#1

Happy Saturday all! Today is a fill-in-the-bank sort of day and I wanted to start what I hope will become a series of posts about my personal writing journey. First, I'll share how I got into writing. Not the kind for school exactly, but more creative and imaginative writing.

So I picked up Harry Potter fan fiction about 6 or 7 years ago. I'm not afraid to admit it because it became a truly enjoyable interest and eventually grew into something greater for me. At the time, I loved coming up with characters, plots, names and posting them on my account for my "fans". Even though I was mostly terrible at it, I can say it was definitely the beginning. Now and then I take a returning look at what I used to write, in the stacks of notebooks I have stuffed under a cabinet in my room.

Then I took a break from that as the final book came out and much of Harry Potter fan fiction weakened. I finally joined Inkpop, run by HarperCollins, in December of 2009. Partly because two of my friends had been selected to join as beta testers. But mostly since I'd thought it seemed like a great and new writing place to become involved with. In short, I needed it more than it needed me. I've been mostly lurking around, reading projects and posting in forums at complete will. But I've seen some friendly people and interesting work on there!

I tried for about two whole years to write and post something, anything. Kept giving myself deadlines then pushing them away over and over. Ideas weaved in and out of my head, but I was stuck. Or at least convinced I was. It wasn't until I began reading a lot of YA (maybe in the last year or two) that I decided I wanted to write it, too.

*In upcoming posts (dates TBD), I'll discuss my sources of inspiration, some of my likes and dislikes, as well as some writing goals for my future. All through the perspective of a struggling yet determined newbie in a competitive (YA) market, both professional and non.*

Have a good weekend!