Write Beginnings

It all began…

It was early childhood – say 6 or 7 years old. I was a fanatic My Little Pony collector. At my passion’s height, I had more than 30 ponies, the Dream Castle, the Nursery and a barn. Every My Little Pony had a unique name and story (along with the unique patterns on their hinder.) The name and hinder-pattern branded who they were – like a blue pony with stars on the butt was “Starry” And on the back of the box was little story about “Starry.” Well, I had to take those stories further. So I embarked on a journey to write a story for every pony. I’m not sure if I ever succeeded, with a story per pony, but I remember thinking, “I’m going to keep these as this is the beginning of my writing career.” I still have that notebook filled with childish print.

Photo courtesy of The Welsh Poppy

Biggest Writing Failure…

My writing career didn’t come to fruition.  I wrote the usual essays in high school and college, but my dreams of freelancing didn’t exactly pan out. The closest I got to a career in freelance writing was when I was a Senior at University of Wisconsin-River Falls. I was in deep in my second year in the famous Equine program. (I call it famous because the horses we ultimately “broke” and trained were sold for pretty decent coin. Folks came from all over to buy those colts.) I had in my head I would write a query letter to Western Horseman. And…my query was accepted! But it never got published. I obviously had a good idea and could craft a decent query, but I lacked another, needed skill for magazine publishing – good photos. Today that seems stupid. I kept the acceptance letter, however. And I never sent another query letter.

Moral of the Story?

That one acceptance helped me, though. It made me realize that if you have a good idea, you can succeed, but you have to bring your “A” game. If I could go back to my aspiring self, I would tell her to hire a photographer and get on with the article.

So when were your first memories of writing? Did you always want to be a writer? Have you been published? Did you make a mistake in your writing career you wish you could “re-do?”