Continuing in my series of big questions, today I ask you – When did you know you were a writer?

For me, I always wrote. Some of my earliest memories are of trying to write stories and letters – even when I didn’t know how to form the letters. Then, once I learned to form the letters, there was no stopping me. All through my childhood I wrote stories, poems, letters and even novels.

So, I guess I was always a writer, but I didn’t really realise that this wasn’t the norm. I suppose I first realised that I was a writer (and that other people weren’t) when I was in high school and friends commented on my writing. One girl asked me to write a poem just for her and I had to stop and wonder why she didn’t write one for herself. There came a realisation, on my part, that not everyone could write like I could.

Later, in my last year of school, a girl asked me what I wanted to do when I left school. I answered “I want to be a writer.” The girl (who, I might add, didn’t like me much) looked down her nose at me and said smugly – “oh, you mean you want to be a journalist?” Her look and tone of voice suggested a superiority that SHE knew what a writer was called, even if I didn’t. Allowing myself to feel put down, I did try to explain that no, what I wanted to do was to write creatively for a living – fiction, poetry, and yes, perhaps nonfiction too. But I was left feeling somehow ignorant or at best unrealistic. Still, I knew, that one day I would prove to that girl, and myself, that I could be a writer.

In the years that followed school, I was busy with life’s realities – attending university, having a family and even becoming a teacher (because by then I’d discovered that a good back up career was a necessity), but I never lost the dream of writing for a living. It took many years before the acceptances started coming in, and I suppose in my adult life I didn’t feel ready to call myself a writer until I started having some acceptances.

These days, with twenty seven books under my belt and more coming out this year, I gladly admit to being not just a writer, but even call myself ‘author’.

So, over to you. When did YOU know that you were a writer? Share your answer in the comments field below.