Someone asked this question on Reddit: “What made you start writing?”. I found the question interesting. I started dictating how I started my own writing journey and felt others might also find use from it. So here is how I started writing without meaning to. 

It all started with this one particular instance during my 9th or 10th standard. We had gone out on a school trip. These are just one-day trips that happen just once every school year, and so it was always a very fun time for all of us kids in the whole year.

After coming back, I had this distinct urge to write about that day. I had, till then, never written anything other than what was required of me as part of school daily writing. This was the first time I had this uncontrollable urge to just let it out. To put it into words, to write it out and get it out of my head.

And so I did. I just sat down and wrote it by hand.

I showed it to my best friend, who was also my neighbour and had come with me on the trip. He read it, he liked it, and that was it. But the thing was, that was the first time ever I had this urge to write. Since then, I started writing here and there whenever I had something serious to get off my chest, like when a girlfriend dumped me, or when I had to move cities and things like that.

Not writing anything particular, or structured, or toward anything. But I just kept writing. Sometimes it even went on to become stories. I rarely showed it to anybody other than my close friends. I was very protective of what I had written.

What made me start writing was just an urge that I could not control.

Slowly—very slowly, in fact, over many years—I started expanding the number of people I showed what I had written to. Most of the time, what I had written was very personal and I was not comfortable sharing it with anybody. Also, social media had not yet taken off at that point. “Publishing” something you had written was not that feasible.

So very gradually, over the years, I started showing my writing to a larger group of people. Slowly onto social media. And most of the time, it was positive feedback, which encouraged me to keep writing. And the number of people I shared my writing with also kept increasing.

As I practised more, my skills improved. And now I have published three books, and I’m on the way to publishing my next. I’ve made 10-plus short films out of the stories I’ve written. I’ve made my own feature film.

So yeah, that is how I started writing. An urge that I could not control. I couldn’t help but write. Looking back now, I still feel that same urge. Like this very writeup. When that urge hits, I write. Only now, more people read it. And hopefully, enjoy it. And gets some value out of it. Did you? Let me know: [email protected].