About

I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t writing. I know I was reading a lot before I started writing though and it was very natural for me to pick up a pen and come of up with stories. The earliest memory I have of writing was in fourth grade when I was temporarily in foster care. My foster parents, my little brothers’ grandparents frequently called me a writer and they would read my stuff with an enthusiasm that likely didn’t match my skill; yet. So perhaps I started writing then. They had a big house and a lot of things and I was small and they were great people but going from an environment where I could do whatever I wanted to an environment where I had a bunch of rules was difficult for me. Maybe that’s why I started writing. I don’t know. I know I went through a phase where I refused to wear jeans because I didn’t like the way that they feel. And actually, now that I think about it, I don’t wear very many jeans now. I prefer jeggings but I usually say that’s because it’s hard to find jeans that fit me right. But anyways, during this time, I created a blocked off space for me on the other side of the dining table. I put a blanket over the top of it and surrounded the dining table with stuff so that the only way to get to my space was by crawling under the dining table through the chairs. I’d light a candle and sit a room from his grandparents and hiding from my little brother in my old world writing and reading. It was my treehouse.

In fifth grade, I was actually voted ‘the most creative’ of my class because I would take every assigned project and make it about cows. It started as something funny. While most kids chose something like baseball or swimming or their parents, my central idea was cows. Everyone thought it was hilarious. So then with subsequent projects I just kept the theme going. The teacher thought it was funny. And the other kids would almost always turn to me and go ‘Ok. How you are you going to make THIS about cows?” It wasn’t like I loved cows. I just thought it was funny. But maybe this strengthened or pointed to the mind of writer. Being able to create an idea out of anything.

I don’t have any of my early stories from these years but I know I was writing. In sixth grade, my Dad got custody of me and I moved to Texas. Upon my moving to Texas, I was handed a diary. And that’s when I started writing journal entries. Something that I still do today. They started out really bare. Minor details. Minor things that frustrated me. The entries don’t really get interesting until I turn about 14. But during this whole time I was writing creative short stories in a notebook as well as writing in my journal. Unfortunately, however, my stepmom did not like my writing. If she found my notebook, she would read it and then throw it away or hide it somewhere. So that required my writing to get more creative. I don’t ever remember thinking. Maybe I shouldn’t write. Maybe she’s right maybe my writing is terrible. Maybe I should stop. I don’t remember thinking that for even a second. I had and still do, have an extreme compulsion to write. And I never really cared if it was good or terrible. I just liked the actual bare bones act of writing. I think I mostly understood that she was acting from a place of extreme jealousy and stupidity so her opinions of me were pretty much disregarded. I only put up with her because she was married to my Dad. But anyways, I mostly write during class and then would hand my notebook to my friend to hang on to in the evening. If she wasn’t home then I would smuggle my notebook into my room and write very very late. Way after they had gone to sleep by the light of this fixture that was basically a miniature disco ball.

During that time in high school while I was writing illegally, I actually had an English teacher catch me writing in class. She caught me because I was supposed to be working on something else. I don’t remember if I’d already finished the task she’d assigned but I likely hadn’t. She caught me writing and asked me to bring it to her at the end of class. I thought she was going to take it from me and throw it away. But she didn’t. She asked me why I was writing. And I told her honestly, I wasn’t allowed to write at home. And she said, “Writers always find time to write.” Then she asked if she could read it. And she did.

By the end of my junior year, I finished my first novel. I don’t really remember why I decided to write a novel. I think I just thought, ok I’ve been writing a lot of short stories. I don’t want to write them anymore. I think it’s time to write a novel. And I did. It took me a couple years but I finished it and basically put it aside because I knew that it was garbage. But I didn’t really care. I genuinely enjoyed writing it. Maybe one day, I’ll go back and read it and fix it and try to publish it but I probably won’t. It’s the first one and it’s meant to be bad and something I grew through writing.

Almost immediately after I finished writing the first novel, I got another idea for a second novel. This idea was more complicated. And because of that, I struggled with it a lot more. The character was more complicated and through the years of writing the story and not writing it, he became more alive to me and the story shifted from being centered around the idea to being around him. The process is honestly pretty schizophrenic, but different as well. I struggled with writing it and ran into a lot of plotholes and writing blocks. In the meantime, I was going through college for engineering and that was taking a lot of time so I refocused back on writing short stories in my rare free time. When I finally graduated and got an engineering job, I received vacation time. It was around this time, I realized that the story I’d been working on for several years was set in a location that I had never been too. So I took a week off and went to New York City by myself. Wondering around like my character would have done. And it was lovely. I learned a lot. I came back ready to write more. However, I still couldn’t make the story work.

This year I was encouraged to start this blog. Which was a big step for me in sharing my writing because for years I only showed my writing to one or two people at a time. Now, anyone who was led to my site would be able to read a lot of my stuff without me being able to control it. I manage that stress by reminding myself that most people probably aren’t reading my work.

A couple months later, my mom was murdered. This has changed me a lot. I miss her a lot. I think about her a lot. And a friend of mine knew that I used writing to deal with stuff so he bought me Masterclass. A series of lessons by famous people in a lot of different areas. I listened to some of these hugely successful writers and I’ve never been more inspired. Listening to their tips and their lives and how they write and why they write. It occurred to me that I am like them. A younger less experienced version but like them. And within a couple months of listening to the Masterclass and bouncing ideas off of my also-writer boyfriend, I finished the first draft of the story I’d been working on for almost a decade. I don’t think I had enough experience or skill as a writer to finish it when I started it.

But, almost immediately after, I set it aside and started a new story that is completely different. I’m petrified that this story will also take me a decade to write. I’m worried it wont make sense. I’m worried people will hate it. And that stresses me out. But it isn’t something I can fight. I’m a writer. There’s no way around it. Even if it comes out as complete crap, I have to write it.

Thank you for reading,

Lynnette Powers