I Didn’t Plan to Write Books

my unexpected origin story as an author

My journey to finally writing (and completing) my first ever book has been decades in the making. So I thought I’d share a look into my origin story as an author, and what made me finally decide to write an entire book.

To start, let’s go all of the way back to the beginning.

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Writing During My Childhood

Growing up, I loved to write. I did it purely for fun. Whenever I had free time and was feeling creative, I would grab a scrap of paper, a pencil, and just start writing. It’s kinda crazy thinking about how I used to write everything long hand back then haha.

I think kids are naturally drawn to creating things, and writing was my form of expression. It was freeing, and I often miss those times, when I didn’t care about the end result, didn’t strive for perfection, didn’t care about being published. I simply wrote because I loved it.

There were several moments in my childhood that made we want to become an author. The first was when I was in sixth grade. I went over to my friends house after school, as I did most days, and sat down at their computer to write the first chapter of a new book.

The book was about a young girl who was celebrating her birthday at school when she was called out of class and told that her parents had died in the 9/11 plane crash. I think I was planning on giving her super powers, too, because in the second chapter there was something about her reading minds? I don’t really know.

But alas, I wrote the first chapter and printed it out, then gave it to my friend and her mom to read (again, I miss this about being a kid, just sharing my work freely, without fear of judgement or criticism).

When my friend’s mom got done reading it, she looked surprised and told me it was really good. Spoiler: it wasn’t. I was in sixth grade. And she was my friend’s mom. Of course she was going to say that. But at the time, the encouragement and boost of confidence made me decide that I had a talent for writing and wanted to be an author.

The other moment that made me want to become an author was when I was in eighth grade. I wrote my mom a poem for Christmas (I was all about giving free gifts back then haha), and when she read it, she started crying and told me it was beautiful.

Seeing how emotional she got was so inspiring. It was one of the first times I realized how powerful words were. And it made me want to do that for more people. I wanted to harness the ability of words and use it to make other people feel something.

So that was my childhood relationship with writing. Pure joy.

Abandoning My Love for Writing

When I got to high school, I was still writing quite a bit at first. I wrote several different stories, the longest one being a romance that maybe got to around 100 pages or so. But there was absolutely no organization to any of these stories. At the time, I didn’t know how to structure an entire book, and therefore the thought of writing an entire one was incredibly daunting. Besides, I was still just writing for the fun of it. I didn’t really have any goals to actually finish a project.

When I got to my junior year of high school, the real world caught up to me. I got distracted by my social life and college and trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my future, as everyone told me that becoming an author wasn’t a realistic job.

I put my writing dreams on the back burner, and told myself I would become an author when I was much older. After retirement or something. That’s when I’d finish a book.

But I genuinely had no intention of pursuing it as a career or doing it seriously anytime soon, which is why I’m pretty surprised by where I am now. I genuinely did not see it coming.

Throughout the rest of high school and in college, I still wrote some, but it was very rare. It was typically when I was feeling sad, and needed to escape into something comforting. That’s what writing was to me. A warm hug.

Figuring Out My Career

In 2020, I graduated college and moved back in with my parents due to the pandemic. During this time, I ended up dealing with some health issues. Fast forward 2.5 years, to the fall of 2022, and my health was really bad. I could hardly function. I knew that I needed to focus all of my efforts on healing.

So I made the decision to pack up my life in Minnesota and move to San Diego. This, oddly enough, is where my writing career really started.

Now, I feel like I should mention that at this point, I’d been trying to figure out what to do for my career for years. I wanted to find something I was passionate about. In 2018, I had my first “big girl” internship, and I hated it. So much so that I decided I wanted to create my own job instead of being stuck at a desk doing a 9-5 every day.

I tried my hand at many different things. I started a blog called “Mallory’s Happiness” that I guess was about whatever made me happy? I made an Instagram account dedicated to sharing healthy recipes. I started my own website to be a freelance writer, which went absolutely nowhere. I got a certificate in graphic design, thinking my future was in that. I even think I dabbled in trying to be a travel creator.

I was trying so many different things, and nothing was sticking. I couldn’t figure out my *passion.* And I wanted to. I wanted to have a career that I loved.

Right before I moved to San Diego, I started a new career venture. I got my meditation teaching certificate and decided I was going to become a meditation teacher and manifestation coach. I wanted to help people live the best, healthiest, happiest life they possibly could.

I thought it was perfect, because I was doing the same thing in my own life, and could share what I was learning with others. So I hired a business coach, moved to San Diego, and a few months later, I quit my full-time marketing job. My intention was to use this year to fully heal and start my business.

Well, as you can probably tell by the title of this post, that is not what happened.

What Finally Brought Me Back to Writing

In March of 2023, a few months into my gap year, I went on a meditation retreat. It was a very transformational experience for me. When I got home afterwards, it was like I wasn’t in my body. It was really hard to ground myself back in reality and reintegrate into the fast-paced nature of every day life.

The only thing that offered me any sense of relief was meditating, but I knew I couldn’t do that all day long. So out of desperation, I turned to writing. I don’t even know what made me do it, but I just felt this pull towards it.

I hadn’t truly written in years, but as soon as I started writing, I felt calm. I felt connected. It was a very similar experience to meditating for me. I would get into this trance like state where I could just exist and flow. Wanting more of that, I googled novel writing courses, signed up for one immediately, and never looked back.

It’s funny. People always say that when trying to figure out your passion or what you want to do for your career, you should think back to what you used to love to do as a kid. For me, that was writing. It was there all along, just waiting for me to come back to it.

And after 10ish years, I finally did.

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that all of my other creative/business ventures failed, but when I started pursuing writing, it gained traction. I’ve been more “successful” in this than in anything else I’ve ever done.

Writing feels so aligned to me, and I know for certain that this is what I’m meant to do with my life. I’m meant to be a writer. It took me LOTS of trial and error to figure it out, but now that I have, I’m not giving it up. Ever. And I’m just so grateful that I finally found what I love to do.

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I’d love to know, was there a specific thing or moment that pushed you to finally write a book? Share your stories in the comments! I can’t wait to read them (: