I was wondering if any of you here have other members of your family that are also writers. My brother has written modern naval novels for a while thought at last count hasn't managed to get anything published, and my son (fifteen) has recently begun his first fantasy story.
Does the need to write run in families?
Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :
My ten-year-old daughter has a poem in this month's Beyond Centauri. In the same issue, I have two short stories appearing.
Posted by Lynda (Member # 3574) on :
I was just telling someone else what a great storyteller my father was. And his grandfather was a poet. I think that storytelling gene runs in families.
Lynda
Posted by Rommel Fenrir Wolf II (Member # 4199) on :
i am the only one in my family who writes. hell tells stories altogether. well except my grandfather who tells stories of what he has dun in his life, before he went to Veitnome. i am one of 2 people who know much of what he did. but writing family life to me is as hard as it gets. for i come from a brocken family and realy dont like anyone in my family except my grandfather. Rommel Fenrir Wolf II
Posted by RMatthewWare (Member # 4831) on :
No one else in my family is a writer. However, there are writer families out there. For example, Jim Butcher, who wrote the Dresden Files Novels, has a wife who writes romance. So, it can happen.
Posted by Marzo (Member # 5495) on :
Nope, as far as I know no one even in my extended family writes, let alone father and mother. I wish they'd written at least short stories or some novellas, because then they wouldn't be so puzzled when I take to shuffling around in my robe, nursing a cup of coffee, and mumbling periodically before shouting, "finally!" and dashing to the laptop.
It's all a peculiar disease best handled when others around you have it, I think. ;)
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
As far as I know, nobody in my family has tried their hand at serious writing but me. I know of a cousin with professional publications, and the occasional relative who's written letters to the editor, but that's it.
The only thing I've done that can be termed collaboration with any of them involved writing a statement for a grievance procedure at work. (They were attempting to fire me, so it was a serious matter.) About a thousand words. I showed it to my parents (who were bankrolling me during the procedure---I'd been "put off the floor," as we say). We bounced it back and forth over a week's time. As a legal document, it might have been better---but as a writer, I found it the most annoying experience I'd ever had writing---and, really, as a legal document, I don't think it was any better. (It was never used.)
I don't know where "I" came from out of this family---some of them read, but not like I do. There aren't any other SF fans in my family tree, either.
Posted by Mauvemuse (Member # 5488) on :
My father wrote a few novels, but unfortunatly, none have been published yet. I'm also an artist, and that definatly runs in my family (father, two cousins, grandfather...), so maybe writing is like that.
Posted by KayTi (Member # 5137) on :
My father has a WIP non-fiction book about education in the works. I'm helping him here and there (I have a masters degree in the specific style of learning/educational theory that he wants to put forward, plus I've been doing a lot of personal work on writing lately so I'm becoming more and more useful to him. LOL)
My mother has wanted to be a writer for ages, but I don't know that she's done much other than a lot of parodies in rhymed verse (she's a particular fan of Modern Major General. and things like that for bridge club and anniversary get-togethers.
My 5 year old son wrote his first story a few weeks ago! I'm enormously proud. It was a take on a book he read from the library called The Enormous Turnip. He wrote A Tiny Apple.
I'm still unpaid (not exactly unpublished, but free stuff on websites doesn't quite count in my world) but writing. And feeling like "Hey, I could do something with this." more and more these days. I'm thinking to take a non-fiction path for a while with parenting magazines (local and national) and see where that leads me. Fiction is more fun, but I think I could get at least some pub credits if I wrote non-fiction for a bit.
Posted by I am destiny on :
My daughter is an awesome writer. She is 13 and my writers group is putting togather a critique group for kids her age to help them. I am amazed that she is so good. If I had been writing like her at 13? Id be published by now. ~D
Posted by debhoag (Member # 5493) on :
Both of my older daughters write. One's really into fanfic. But I wonder, darklight, if you broaden the question up a little, how many positive answers you might get. For instance, I was at a family reunion a few years ago, and was amazed at how many family members were in a field that depended on verbal communication - teachers, social workers, lawyers, three people working at newspapers. So, maybe not a whole lot of professional fiction writers, but a lot of communicators and people who help others communicate.
Posted by ArachneWeave (Member # 5469) on :
My younger siblings are emulating me (my younger bros esp. when I started writing superhero stories!) and my mother has a few projects she's working on slowly.
I'll be interested to see how it develops. My youngest brother can hardly write at all, so we spell every word out for him as he types it up. He's only been reading by himself a year or two. It's very cute.
I didn't start writing until I was about 11, a little younger than my sister, so I find it amusing.
My other small brother has already given it up, actually. I hope it's not permanent. He directs all the kids' "plays" and is a really good storyteller, funny and inventive. He just need to get a little more comfortable with the physical labor. 0_<
I do think the love of written stories runs true in a lot of families.
[This message has been edited by ArachneWeave (edited July 10, 2007).]
Posted by arriki (Member # 3079) on :
My father wrote and published a few hundred articles in his fields of linguistics and history. He wrote and published a dozen or more books, also non-fiction. He tried his hand at fiction several times but none of that ever sold.
He cried when he helped me read proof on my first published story. He was so proud.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Y'know, I don't know how I'd react if some close relative actually had literary success. I read an account in a biography of Bing Crosby, that Bing's brother Ted put in the full effort for his own literary career, without any luck, while he watched Bing fall up from one greater success to another and wind up living the life that Ted thought should have been his. There was evidently some trouble at some point between them (the biography only covered Bing's life up to about mid-1941) but I don't know the details. (I've been waiting a while for the next volume of this biography to come out. Serious biographers are worse than Harry Potter.)
Posted by darklight (Member # 5213) on :
deb - my brother has worked as an engineer for twenty years, installing and maintaining mining and drilling machinery. He had just decided to change career and become a teacher.
Robert - funny that you mention that. I was watching breakfast TV yesterday morning and they were talking about siblings with various degrees of fame and how they handle it. They had on as guest Lauren Booth, half-sister of Cherie Blair (wife of the former Prime Minister of Great Brittain.) She says that is how she is known, and not as a person in her own right.
I don't know how I would feel if my brother got published and I didn't. Envious a guess, but I'd like to hope it would help me too.
Posted by goatboy (Member # 2062) on :
Both Hemmingway and his brother were published and his niece has a book on the shelves now. All three are notably different styles and voices.
Sometimes it runs in the family.
Posted by debhoag (Member # 5493) on :
Goatboy! I looked up the goatly dance of joy and loved it. I have a goat myself, he lives on my front porch and eats fig newtons through the window. he also likes waffles.
Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :
One of my grandfathers wrote and published articles and books on navigation. One of my grandmothers published poetry. My father published articles on genetics. My mother published short stories and poetry. I have published geo/env science articles, creative nonfiction and poetry.
Posted by debhoag (Member # 5493) on :
mike, I did track down the Gor Ode. I think I'm too toothy and hairy too. Sigh. glad i'm not alone. Where'd I leave that hot wax?
[This message has been edited by debhoag (edited July 14, 2007).]
Posted by Alye (Member # 5017) on :
My Aunt has written and published several books. But seh is an Aunt by marriage.
and things like that for bridge club and anniversary get-togethers.