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This episode talks about why I decided to become a writer.
The personal podcast for Ian MacTire, writer / podcaster / werewolf. This podcast follows my journey from first draft to published novel and beyond.
If you're a return listener, welcome back, if this is your first time, welcome! I hope you find the information in these episodes to be useful.
This is Episode 2, giving some background information on who I am, and why I decided to finally become a writer. In episode 1, I talked about the first book I wrote, back in high school. If you wish to know about this first attempt, feel free to go listen to that episode, as I won't be talking about it beyond a mention or two.
Growing up, I used to move around a lot and it became hard to make new friends because of this. As such, I found myself drawn to activities that didn't need friends to engage in, such as reading, writing, and drawing. Having grown up in an abusive household, these same activities would allow me an escape from the horror that was my real life. As a child, I took to reading pretty quickly. I taught myself to read - with help from my mother - before I ever attended kindergarten. One of the first non-children's books I read around that time was "JAWS" by Peter Benchley, albeit with some difficulty because it was obviously not written with kids in mind.
On occasion, I would write short stories, but for awhile, I tended towards doing art more than writing. There used to be ads for a place called Art Instruction Schools. You called a toll free number and were sent a free art test that was actually pretty basic. I remember you had to draw a cartoon turtle, and a house showing you could draw with perspective, among other things. You then sent in the test and they would send a letter back saying whether you had the skills to be able to enroll. I remember getting a letter saying I was accepted, but due to being poor, couldn't afford the price. I have no idea if it was a scam or not, but I remember being pretty happy with that letter.
The shift from drawing to writing more wouldn't occur until I reached high school. High school would see two major events that would shape me as a writer: the first was actually writing a book, and the second would be that I would eventually discover the pencil and paper roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons.
With the book I wrote, that was the result of taking Typing classes for easy A's, and because I quickly got bored with typing the stupid stuff we were supposed to type and hand in for a grade. These were things like invoices, professional letters, and the like. In these typing classes, you weren't graded on what you typed, but rather how many typed pages you handed in and how accurate they were. So after a few weeks of typing these boring ass assignments, I said screw it and just started writing a story. I didn't start with the intention of writing a book, I just wanted to turn in as many pages as possible for the A and not be bored while doing it. It turned into a book by accident, and got me the two easiest A's I've ever gotten, as I completed it over the course of two typing classes.
With Dungeons and Dragons, I started off just playing a character I rolled up. I would eventually also help with doing the Dungeon Master side of things, and this game really took a hold of my imagination. I think a lot of writers start off writing stories about their roleplaying characters or doing what is called fan fiction. Though I was a huge Star Wars fan growing up, it never occurred to me to write stories set in that universe. But with Dungeons and Dragons, I would begin first by retelling the stories we forged in our roleplaying sessions, and then branch out into telling stand alone stories featuring those characters.
Eventually I would graduate and join the military. While in the military, I tried to continue my writing, but that stopped when someone discovered it and I overheard them making fun of it. I wouldn't attempt to write another story until shortly after I was discharged, but by then, it felt as if I had lost any ability or talent I had. When I went to college, I took a short story writing course that would serve to end my attempts to write for good. Or so I thought. I won't go into any details about this class, I'll talk about it in the next episode, because I feel it will dovetail nicely with another topic I wish to discuss, so we'll put a pin in this one and continue on. Let's just say it was not a positive experience.
Despite these setbacks, the urge to write never really left me. I spent many years stuck in the same self defeating loop. First I would get the urge to write. I would then start writing. Then, I would give up, because I never felt I was any good, and because I would remember the mocking tone of those in military who got a hold of that story, and I would remember what happened in my story writing class in college. You see, instead of recognizing those things for what they were, I had internalized it and believed it to be reality. And that's not counting the relationships I was in where my significant others would tell me it was a worthless endeavor, that it wasn't going to make any money and pay the bills, no one was going to read them anyway so why bother, and that writing was taking time away from them.
In the meantime, I would tell stories to people as they came to me, instead of writing them down. Nearly all the people who have heard me tell stories, whether it was based on something I had experienced, talking about a movie I had seen, or just riffing on something from the news or tabloids, all told me that I was an amazing story teller, and that I should write stories. Each time, I said no, I wasn't any good and I would continue living a life that did not contain any written stories.
Eventually, I reached a point in my life where I was single, I had removed all the toxic people from my life, and for the first time in a lifetime, I found myself surrounded by people who were genuinely supportive. I had gone to therapy and learned a lot, though nothing specifically related to writing. And one day, I had an epiphany: I had nothing holding me back from actually sitting down and writing! And so, I sat down and wrote the first draft of the current novel I'm working on, though that was far from easy, as I had to overcome some obstacles, that I'll go into in another episode, because I have a feeling that those obstacles are not unique to me, and I want to give them room to breathe and be discussed.
As for now, this brings this episode to a close. If any of this resonates with you, know that you are not alone. Please feel free to reach out to me on my Twitter account, or Instagram account, and let me know your story, what is keeping you from writing, or if you've managed to get past that, how you managed to do it. By sharing, hopefully we can help and inspire each other. In the meantime, Stay classy, and keep writing those stories!
This has been another episode of Empty Pages. If you enjoyed what you heard and want more of it, you can follow me at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts from. Please leave me a review, as that really helps me out, and if you do, you might find your review featured in a future episode. You can find me at ianmactire.com, as well as on Twitter and Instagram as @ianmactire. Until next time, I'm Ian, and this is Empty Pages. Stay classy and write those stories!