What Started Me Writing? (standard:Creative non-fiction, 1816 words)
Author: G.H. Hadden	Added: Mar 30 2008	Views/Reads: 4823/3366	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
An answer to a Forum queston. I’ve always felt that growing up we all start out with such big dreams and promise. By writing, I manage to hold onto that easily lost promise of youth.

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parody lyrics to popular songs.  I can still remember the spoof I did 
on ‘Madhouse' by Anthrax.  The first line always floored ‘em, but much 
too raunchy to mention here (Hint:  My version was entitled 
‘Whorehouse').  I was “Dice” even before ‘The Dice Man Cometh'.  That 
got me a few laughs, but drawing and art were my main outlets of 
creativity back then.  Only in grade seven did I write a memorable 
ten-page story that I had to read in front of the class.  Ten pages!  
Everyone thought I was crazy, but ten pages goes fast when you write 
mostly paragraphs of dialogue!  I again worked some of my classmates 
into the tale of gore I called  ‘Blood', which was loosely based on 
‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' with a plotline similar to all those 
‘Halloween' and ‘Jason' and ‘Freddy' movies we all watched as young 
teenagers.  After reading my story aloud one of my classmates laughed 
and congratulated me for making it look like I'd done so much work.  I 
later read the story into a tape recorder, and still have it somewhere 
today.  It's my first and only audio book. 

I did SOME reading in high school, even going so far as to steal a copy
of  ‘1984' from another classroom because our class was reading 
something else that year.  But on the whole, I didn't care much for 
writing then.  It was considered nerdy, and I was a loner and an 
outsider to begin with.   And so I stuck to art and in later years took 
drama class.  Our teacher would break us up into groups of five or six 
and we'd have to prepare skits.  I enjoyed the brainstorming and 
improvisational acting.  It helped bring me out of my shell. I have the 
1988 Drama Award on my wall to remind me of that class and our teacher 
Mrs. A, who was a heavy-set hippie woman if ever there was one.  I 
wonder if she ever knew that behind her back we affectionately called 
her the “Magic Water-buffalo”.  When they announced that I had won the 
drama award for that year I felt so many other people deserved it more. 
But over the years, I've grown to appreciate it. 

In college I took Social Science and Architectural Technology programs,
but also took a lot of elective English literature courses.  It was 
around this time I bought my first computer, and felt the need to 
practice my typing skills.  I had learned touch-typing in high school 
on old manual and electric typewriters, but had become a bit rusty.  
So, to keep from being bored I started writing stories again.  I also 
began to read stuff like Sherlock Holmes, Anne Rice, and Stephen King 
books.   Listened to lots of audio books.  Towards the end of college I 
had even sent some stories in to magazines to be published.  I have the 
rejection slips to prove it.   My sister once read my stories and 
shredded me for only writing in long-winded detail and not enough 
emotion.  “Like watching TV, “ she said, “there's something missing.”   
It was a crushing blow for my confidence, but  I took her advice and 
drilled deeper. 

I was always shy when it came to writing.  I never got much
encouragement from anyone because I never asked for any.  Even in 
college I was still getting over the shyness and weirdness of sitting 
up to 3 AM in front of a computer writing whatever badly executed but 
well envisioned stories of teenage angst I carried around with me.  If 
there's any sage advice I can offer anyone, it's this: like the Nike 
commercials always said “Just Do It!”  .  If you want to be a writer, 
you have to behave and act the part.  I've always felt that growing up 
we all start out with such big dreams and promise.  By writing, I 
manage to hold onto that easily lost promise of youth.   I keep the 
dream alive.  I write for the pleasure of creating something from 
nothing—because I want to, not because I'm paid to...which, of course, 
I'm not anyway. 

What's that...”Cliché” you say?  Oh no...it's the dreaded “C Word”! 
Yep, you bet your ASS it's a cliché!   If you're a writer too then I'm 
willing to bet you can relate to at least some of this. 

I KNOW I'M NOT ALONE...am I? 

So, I've been writing ever since, ever more seriously about it from the
age of nineteen on.  Well—off and on really.  I have lots of unfinished 
novel length writings, which I have reworked and embellished upon to 
become the short stories I've posted on Nicestories.com in the last few 
years.  Lots of work in progress...if only I can find the time to 
finish them.  I DID investigate the business side of being a writer and 
found that making a good living at that alone would be all but 
impossible.  So I chose my path and sold my soul to become a corporate 
slave. 

Nowadays, I construct stories from whatever I incubate in my journal and
whatever I type on my keyboard.  Sometimes just letting the keys fly 
furiously and spewing out whatever I'm spontaneously thinking is a good 
start, but it's important to remember to clean up after yourself.  You 
see, only after I wipe away all the excess textual vomit can I ever 
hope to find a few of those precious little grains of truth and pearls 
of wisdom that make a story cool.   So, even if my stories won't win 
any awards or even be read by many people, I still do it because I find 
it goes a long way toward relieving the stress of living and working in 
this crazy province called Quebec—where French-language governmental 
watchdog agencies like the Office De La Langue Francais (the O.L.F) can 
storm into McKibbin's Irish Pub and site them for being too English.  
Joke is, most people agreed: should be more Irish Gaelic! 

...But the above is a topic for another story. 

Well, what do ya know... maybe writing CAN be therapeutic? 

Whatever. 

So long, for now.  Gone seal hunting with Wolf Larsen and the rest of
his captive crew aboard the Ghost!   I'm so much like Hump it's almost 
scary (I read somewhere that Humphrey Van Weyden was gay in this book.  
NO!   He's NOT gay!  He falls in love with a WOMAN!   And neither is 
Sherlock Holmes!  Or am I missing something?).  Jack London RAWKS!  And 
with any luck, my own sailing tale will soon find its sea-legs. 

END OF STORY 

Copyright 2008, G.H. Hadden 


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