[I wrote this post as a member of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group where we share our worries and also offer support and encouragement to each other on the first Wednesday of every month. If you’re a writer like me and you’re looking for a bit of support, you can click the link and sign up here]

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As a kid, I was so consumed with fear about doing the right thing.  I never stopped to think, it’s ok to be human and screw up, how we all screw up at some point. I also never thought, hey, maybe someone else might feel the same thing I do.

Because of this fear, I’ve also had a constant war inside of me with wanting to be heard and fearing what others might say once they listened, or read what I have written. I’ve grown since then.

I’ve been writing my whole life. Short stories to cope with change and emotion and boys and friends. Back then, I didn’t think much about sharing my writing with anyone except me.

High School opened me up to the possibility how others might like what I write. Believe me, it wasn’t my own revelation, but the coaxing of a great mentor to join a writing group. Not just a high school group, but her own own circle.

Scared? Heck yes, I was.

Today’s post topic is, “What was your very first piece of writing as an aspiring writer? Where is it now? Collecting dust or has it been published?”

It took me awhile to figure out which piece I could actually say was the first one. I decided to go with length and the first time I shared my novel idea with others.

I don’t remember ever having a title for this piece. I was a sophomore in high school with so much life spinning in my head. History was always dear to me though. I could see it. I could think about motive and possibility. So naturally, my first long writing project took a little of my own past growing up as General Conference Mennonite, a pacifist, and combined it with my studies about William Penn, Quakers, and their motive for relocating to America in the early days. I loved reading about the light they believed everyone had inside. I loved thinking about a kid game, the Oregon trail and the wild world of survival.

That was it. Then I made my main character a mute by choice, who only talked to trees. She’d witnessed so much persecution at the hands of the law, of the church, nothing seemed safe.

Trees were safe.

So that was it. I made it 100 pages in and stopped.

I still have a hard print out on old perforated printer paper. I still have a floppy and maybe a jump drive with bits and pieces.

Will I finish it? Possibly. Ok yes. I supposed a story so dear to me at one point in my life still deserves to be told.

How about you? Do you have a story you started and still needs to be finished? When do you know when to start it again?

I want to take a moment to thank the awesome hosts from the IWSG group!

Thank you …

Tamara Narayan
Tonja Drecker
Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor
Lauren @ Pensuasion
Stephen Tremp
Julie Flanders

And I hope you all have a great rest of your week 🙂