Becoming a writer

I knew when I was five years old that I wanted to be a writer. The first story I remember writing was about dragons. My path to actually earning a living by writing was more of an adventure course than a straightforward planned trajectory.

Upon graduating from high school, I set out to become a Seismologist by studying geology and physics since the University of Michigan didn’t offer a geophysics degree at the time. I discovered three years into the program that all available jobs were on oil rigs. Imagine a 21-year-old woman, who was still being mistaken for a 12-year-old, trying to command respect from a mostly male crew on an oil rig. Possibly a good premise for a story but not what I wanted to pursue in my life. Instead, I pivoted to mathematics and entered a career in software development, writing code and documentation. 

My hobbies led to some opportunities for publication. All unpaid. Along the way I took courses in writing. Sometimes there were gap years. I found online writers’ forums, attended conferences and became a certified translator. I translated business reports, articles and entire books. I started living off my translations and finally off my own writing, all nonfiction.

When I was directed towards Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers, my dream of becoming a fiction writer regained hope. While I don’t know how long it will take me to have my first novel published, I feel the time approaching.