I want to take you back to the beginning of my journey as a writer.
In the first post of this series, I shared some of the backstory about why I wanted to write. Simply put: I wanted to be my own boss, and I had a wild imagination for creating stories. One plus one equals two — so becoming a writer felt like the natural path. That’s what launched me into this wild and crazy ride.
Sure, I didn’t go to college for writing, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me. Writing is writing, right? Wrong. Oh, how wrong I was. But that’s a story for another chapter.
Where to Start?
Once I made up my mind that I wanted to become a writer, I had to face the obvious question: Where do I start?
I didn’t have the faintest idea. I hadn’t written anything of substance in almost ten years. Not since college, and those were just essays and reports. My last true creative writing class was back in tenth grade — the one I nearly got expelled from (if you remember from my last story).
To make matters worse, I’ve never been great at sitting still long enough to collect my thoughts. How was I supposed to turn scattered ideas into something coherent? Let alone a full-length novel?
The Logical Beginning: Short Stories
After weeks of researching where big-name authors had started, I decided to aim for novels. But reality hit me: could I really write one? I didn’t think I had it in me.
Novels are huge projects. Three hundred plus pages.
And as the saying goes: Rome wasn’t built in a day. I wasn’t going to go from writing zero pages to a full-length novel overnight. I needed a learning curve.
If novels were too big to start with, then the answer was simple — begin with short stories.
What to Write About?
That left me with a new problem: what exactly was I going to write?
One night at work, it clicked. Write what you know. Take my own stories, put a little flair on them, sprinkle in a moral (some had one, others didn’t), and shape them into tales worth telling.
Armed with that revelation, I dug into my past. Foggy memories, bruised by a few too many head injuries as a kid, but still full of moments I could pull from.
The first short story I wrote was called The Trip (you can read it here on the site).
The Struggles Behind the Story
When I think back to writing The Trip, I remember how lost I felt at that point in my life. Like many of us, I had struggles — feeling like I hadn’t achieved much, questioning what direction I was headed.
But I kept reminding myself: no matter how bad I thought I had it, someone else had it worse… and they found a way through.
We all hear stories about people who overcame tremendous obstacles and came out the other side stronger — some even had movies made about their journeys.
For me, the lesson was simple: sometimes all it takes is for someone to notice your struggle and show kindness. That thought became the heartbeat of my first story.
The First Step
Sitting down to write that story, I discovered something important: once I got going, the words flowed easier than I expected.
Were they good? Honestly, no — not at first. But after polishing, I felt comfortable enough to release the story to the world. And that was it — the first domino. I started with short stories, knowing I’d eventually work my way toward novels.
With one written, I craved more. Another memory. Another event from my life that I could reshape and share. But this time, I wanted to go deeper and more personal.
That story, though, will be for the next Story Behind the Story.
The One That Started It
I want to take you back to the beginning of my journey as a writer.
In the first post of this series, I shared some of the backstory about why I wanted to write. Simply put: I wanted to be my own boss, and I had a wild imagination for creating stories. One plus one equals two — so becoming a writer felt like the natural path. That’s what launched me into this wild and crazy ride.
Sure, I didn’t go to college for writing, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me. Writing is writing, right? Wrong. Oh, how wrong I was. But that’s a story for another chapter.
Where to Start?
Once I made up my mind that I wanted to become a writer, I had to face the obvious question: Where do I start?
I didn’t have the faintest idea. I hadn’t written anything of substance in almost ten years. Not since college, and those were just essays and reports. My last true creative writing class was back in tenth grade — the one I nearly got expelled from (if you remember from my last story).
To make matters worse, I’ve never been great at sitting still long enough to collect my thoughts. How was I supposed to turn scattered ideas into something coherent? Let alone a full-length novel?
The Logical Beginning: Short Stories
After weeks of researching where big-name authors had started, I decided to aim for novels. But reality hit me: could I really write one? I didn’t think I had it in me.
Novels are huge projects. Three hundred plus pages.
And as the saying goes: Rome wasn’t built in a day. I wasn’t going to go from writing zero pages to a full-length novel overnight. I needed a learning curve.
If novels were too big to start with, then the answer was simple — begin with short stories.
What to Write About?
That left me with a new problem: what exactly was I going to write?
One night at work, it clicked. Write what you know. Take my own stories, put a little flair on them, sprinkle in a moral (some had one, others didn’t), and shape them into tales worth telling.
Armed with that revelation, I dug into my past. Foggy memories, bruised by a few too many head injuries as a kid, but still full of moments I could pull from.
The first short story I wrote was called The Trip (you can read it here on the site).
The Struggles Behind the Story
When I think back to writing The Trip, I remember how lost I felt at that point in my life. Like many of us, I had struggles — feeling like I hadn’t achieved much, questioning what direction I was headed.
But I kept reminding myself: no matter how bad I thought I had it, someone else had it worse… and they found a way through.
We all hear stories about people who overcame tremendous obstacles and came out the other side stronger — some even had movies made about their journeys.
For me, the lesson was simple: sometimes all it takes is for someone to notice your struggle and show kindness. That thought became the heartbeat of my first story.
The First Step
Sitting down to write that story, I discovered something important: once I got going, the words flowed easier than I expected.
Were they good? Honestly, no — not at first. But after polishing, I felt comfortable enough to release the story to the world. And that was it — the first domino. I started with short stories, knowing I’d eventually work my way toward novels.
With one written, I craved more. Another memory. Another event from my life that I could reshape and share. But this time, I wanted to go deeper and more personal.
That story, though, will be for the next Story Behind the Story.