blog about the time you first wanted to become a writer. Was there a "flash" moment when you just knew, or has it always been true? Please tag your post first time writer blog.
Jane Smiley said, “One of the things I found so congenial about my group in Iowa was that they were very forgiving of one another. The real key was production, not perfection.” In the intercepts that comprise We Wanted to Be Writers: Life, Love, and Literature at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Eric A. Olsen and his fellow Iowa workshoppers discuss what they learned and didn’t learn in the esteemed Workshop back in the mid-‘70s—and what they’ve gleaned in the decades since about life, art, the creative process, teaching, and the literary business. Observations from more than 30 graduates and faculty such as John Irving, Jane Smiley, and T. C. Boyle—some poignant, others humorous—make Olsen’s book a must-read for novice and seasoned writers alike.
A few bloggers will receive copies of Eric's wonderful new book. If you're in Chicago on March 2nd, you can meet Eric at the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) panel, where he leads bestselling authors Jane Smiley, Sherry Kramer, Gordon Mennenga, and Doug Unger in a discussion of the creative process.
So post a blog entry today! For help on how to blog, please see the directions here. We'll choose one of these blog posts to be featured on Red Room's homepage next week. Post your entry by Friday, February 24th at 10:30 a.m. PST (GMT-08:00) for consideration, and be sure to tag it with the keyword term first time writer blog in the Blog Keyword Tags field so we can find it. (Please don't forget the exact tag. For more information about tags, click here.)
And don't forget to the entries on last week's topic, favorite time travel stories. Entries ranged from praise for a made-for-TV movie with a devoted, 30-year fan base to an erudite and personal analysis of what makes time travel stories so compelling.
Thanks as always for blogging!
–Huntington W. Sharp, Senior Editor, Red Room
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Writing is in my Blood
When I was a teenager maybe fifteen or sixteen, I was asleep one night when this story came to me and I jumped out of bed in the middle of the night and started writing. I wrote for hours, and thats when I knew I really wanted to be a writer. Of couse back then I didnt have a computer so I had to use the pre-historic method of pen and paper. What's a pen you may ask? Well Google it. Anyway even before that ever since I could remember I had alway loved writing stories. I guess it's in my blood.