When I was in the sixth grade my teacher gave us an assignment that would change my life forever. She began by reading an excerpt from a Fantasy where a person was climbing a mountainside, desperate to get to the cave near the summit.
Only then she stopped.
The assignment was simple; we had to write a page and a half continuing the story. What was in the cave? Who is this person climbing and what are they trying to accomplish?
I took to the assignment with zeal, possibilities exploding in my little sixth-grader head as my pencil did the nearest approximation of cursive writing across the page. Only, I couldn’t stop at a page and a half. Before I knew it, I had an entire notebook filled with the adventures of Amanda Call, a princess warrior from a mythical race of beings whose only purpose in life was to complete tasks divvied out to her by her Wizard.
Its title was A Quest of Bravery and I still have it on my bookshelf today. It’s just a little thing and my cursive was atrocious back then, but seeing it always makes me smile. It reminds me of that moment in the sixth grade when I realized that magic really does exist.
That’s the moment I got started with writing and that magic has followed me ever since. I sense it every time I start a new book, all those endless possibilities swirling around in my head until I find the one that needs to be said, the one that highlights something important about what it means to be human.
That’s why I write.
That’s why I can’t stop writing.
Every book teaches me something, be it about the craft of writing itself or about some aspect of humanity that I struggle to grasp. I think that if I ever stopped writing, it would be tantamount to saying I knew everything and had no need to learn more.
So every book becomes a quest for me, a journey that I must take to better understand myself and the world around me. It’s hard work and sometimes I want to quit, but I’ve found that the harder it is, the more rewarding the ending will be.
Check out what got my fellow authors involved in the craft of writing and what helps them move forward!
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Margaret Fieland http://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
Heather Haven http://heatherhavenstories.com/blog/
Dr. Bob Rich http://wp.me/p3Xihq-SK
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.blogspot.ca
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Marci Baun http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
A.J. Maguire https://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/ (YOU ARE HERE)
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com
AJMaguire - Author 
Lovely to read about how you got started writing fiction.
I frequently find that there’s a piece of me in every book I write. I think it’s inevitable. It’s also why a harsh review can be so devastating.
Marci
Your sixth grade teacher sounds a lot like my Junior hear in HS teacher – put the challenge out there and let the student run with the ball. I had no idea what I could do until challenged.
I never thought of it as magic, a journey of challenge and understanding yes, but magic? You’ve made me believe in magic, too.
What an inspirational teacher you had! I was inspired by one of my teachers, too. A good teacher is worth his or her weight in gold. Obviously, you are a born writer who only needed a little nudge from someone. So glad you saved the book. What a memento.
It’s always nice to hear about a great teacher who inspired her students. Loved your journey. And it keeps coming up – writers can’t quit writing.
Yours is the second post (there may be more) about how an excellent teacher made a huge difference in a student’s life. Let’s hear it for all the wonderful, unsung teachers! Liked your post a lot. It is so interesting to hear writers’ opinions (we all have them in spades) and how different they are.
What a super teacher you had! A great prompt to get the imagination revved up and you were fearless in tackling it. Thanks for your post, I really enjoyed it.