My Journey as a Writer

First, a little bit about myself: I’m 26 years old. I live in Greensboro, NC where I was born and raised. I graduated from Lenoir-Rhyne college in May of 2005 with a degree in Sports Management. It was only after I had spent thousands of dollars to go to school that I discovered that I loved to write. I wish that I would have found that important nugget of information five years earlier, but everything happens for a reason and I wouldn’t change any of my experiences for the world. Everything that has happened in my past has led me to this point in my life and has shaped me into the person that I am today, and for that, I am grateful. With that said, this is my story...

My journey as a writer started a little more than two years ago. In November of 2005, I sat down in front of my computer with an idea, one idea. Pretty soon, my one idea spawned another idea, then came another, and another. The ideas kept coming and six months later, I had pounded out a script, well, at least what I thought was a script.

With my story completed, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. The thought of trying to get it published never crossed my mind; instead, more ideas came. Enough ideas, in fact, for a second and third story and, just like that, I had a trilogy on my hands. I began to work on the second script immediately. It wasn’t long before I had two completed scripts sitting in front of me.

Jumping ahead, in the middle of August of 2006, I received a UNCG (University of North Carolina at Greensboro) course catalog in the mail. I’m guessing it was a mistake seeing as how I did not attend UNCG and my neighbors did, but my curiosity got the best of me, so I decided to look through it. It was not coincidence that led me to open that book, because the first course that I saw in the table of contents when I opened the front cover was none other than Screenwriting 101. I signed up for the course immediately.

Upon taking the class, I learned correct script format, which made my so-called script look like incoherent babble. Not only this, but the more I sat through the class, the more I realized that what I had written was far too rich to be a script; it delved too deep into the character’s feelings and motivation for their actions, whereas in writing a script, you give only the basics. My story wasn’t quite a script, but it wasn’t quite a novel.

I had a decision to make.

Do I want to take away all of the details and leave just the who, what, when, and where? Or do I want to sit down, tear my story to shreds, add even more detail than I already had, and then piece it back together? It was very frustrating at first, but the more I thought about it, the choice was simple. So, I began turning my script into a novel.

The process turned out to be easier than I thought it would be as my "bad" script turned out to be a great layout of my story. Even though the process of converting my story into a novel turned out to be easier, it still took me a while to complete, as I went back and read through my work several times to perfect it. I finally finished in early December 2007, about a month ago.

Having ordered, Writer’s Market 2008, I excitedly thumbed through it upon its arrival and found many publishers interested in the genre that my novel fit into, fantasy adventure, but unfortunately none of which accept simultaneous submissions. Thus, starting the daunting task of sending it out to one publisher at a time. I chose Knopf Publishing to send my novel to first. With that decided, I wrote a query letter and mailed it, along with 45 sample pages of my work, on January 2, 2008.

Shortly after, I read an article in my local newspaper which said that blogging is a good way to get your writing career off the ground, so for about a week or so, I racked my brain trying to figure out what I would write about if I created a blog. Finally, late one night, it came to me, just as the first idea of my novel had come to me two years prior. I decided to share my story.

And with that, my journey as a writer continues. Until next time...