So how old were YOU when you started writing?

[Star of Penumbra]

I was fifteen when I started writing solely for my own enjoyment. I remember because it was very shortly before my sixteenth birthday. I started writing erotic stuff shortly after I turned seventeen.

So how old were you?

 

[medjay]

I wrote my first "book" when I was five. I came up with the story and my mother drew the illustrations. It was all about my exciting trip to the airport.

I found it in my parents' basement a couple of years ago and couldn't believe it! I'm sure it will become an expensive collectors item after I become a bestselling author!

 

[ronde]

I discovered this breath of fresh air called Literotica at the tender age of 53, and I've been writing for a couple of years. Prior to that, I spent 20 years writing exceptionally dry and boring technical stuff.

 

[Quint]

I apparently was published in very early elementary school, but my parents didn't even get the book my poem was in. Jeebus...

Since then, I've written bad poetry since 8th grade, good poetry since the end of my senior year, essays of various degrees of goodness (heh heh) since Pre-AP English in high school, and good short stories? Have yet to finish one. I'll let you know when I arrive there. (Hopefully it'll be by August 16, my deadline!)

 

[TheEarl]

Just after I turned 16 I started writing on Lit as an alternative to sexual frustration. I will give a prize to anyone who can identify my one story under a previous nom de plume which is still on Lit.

The Earl

 

[KillerMuffin]

I was four. That's when I migrated from pictures to words. Of course, I could spell about five words at the time, so it wasn't anything to get excited about, but still.

 

[wildsweetone]

hmm interesting coincidence

i have been ransacking the house for the last three weeks trying to find a short story which was published in a newspaper when i was 12 (i think). i can't find the darn thing anywhere. i know i put it somewhere safe.

i wrote a book when i was supposed to be learning schoolwork in high school. god they taught such boring subjects back then. my story turned out fairly risque, (though oddly i hadn't intended it that way) had gasps and stunned looks from many peers. maybe that's why it went missing too... i think my mum found it. rofl

i had one english teacher. she was absolutely brilliant. she saw my craving for creative writing and she simply let me go wherever i wanted with it. maybe she knew something even way back then. i will never forget her, thanks Ms Robertson

had a long break between then and now. didn't know where to begin i guess, and anything i did begin simply got laughed at. now, no family member knows i write on Lit., though they're getting the idea i am writing again, and writing other types of work. boy are they going to be in for a surprise. rofl

 

[DVS]

I wrote a book at the age of 16, but to this day, I don't know where it went. I think my mother must have found it. Back then, parents just threw stuff away, if they didn't think you should be messing with it. And when asked, they didn't seem to know anything about it. A form of perfect parenting, in a way.

I wrote many poems and lymericks in my late teens and early 20s. These were mostly things about the evil society of the times, and anti war themes. Things I thought were interesting or thought provoking (ah, the 60s). Only a little of it was sexually exciting or even sexual at all. Then, my interests turned to other forms of creativity.

I have only recently come back to writing just words again. But this time the words have acquired a devious and sexual theme.

 

[mlyn]

I've been writing all my life in my head

For as far back as I can remember, I was always creating complete scenarios in my head. When I was in grade school I had an article printed in a newspaper, but I spent most of time drawing. Then a teacher told me if I didn't stop drawing horses, she wouldn't let me draw in school anymore. I couldn't stop, so I took my drawing (which in my head was my story because as I was drawing, I was creating a whole story about the person I was drawing) outside of school. In high school, I started reading romance novels. In college, I wrote a few short stories for my benefit only. And then 4+ years ago I started exchanging romantic stories with my lover, and that blossomed into SmoothTales website. And now, I have 2 ebooks published, another in the works. The good thing is that all that "time I wasted" daydreaming and making up stories is finally being put to use!

Thanks for asking this ?

Mlyn

 

[curious2c]

For me, 44 the magic number.

I started writing at forty-four. Life is strange, I hated school when I was there, and now, well I wished that I had paid more attention when I was there. Instead of going out and buying a corvette (first choice) I decided to write. Middle-age crazy by a crazy middle-aged guy I guess I have been thinking about other types of stories lately, I don't know, maybe I will try for that novel that I keep seeing in the ol' left brain.

 

[NoJo]

44 too.

Not counting a lot of false starts, I also started writing last year, at the age of 44.
Of course most of us write stories as children, "composition", they call it in Britain.
My father was a professional TV drama and thriller writer, he started writing in 1959 -- at the age of 44.

 

[mlyn]

I restarted at age 42....

perhaps 40 is when the crisis starts, and it takes a while before we figure out what we need to do?

 

[NoJo]

40 something

mlyn, I think that was it with me. Also finding a little more free time after those "gotta make it" 30's.

