Meet and Greet/Question of the Week # 2 : When did you discover that you enjoyed writing , and why do you do it ?

I've been lurking on reddit for a while, but this is the first thread that inspired me to actually post. ( It's hard to resist when I'm supposed to talk about my writing. ) So, hi!: ) 
 
 I've been writing for over 20 years. I discovered my love for creating stories back in grade school, when I'd make `` books'' by stapling together half-sheets of blank paper and then scrawl a sentence or two per page in giant childish handwriting. I started with horse stories and eventually graduated to genres that range from hard science fiction to urban fantasy. I went through a fanfiction phase, too, but thankfully that ended some years ago. 
 
 I've finished one novel, though I've yet to get it published, and I'm currently working on a handful of others. As a scientist, my intent is to develop rich worlds with internally consistent rules that can still stretch the laws of physics and both challenge and excite a reader's imagination. The characters that populate these worlds are ( usually ) people I can connect to, people whose motivations I can understand even if I ca n't accept or agree with the decisions they make. 
 
 I just realized the previous paragraph did a poor job of explaining why I write. I write because it's in my blood. I ca n't sing, I ca n't create videos, I ca n't draw, I ca n't sculpt, yet I yearn to create. So a blank page or screen has become my canvas where I sketch with similes and paint with metaphors. For me, few things provide the same rush as a friend talking to me -- or, better yet, others! -- about a story I wrote: it means someone other than me actually read it.
