It may sound like a negative motivator, but terrible stories are probably my biggest motivator. Lately, our media outlets seem intent on pushing out quantity over quality, so I aim to create stories that raise our standards.

En masse, I think our standards have decayed to some extent, where I also fell for entertainment shortcuts. Prior to my learning about storytelling, I’ve missed many of the flaws in our entertainment. It’s a lot like someone in a technical field watching a show about their field, where the creators didn’t do any research---think a nurse watching a drama involving nurses.

Of late, I’ve learned a lot about the gaps in my writing capabilities, and I’m working to fill those in. Every time I see a poorly told or developed story, it spurns me onward. I don’t intend to reinvent the writing wheel. I just want to write and present stories worth a reader’s time, while raising the average value of the stories that flood our current media outlets.

My career has not gone well. Whenever I seem to get some sort of traction under me, I’m always caught in the “we can make this department more effective by cutting hours, freezing pay, and expecting more” mantra of new managers. Three jobs later and I don’t have any sense of accomplishment anymore. My escape is writing.

I posted a couple of stories here eight years ago and thought back then that I was just wasting people's time. Looking back at them, I can say for certain that they were awful, and I definitely was. I’m so sorry for anyone who read them. However, a bunch of personal stories later, I got to a point that I felt like I wasn’t posting junk. Probably still was and it was terrifying, but as hard as it was, I felt more for them than anything I had done to further my career.

What made me get serious? I survived the first round of making my department more effective in my current job only to get hit by the second round last summer. The difference this time is I had paid off my student loans. I hate my job. It stopped being a career back then. So if that’s just a job without any path forward, why not do something I like? Now I wake up early and write or try and write on my days off instead of voluntarily doing stuff for work. I think I’m up to about eighty stories, two of which I turned into serials for a bit. They aren’t all that great, but they are mine, and no one other than my husband knows about them in real life. It has made my sense of pride entirely my own.

Round three of nonsense just happened at work and I burnt out hard because of it. I’m definitely recovering faster this time and I’ll probably start posting again some time in the next week or two.

As always, thank you to the community and the mods for making this space so inviting. I have something to look forward to because of it.

For years, I've been really good at scene building, but I can't put different scenes together to make anything more than a short story. I love writing, but longform writing is beyond me. I decided to give writing prompts a try, so here I am in week 2 of the platform :D

Why I started writing is actually rather interesting. I have some bad anxiety and a tendency to really 'get in my own head' in a bad way when I get bored or otherwise let my mind wander aimlessly. As a result, I started using writing short stories here as a way to calm myself down when I started getting into one of those moods.

I don't know if I quite count as 'taking writing more seriously' at this point - I have been working on a book for the past month, but it's really for my own sake rather than any expectation that it will ever get to the point of being suitable for publication, traditional or otherwise. But I've shared it with a few friends and the reception has generally been positive so, who's to say. Right at about the 60k mark and just getting to the end of the first arc of the story, so plenty more to write over the coming months.

Mostly just realizing that I liked taking it seriously. I didn’t initially write all too much, but a couple things came together. In 9th grade, my history class had us write essays, and I realized I liked it. Around the same time, I was introduced to DND, and after around a year of just being a player, I started DMing my own friend group. Eventually, I got bored of worldbuilding just one setting, and started writing on my own. I also got recommended r/writingprompts on here, which def helped. Essentially, I just sorta got into writing because of a couple random factors all at the right time. Started taking it more seriously over time, and here I am now.

My Nanowrimo project from 2013. I had been writing fanfiction and sporadic original stuff since middle school. In that almost decade of writing, I had only ever finished one fanfiction. (A fun and exciting accomplishment in of itself.) But it was Nanowrimo that gave me the discipline to finally finish an original project. The sensation of finishing an original manuscript, even if it's an imperfect, rushed mess, is hard to beat.

The more I played in that original world, the more I wanted to bring that story and others like it to more people. I learned how to listen to other, more experienced writers and editors, and have continued to iron out what many would consider 'beginner writer mistakes'. Still, I've now learned that getting an agent is significantly harder than writing, rewriting, and editing combined...

This is an easier question for my answer!

Backstory #1 (feel free to skip): I had my first story published in 1988 in Autoduel Quarterly (Steve Jackson Games). This led to a couple of gaming articles and a fiction fanize, ending with cowriting GURPS Autoduel 2nd edtion.... And then Life happens: kids, out of work, new profession, schools, starting everything over.

I didn't realize how well I had it before then. Skip ahead a few years...

Backstory #2 (feel free to skip): for many years, I used to go to Lunacon in Rye, NY, which was New York's longest running SF con (over 50 years, and I was at 25+ of them). I "knew" many people up there but not as well as I should have after this time. A writer named C. J. Henderson passed away and there was a memorial/party in his honor at his house. His wife hope for a big showing... He lived a mile from my house, so I went. Talked to people, fanboyed a little... Talked to an editor

TL/DR: I checked the editor's website and there was a flash fiction contest. I entered it and tied for first place (won a free ebook). That got me going again, and over the next year or so, I won a couple more times. My one setback was finding out that one month toward the end, I was the only entrant, but she would've canceled if she didn't like it.

This snowballed into my getting a flash fiction collection published by them. At the same time, I started doing quite a few more prompts here, which may or may not, get turned into another book of stories by the same editor.

Either way, I'm moving forward. I have a bunch of stories circulating, and a couple have gotten an extra sentence or two in the rejection letter. But sadly, mostly rejection letters.

