Teen writers: How many of you will still be writing when you're 30?

*Takes a deep, Dramatic breath and exclaims sarcastically*: Oh but you don't understand! I'll write till the day I *DIE*. I swear. I have a deep, burning passion for it!

Just kidding.

I really have no idea. I'm just hoping to be alive when I'm thirty (Definitely NOT saying 30 is old, I mean I do some pretty stupid stuff). I'd like to hope I'll be writing then, but I guess we'll see.

Your harshness is both unpleasant and refreshing...

I do work hard to write well. I work hard to make my ideas into something good, even if they only stay in my head. I know when I'm thirty I'll still be writing. By then I want to be published but I know there isn't the best chance of that. There's hope nonetheless. Maybe I'll know half the things I want to know about the world when I'm thirty. I like to think so.

I don't get annoyed with the writers who say "Is this good? I'm 13?" because I know I was just like that once. They need guidance just like everyone else.

I am writing a story now and I started it about a year ago.

I am 18 and a half now.

I am not even close to finishing my story now and I think that writing all the plot and the scenes I have thought of and the future things will take me at least 2 more years. Then after that since this is my first story, I am writing it

in a notebook with pen and paper. after I use up about 2 composition notebooks, I will have to transfer all my scenes to a computer screenplay formatting device. That will take about a year.

then i will revise rushed dialogue in my story which will take about another year.

so this one story will take me about 5 years.

this story will be a screenplay for an anime series.

and it will be at least 40 episodes about 25 minutes each.

and I still haven't told anyone I know I write.

I wonder what my second story will be?

I will be about 24 when i start my 2nd story so I have no idea what thirty will be like.

I really think that my first story will be my best story.

I probably will be writing. But I'm not an idiot, I know that's not going to be what's paying the bills. Whether it's a short story every now and then, a few lines of verse here and there, I don't really think I could stop. I suppose I'd like to be professionally following my creative pursuits in some way, be it music, art or writing. Or some strange combination of the three. I know right now it's easy to say 'money doesn't matter I want to do what I love' but like I said... I need to be somewhat realistic here.

Well, honestly I HOPE I'm still writing when I'm 30, but who knows where life will take me.

Seeing my interests now, I think I'll be writing when I'm 30, though. Maybe not full-time, probably work then write, but still writing, and perhaps published, if I get the guts enough to publish a book. (Or even the initiative to finish one.)

I think I will be writing past the age of thirty. I have been writing since I was around five and am now at the age of nineteen. I plan to have one published soon. I will most likely do it as a hobby when I become a Doctor in the future.

I can't remember the exact age, but I have been writing for a long time, just because I enjoy it. My brother always gave me a funny look when I told him I'd rather write than go play online games with him. I plan to do part time writing, maybe teaching or something as a day job. I've always loved to write and I don't see myself stopping anytime soon.

I'm fourteen.

And, mate, I'd still find a way to write even if both of my hands get cut off.

:P

No, but, seriously, I love writing, it's my life, so hopefully I'll still be writing when I'm thirty. Frankly, my writing is crap at the stage I'm at now, but everyone has to start somewhere. That said, I have improved a lot since I first started writing.

I wrote in my teens, and I still write now. However, since I also used to do a lot of other things in my teens that I was 'passionate' about and thought were 'my life', which I no longer do now, I think we can safely say that the majority of teen writers probably won't still be writing in their 30s. We all think, when we're 14, that what we're into is our great passion and will never die, whether that's writing or dance or playing gloomy self-penned emo songs on a cheap guitar. So, while plenty of teenagers *will* continue to write, statistically a larger proportion of them won't.

And there's nothing wrong with that, of course. But the number of teens who post on here and say that writing is their life and that nobody understands their passion does make me laugh, as they all seem to think they're the only teen in the world who ever puts pen to paper, despite the overwhelming evidence on this very site to the contrary.

I'm not slagging off teenagers - I was pretty much like that myself in my teens, I'm sure. (Although having said that, unlike a lot of the people who post here, I was at least sufficiently self-aware and sufficiently able to critique my own work to understand that the novel I wrote at 14 was not publishable.)

I don't think they can possibly know. I think writing's possibly the _only_ thing I did at 16 and do now. I certainly didn't see myself married with kids, and never dreamt I'd be a computer programmer.

FWIW, I was a teen writer and _wasn't_ writing when I was 30. But I was at 35, and still am at 41.