I started writing as a little kid, because it really never occurred to me not to. I loved poetry, folklore, stories and songs, had read everything in the house by the time I was maybe ten, and most of it well before that. My brother and I, and a couple of the kids from the next farm, used to make up plays and act them. I started making poetry and songs very early, because the patterns of it were in my head and needed to be let out. Almost as if the poems and songs had a life of their own.
Everybody around me wrote, be it a collection of recipes for a neighbour, letters to a newspaper, or articles, nature observations, journals, diaries, farm records....and of course letters, letters and letters - no email back then, and no phones either, most of the places I lived as a child. One of the great-uncles was a moderately famous poet, an uncle was a humorous poet as well as a serious writer about the First World War, one of the aunts wrote gardening articles for a newspaper. One of the grandfathers had political opinions, and wrote a lot of articles and a couple of books on the subject.
So, I mostly wrote poetry and technical articles, the greater part being of a botanical or geological nature. A few songs. Also scads of articles on gardening, folklore, nature conservation, bushcraft and wilderness survival, archaic arts and crafts, brewing, dyes and perfumes, wild food.... but very little fiction, a few SF stories. A few years back I decided that I had been neglecting fiction and started writing a few short pieces in the local writers' workshop. Then last year I discovered the concept of fanfic, and here I am.