Last year (2022) was a down year for me, and I want to pick it up again this year.

-- If you're still reading, please check out some of my stories on r/xwhy, and leave any feedback (there, here, wherever).

I wish I knew the answer to this question! I switched jobs in September of 2021 and just started writing the next month. I got the idea to write a dystopian novel about a virtual reality customized to the user. I've since written three revisions, all of which are pretty bad. I started writing on this sub last fall because I felt like I needed to be a better writer in order to even self-publish a novel. Since then I've written a bunch of stuff here, a few short stories, and have started the prequel to my original novel (which is turning out better already).

I feel like I'm getting better by writing more, and also by reading the top-rated responses here. There are a lot of insanely good writers on this sub. It's all run spectacularly - a huge shoutout to the mods and everyone that makes it click.

This subreddit! :)

It was about 2.5 years ago I wrote off and on, only for myself, and it was always directionless. The quality was generally pretty decent since I spent hours fussing over the structure of every sentence and which specific synonym to use, but word count per month was probably like 100-300. Yikes.

This subreddit pushed me to learn the new, valuable skill of writing by the seat of your pants. While writing in this style I've learned how to quickly craft a unique voice for the characters, how to create an interesting setting, and more. I don't always nail it 100% of course, sometimes I look back on what I hit "save" on the night previous and I'm like...bruh. But sometimes people enjoy it and I'm writing way more, and enjoying it more too!

In short, this sub is so friggin cool.

This is probably a much more boring answer than a lot of the ones here, but it's honestly that there was never any other option. We couldn't not write. It's been our dream since we were tiny, and become the way we think and view the world.

I used to do well in my school's English exams, especially the creative writing essays. I remember I was in the 11th grade, we were on study break and I was so bored. It struck me that I could write a story to pass the time, doubling as 'prep' for my English exam. I wrote a story that I thought was good and I was really happy with it. So I kept writing to please myself whenever I could.

Fast forward to a few years later, and college was getting super boring too. (I did chemical engineering. Not sure why.) There was this 'media club' of sorts that ran a content website exclusively for stuff happening in and around the college area, and it was pretty popular. They were running a competition where you could send in past work, so I sent in this story I'd written in 11th grade and they were impressed enough to ask if I wanted to join. I did, made it to managing editor of the team, and generally developed a passion for the written word.

I currently work for a small marketing agency startup, but looking back I can see that writing has always been part of my life. From staying up late at night to read the fattest books, to attempting to write (and eventually scrapping) two books by the time I'd left school, I always knew I wanted to be a writer.

I think most of us end up writing for the joy of it. The puzzle, the challenge of making your story fit onto the page; it's so thrilling. Animating narratives frame by frame, building worlds brick by brick, tugging at heartstrings word by word. So that's what I continued to do, until I realized that engineering really wasn't my thing. I started a blog (which only my friends read, and I haven't posted on for years), and this helped me hone my craft, publishing stories, gathering feedback, and publishing more. I still write there sometimes, but I don't expect an audience anymore.

I went through a few years of really bad depression where I believed I didn't have what it took to make it in this world. Writing (and alcohol) got me through that. It helped me get a grasp on the horrible thoughts I was having.

I think the biggest problem for us writers is learning how to monetize our skills. Writing isn't easy, but it seems easy. Most writers (at least the ones I know) are very private when they're at work, so no one gets to see the amount of effort that goes into a great piece. And this means that society doesn't value good writing as much as it should. It's appreciated just fine, but not valued as highly as it should be. At least, not without putting in additional effort outside of writing itself.

I'm in a position where writing is a big part of my work, but it isn't exactly the kind of writing I enjoy. Instead of telling stories, I'm selling stories, convincing people that they need to use this platform or buy that product. Some people will tell you to follow your passion. I'm more aligned with, "Do what you're good at until it becomes your passion." I'm entering my late 20s now, and while I definitely do not have my life figured out, I know I can always turn to writing to level my thinking.

Writing is powerful -- it's what civilizations are built on. It gives us the ability to communicate into the future. Stories preserve lessons, and writing preserves stories. I still try to write stories for myself on occasion, but I'm not always successful. I remember joining that club in college really helped me out, so I figured joining this sub would be my first step back into a community of writers. Cheers to telling stories 🍾

(Gonna write here after getting a final warning in a similar post, due to... family I suppose)

Well I had a lot of problems, stress with my degree, recovering from covid, dewling with some betrayals and a few other stuff that I can't say here.

I wrote simple stories before coming here, mostly stories on friendship and finding your way (Cause I was and still am finding my way in the world) and just one fantasy story.

The first I saw here was what inspired me, a simple story i wrote on the phone, and bam, I was hooked.

My degree took a lot of my thinking space so I found it easy and inspiring me to write stories in other ways.

I became a mostly fantasy writer

My passion in writing before covid was lacklustre, but boy after that, the world of fantasy comforted me.

So I wrote, and wrote, and began to allocate at least 3 hrs to Writting, after a while I knew that I wanted to leave behind stories that my future kids or someone I cared about would read and be happy, I can see my stories improve, and still inspires me to push on

I'm still improving my creativity to make stories by myself faster, and learning different tones and styles of writing from the posts here and the posts I've made

I hope someday that my work may reach the levels of the professional writers here, how they seem to always be creative.

Though to be fair, I don't think that may happen, due to both work, my problems and more likely than not, simple mistakes.

I can hope though.

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