I also think that as you get older you become more of an observer. Not that I don't like particpating of course, it 's just that I also like to watch nowadays

 

[curious2c]

mlyn

If you ask my wife she would say that I became middle-age crazy at twenty four or near that age.
My attitude has always been,"I'm going to live until I am about 180 years old. Like it or not!" lol
She hates that statement, probably because she is half afraid that I will live that long.
Of course if I lived that long middle age would have to be, oh ninety-something wouldn't it.

 

[Debby31]

I started writing when I was 12, my first novella... I still have the draft and everytime I see it I can't stop smiling.

A year later I decided to bring my second story to the school... My friends used to read a chapter per day during the brake. I spent most afternoons at the type writer making the chapters, and of course forgetting about studing, that's when my mother went crazy about my profession and said I should stop writing stupid things and go back to the books insted.

Someday I will bring out my first story and publish it...

 

[ilovewriting]

I was fifteen when I started writing solely for my own enjoyment. I remember because it was very shortly before my sixteenth birthday. I started writing erotic stuff shortly after I turned seventeen.

So how old were you?

10 when i started writing.
14 when i started seriously writing.
20 when i started writing errotic stuff.

 

[clairepenn]

Oh god. I remember being a very small child using my extensive collection of stuffed animals to act out very detailed stories. All of my toys had names, biographies and specific relationships with each other.

When I was in 5th grade, I wrote a childrens' book (on the level of first- to third-graders) that the teacher printed, laminated and placed in the school library. I wonder if it's still there?

 

[Guest]

When I first started to write? hmmm good question.

Does writing imply fiction? Or is it open to just writing material that is intended to be read by potentially another?

I have been actively "writing" since about my late 20's I think.
Most of it revolved around my notion that I could possibly design a better mousetrap in the way of a better pencil and paper type rolegame akin to the Dungeons and Dragons game (where roleplay has nothing to do with sex people).

Within he last few years my efforts have wandered to include an interest in literature designed more to allow me a means to rant about the human race's entirely regretable use of our planet.

I was directed here to Lit by a chat friend that knew of it. It was entirely by accident that I attempted erotic fiction. I am amused that it seems to be so easy to write. I could have hundreds of stories posted by now and be the sites most prolific contributor if only for my having to many other hobbies in my life. I am not implying that I would be the sites best author heheh, just that I can type a credible story every 30 minutes on average.

If some day I needed cash real quick odds are I would use writing as a means, I just never knew how easy it was to write earlier.

 

[its Leslie]

Drat I hate posting without realising that I was not signed in, the last post from "unregistered" was mine

 

[Quiet_Cool]

8 or 9, however old I was in fourth grade, when i started in general, good stuff around the time I reached college, though that's only good compared to my juvenilia work. Erotic? Less than a year ago, on here. That would be, 23 or 24...

 

[Azure819]

I started writing when I was around 10. I was seriously into R.L. Stine and Stephen King and I tried to emulate what they wrote.

By the time I was 14, I turned my writing over to depression mixed with slight erotica.

And by 16, turned over fully to the erotic side of writing. Haven't left since.

 

[Devyne]

for me i was about 10 the first time i had to write a poem for English. little did i know how much i was going to emjoy it when i went hope bitching i had to do it. made good money in high school too writing poems for all the kids that hated doing it. thank goodness ive since gotten better at it LOL

 

[Sabledrake]

I started writing in grade school, when they gave us "journal time." It was more fun making up stories than keeping a diary. My first fanfic was written way back before I had any idea there was such a thing ... I was around 12 and it was the most groaningly Mary Sue thing imaginable, set in Lord of the Rings. I am glad I don't still have that anywhere around.

In high school, my creative writing teacher told me I had talent but she didn't care for my subject matter -- a vampire story, a werewolf story, and one about a young woman who turns her Girl Scout troop into a coven (what can I say, I read The Shining at age 10 and have been a lifelong King devotee ever since).

I didn't start writing erotica until college, when I found an appreciative audience of gamers who liked my fictional write-ups of what went on with their characters after the scene faded to black. It was an easy step from there to other naughty stories, both fanfic and original.

Of course, I could be Freudian and blame it all on my mother ... when I told her I had written a book, she said, and I quote, "Does it have throbbing loins in it? I won't read it unless there are throbbing loins." She has humored me by reading the books anyway, but she's still waiting for the one with the throbbing loins. I should direct her here

Sabledrake

 

[MasterDJs_pet]

I was 8. In my elementary school, there was a program called Young Authors. My first story ever was about a boy who fell asleep in Science class and dreamt that he traveled to each planet in our solar system. By the end of the story, the boy woke up and realized his journey was only a dream. It was even illustrated.

Poetry began around 11 or 12. I wrote a lot of poetry about my grandfather (whom I believe to be my guardian angel) who died when I was 12 days old.

My first horror story (I got up to 35-40 pages before I gave up on it) sprung up when I was 15.

And, my first piece of erotica branched out at 17.