(no subject)

[mistymassey]

Today is Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Day!

I've always liked imagining stories, from the time I was little. I was an only child until I was eleven, so I got used to entertaining myself. Oh, the complicated webs my Barbies wove! I would wander into the marshes and pretend that I could see the elves if I was quiet enough. I learned early that telling people I thought magic was real was a sure way to frighten parents and chase playmates away. I kept my stories a secret, and never really thought about writing them down. Writers were, after all, godlike beings who lived on mountaintops and created wonders for us to read. I was just ordinary, and maybe a little nuts. Who would want to read anything I wrote?

When I was in college, I'd been doodling with writing short stories, but again, hadn't tried to get them published. A friend read one and insisted I submit it to the school anthology, where it took an honorable mention award. Still, I didn't consider myself a writer. After graduation, I was working in a mall bookstore, where part of my job involved stripping books in the paperback section. One afternoon I was upstairs going through the books when I found a copy of The Anubis Gates. The back cover was intriguing, so I bought the book that afternoon. I stayed up all night reading it. For the first time, someone had written a book that spoke to my secret notions that there is magic underlying all the ordinary aspects of modern life. How had he known? Suddenly I wanted to write something that would make other people feel the way his book had made me feel. That was the moment I decided to be a writer. Thanks, Tim!

Help me celebrate this day, y'all. Post in comments or in your own journals (or both!) about your favorite science fiction or fantasy writer.

Comments

[elfmama.livejournal.com]

The first true fantasy that turned me on to the genre was Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy. But some of my earliest memories are of reading Dr. Suess and if that's not world building, I don't know what is.

[cedunkley.livejournal.com]

Once I started reading for fun (which was very early on) I gravitated towards fairy tales and children's versions of Greek and Roman Mythology and Arthurian Legend.

After that came Tolkien, who stands to this day as my favorite author. However, it is Andre Norton that holds a special place in my imagination. Her books like Witch World and Here Abide Monsters, where someone from our world was transported to a magical (though often dangerous) place, really took my imagination in many directions. Add to that her books like Garan the Eternal and Trey of Swords, which dealt with reincarnation and karmic duty, and the ideas for stories just ballooned even greater.

I guess Tolkien taught me that there need be no limits to the imagination. And Andre Norton showed me examples of this.

My own stories grew out of playing with all of the action figures we had in the house, from the old school GI Joes to all sorts of superheros. I hardly ever used them as the characters they were supposed to be. I made up my own instead.

From there, eventually I started created royal family trees and maps and swords and the like, which lead to writing stories down about them. It was a fun way to pass the time.

Only now, all these years later, have I decided to really work at trying to become published.

Since today is Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Day, I should go and write a bit.

Or does one take the day off from writing today?

[madkestrel.livejournal.com]

Nope, not that kind of holiday. Back to work! *grin*

[estellye.livejournal.com]

We had almost creepily similar kidhoods. I wish we'd been neighbors. I'm sure we'd have recognized the believer in each other right off. Kids are good that way. We know who will get it and who won't practically from birth. I'd even show you my reading tree and just where my gaurdian elf squated in the branches with his bow. You only had to squint a little.

My stories were never spoken aloud or even written (my mind was too fast for my hand to keep up) but they inhabited my brain all the time. I'd have been writing sooner if we'd been word processing keyboardists in the 70s and 80's but I never shared until I met a soul sister as an adult who liked hearing my stories and constantly asked me to update her. Bless her. No seriously, bless her. I owe her big.

I even worked in retail books after college. And yeah, college literary mag, too. Now I just have to get my butt published like you, lol!

Tolkien took me first. Mom read it out loud when I was five and I read it for the first time myself when I was eight. Besides the professor, Katherine Kurtz, Anne McCaffrey and Ursula LeGuin, I'd say.

[kaeleigh-faire.livejournal.com]

Again, I find similaries between us. I too was an only child. (Two sisters and a brother came along much later but it's too complicated to explain. I never grew up with any of them.)

I remember making stories out of whatever location I was in. Due to a chaotic childhood, finding these magical places was my comfort and my lifeline to sanity. One of my favorite places was a large field, bordered by big leafy trees. In the middle was a small brook with stepping stones in it. This place was far behind my grandmother's house, and a place I wasn't allowed to go because it was too far. When I was able to sneak a visit, the fact that I knew I shouldn't be there made it all the more magical.

I had not thought of that place in years. Thank you for helping me to recall it through the "brain files."

[madkestrel.livejournal.com]

For a few years after college, we would spend a week each year at Holden Beach NC. The first year, I woke up early and went exploring. At some point I left the beach and wandered back into the brush off the dunes...and discovered a huge natural sand bowl. It was probably thirty feet deep, and utterly peaceful. One of those special places where you just knew the magic existed.