My Origin Story

Tomorrow is my 25th birthday, and so I thought it would share my origin story. A question frequently asked of writers is why we began writing in the first place. It's quite a personal question, one that every writer answers differently. It's also one I never really know how to answer. My love for storytelling stretches so far back that I struggle to really pinpoint a moment that denotes a before and after.

One of my first ever memories is from before I even started school, I was maybe three or four, and I had stumbled upon my older sister’s copy of one of the Harry Potter books. Being young and naïve, I asked her how to read. In typical older sister style, she replied, “I don’t know, you just look at the different letters and words.” Chauntelle, I have one word for you: unhelpful.

Years later, regardless of my sister’s “help”, I remember at age 10 or 11 winning an award at school for most books borrowed from the school library. It might have been somewhere around there, with Australia’s national exams every second year, that I stumbled upon the writing section of the test. We were to write a short story.

I used to enjoy the thought of either handwriting or typing up another author’s novel. Something about the idea of writing had definitely gripped me from a young age. I believe I started writing my own works early in high school probably age 13 or 14. My friends and I all used to write our own stories and share them among ourselves. Using platforms such as Wattpad, I wrote YA Romance stories, more like novellas or short stories than actual novels. No outline, no editing, no idea what I was doing. My other friends soon fell out of interest with it, but I was driven by my ability to create.

I wrote my first full-length novel, another YA Romance, when I was around 15-16. Once again, no outline, no editing, still no idea what I was doing. This book has been scrubbed from the records, and for good reason. Book two, age 17, YA Dystopia: No outline, minimal editing, had learned one or two things but still knew almost nothing. I liked the concept, and my characters had interesting foundations, but a lack of experience and knowledge of the craft meant it received horrific feedback.

While my early writing was an utter disaster, that storytelling spark I'd experienced in my early teens still smouldered within me. But I thought, while I had good ideas, the skill and craft of writing just wasn’t in my capacity. In all honesty, back then it wasn’t. I was studying full time at university and working 20-30 hour weeks. I had no time to learn what I know now, and I'm still by no means convinced I know enough.

This was the end of my writing journey until September last year. I was just watching a show when I was interested in the nature creatures in the show. So I began looking at the origins of fairies and their myths. Before I knew it I was back to the writing game. All in all, I definitely believe the storyteller has been in me since birth, just waiting for the right time to emerge.