How long have I been writing? It’s a simple question, but the answer is… not. In fact, far from being simple, the answer isn’t singular. There are a number of equally accurate responses, depending on what kind of writing you’re talking about.
In the bio that I share about myself all around the internet, I say I’ve “been writing poetry and short stories since primary school and been blogging for over ten years.” Which is true and works well as a summary but, by its very nature of being a summary, leaves out some pretty key details.
I mean, everyone writes stories and poems in primary school, right? For class assignments if nothing else. It was just that I never really stopped.
I focused on poetry in high school. In the five years I was there (2000-2005), I think I wrote about 100 poems total. Some might consider that not many, some might count it as a lot. I guess it doesn’t matter either way because most of them have been lost (some intentionally and some inadvertently) in the years since.
In college (2005-2007 | ages 16-18), I don’t think I wrote anything other than a metric shit-ton of coursework.
My very first ever blog was made in February 2007, but I only got a couple of hundred words on there before I swiftly forgot about it. It was 2015 that I found it again, during a random Google search.
My time at university (2007-2010) was when I really got into blogging regularly (if not all in the same place).
2009 was the year I first attempted National Novel Writing Month, for which I completed a grand total of 216 words.
In 2011 I started writing posts for other blogs for free. (I mean – ahem – exposure.) And had my first ever poem published in an anthology – which turned out to be by a vanity publisher (not that I knew what that was).
I also signed up for a workshop with Nicola Morgan. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was a real turning point for me.
I’ve said here before that I need a certain 
I never read much as a child. In fact, as a very young kid, I remember having problems physically reading out loud – trying it would make my breathing go all weird. Maybe it was an anxiety thing, similar to a stammer, I don’t know, but I’d have to stop after each word – each and every single word – and gulp down a breath before I could try the next. That was when I was first learning to read and, as you can probably guess, wasn’t a positive experience.