Writing History (July 5 - Responding to the Day)

I am thinking a lot about my writing history and about the link to reading.  Previous to today, I have been thinking about myself and my development as a creative writer.  I have attempted to grow creatively, moving from poetry to narrative (non)fiction and now moving to entirely fictional writing.  I've been struggling mostly with character development.  On all three stories I am working on, people's comments have been geared toward deeping my understanding of my characters, their personalities and their motivations.  Today, however, I backed away from the trajectory as a writer and started thinking about my history as a writer.  I have tried to think about where my love of writing - and my desire to write - as come from.  Though I wrote in school and typically succeed in that endevour, I never got really excited about my writing in school.  Occasionally, I would get excited because of an assignment but it was not school that encouraged me to write beyond that assignment.  For example, I wrote a poem in the seventh grade.  It was this moment that led me to realize I could express my emotions - and, therefore, deal with them - when I wrote them down.  I hit the ground running and started writing poetry constantly.  A school assignment triggered this, but I don't really think school was what got me writing.  I think the link comes back to my father; however, my dad never encouraged me to write.  He encouraged me to read.  He has always asked what I am reading, why I'm reading it and has pushed me to analyze the texts.  I think it was this analysis and my excitement of reading that pushed me to want to write.  In writing, I can create my own worlds or work through my own.  So, this thought is not completely worked out yet, but, essentially, today got me to start thinking about the lin between the motivation to read and the motivation to write.