I really enjoyed reading the stories of the others.  I feel less alone. 

I have been writing since highschool, then a long break while I gathered some life experiences (read, fell on hard times).  

I started writing in earnest a little over a year ago and I found my bliss.  In five months I completed a romance/suspense novel.  I have posted the first part of a chick lit novel on the novel excerpts forum on this site, and I have a couple of adventure/romances that are taking shape (in the outline stage).

Mostly I am doing this to have fun, but the pratical side of my mind knows that eventually I will want to see my hard work in print and in the book stores.

I hope to get to meet more of you as time allows.  I envision everyone busily typing away at their latest manuscripts in whatever spare time they come up with.

Out, witchi1

I've been writing since I was eight, won writing contests while in elementary, junior high, and high school and then quit writing for about ten years. When I started writing again about conditions in a prison my work was immediately published and serialized. I didn't start writing "professionally" until a few years later and it took only a few months (hundreds of dollars of writing books) before I was published.

From that point to this, I have been inconsistently published, and certainly not enough to quit my day job and live on what I make. 

In a way, it's like reading. Although I remember the first thing I wrote that I considered writing, a book reminiscent (derivative) of Edgar Rice Burroughs, I can't remember a time when I couldn't read and didn't tell stories (different from lies). 

 

I have been writing for over 16 years. That includes my middle & high school years when I was not only writing for my school's publications, but for the local paper as well. I did take a "break" of sorts in there and got back into really writing regularly again about 3 years ago.  So, I consider myself an intermediate writer, since there is so much I have yet to do that I want to do. Presently, I'm writing comics, short stories and soon, novels.

I hope some of the respondents to this question will check in and tell us how they are doing now..here, at the end of 2007.  I have been writing ever since I was around nine or ten, but I was a book/story "critic" for much longer than that.  I read everything I could get my hands on and still am a voracious reader; so, actually have been a longer reader than writer.  I think it's true what they say about reading a lot in order to write well.  Once you begin to seriously write the sort of thing you read, you can better appreciate how a scene is set, descriptions and artful turns of a phrase.  I enjoy all of that and appreciate those writers who are nimble with words and can spin a good yarn, time after time.  I've been published in mostly newspapers and regional magazines.  Out of college, I expanded my writing to include journalism and documentary production.  Now there's setting a scene!!  I came to the daily commitment via college essays that professors enjoyed recently and can see how my writing has improved so much over the years.  Book publishing?  Eeeeek!  Who knows?  I don't know if I want to share my lovable characters with the rest of the world..hahaha..

I've been writing since I was three years old.  I'm serious.  I seem to have always enjoyed writing.  I've only tried to make a career out of it in the last three years or so.  And I've done A LOT of writing during that time, including the beginnings of three books, submitting a book proposal to twenty literary agents, and submitting one article and poem to a journal.  I have not been published yet, but hope to someday.  I definitely don't plan on giving up

Very interesting question - and very complicated, from my point of view.  The answer depends on what is construed as "writing".

First, I have been writing since I was 15 years old when, following two front page pictures I took for an Indiana newspaper, I was given a 'community happenings' column.  Not big news, mind you, but still - writing and photos.  Since then I have written commercials and other on-air-use assignments for radio stations in Indiana, Illinois, Florida, and Texas.  The number of ads alone, though not tallied, would reach into the thousands, more probably tens of thousands (not an exaggeration). I was, for three years, Creative Writer for one of the network owned radio stations in Chicago.

I later worked for a major steel company Public Relations office writing employee personal accomplishment stories for the plant newspaper - and was later slated to become Assistant Editor at the main office in another state.  That was never realized due to corporate problems that could not be resolved.  While in the Navy, I worked on and off with the Public Information Office (PIO) writing news bios of personnel for hometown newspapers.  I currently am in the final stages of a first novel.

As to how long I have been writing?  At this point 61 years - and counting.  My question now is, how do agents and publishers guage a writer's qualifications?  My work has made money for a lot of people although not as a book.  Is air use considered "publication"?  And how do I answer the publisher's question of "Have you been published?" and background when the time comes?  I guess I'll eventually find out .