Oddly, it just sort of happened, meaning there really wasn't one person, or audience that came out and said "You must write!!" Instead I believe that it was more seeing the reaction and positive returns emotionally for those that came to see the work that was the true reinforcing element. As for who I feel kinship with most, probably DF Wallace, the neurotic bastard that he was.

I don't have any writer friends and I didn't take writing classes in college. My peers have always been musicians and artists and some of those people can barely even speak coherently let alone write. The only reason I started writing was because of this overwhelming compulsion I have to confess. Never could keep a secret. I started keeping a blog years ago and linking it to Myspace and would post all sorts of private stories. People said they liked my writing so I felt encouraged to keep going. I'm hoping to find mentors, it's why I'm here at RL. Short of going back to school or knocking on a favorite writers door (Hi Denis Johnson, you don't know me but.........), this is where I plan on getting my writers legs. Right here on RL. However, I am tempted to go for an MFA.

I always wanted the perfect mentor, but never had that experience. I've had smatterings of influences that offered encouragement and made suggestions, but no serious "mentors" in the sense of someone taking me under their wing sort of thing...tho' I guess, some have tried, and I've backed away only because I didn't want to follow them (or be like them.) I've always been an independent person and will take the long way around to get to where I want to go, dawdling, gawking, splashing in the puddles, and playing with all the strays along the way (and bringing some home too.) I dabble, I sample, I have surrounded myself with various people, some very wise people and some wise-guys, some artistic, some totally incapable of making anything work, and some who were so full of shit that they were nigh intolerable (and some who still are)...I've been known to be very tolerant and patient, but I'll never be canonized for it. I'm still learning...and will never stop learning. I've always wanted more out of life, I guess, and went looking for it, drawing it or writing it down. I take in stories, especially ones that have nothing to do with me, and make them mine.

Most recently? The collective genius of Twitter :)

In Berlin, I'm part of an active (writing) group of writers who meet fortnightly and the reason why we can mentor each other is probably that there's no (visible, palpable) envy between us. Everybody is on their own path and everybody writes well, some more some less obsessively and ambitiously than others. I'm one of the more obsessive and ambitious ones. We're between 25 and 60 years old, which is great. Everybody has a different angle and background and nationality, too—we meet because we all love to write in English and we love Berlin. —Otherwise, there's mentoring going on for me at Fictionaut and at some other virtual venues. Most of my conscious mentoring however comes from dead authors whom I love, analyse and talk to in the night (though I'd never admit this to anyone, of course).

Marcus that sounds like a great group you have. I find that the best mentors I've had along the way have been my peers who have offered support and encouragement.

Interesting responses so far. Thanks everyone for your thoughts on this question.

My English teacher in secondary school, and my mom. My mother had to teach me to read herself, as the school I went to was terrible. I distinctly remember it, and remember not being able to read or write. I couldn't read on my own until I was about 9. Since then my mother has always bought me poetry and anything else 'enlightening' - Shakespeare, for example. I think she wants me to be a poet. My English teacher in school was amazingly supportive. She noticed that I had a bit of a flare for it when I was 12, just when I started school, and praised me highly in front of everyone a few times. She was a really harsh teacher, so things like that from her were a great achievement...like winning a marathon :)

mentors? that is a tangled one... due to a byzantine series of events, spanish is my first language, followed by shakespeare's historical plays, joyce, eliot & pound, & then english. (my father taught english lit, both high school level, & at a local community college. he paid me to accompany him to classes & read shakespeare to his students & explain the plays to them, & answer any questions.) a thing that also encouraged me was seeing portraits & photographs of authors in english classrooms. some of those were photographs of living & recently deceased writers... ray bradbury, raymond chandler, anthony burgess (clockwork orange had just been published), jorge luis borges, lillian hellman, ezra pound, f. scott fitzgerald, ernest hemingway, mark twain. (all of the previously listed, along with wm. burroughs, garcia marquez, joan didion, tennessee williams, little sammy beckett & j.g. ballard were major influences — along with all those 19th c. italian & french & russian writers.) & a couple of my dad's friends were journalists — i even briefly worked as a printer's devil for a local newspaper. so from an early age i was viscerally aware that writing was something people earned a living from. another odd mentor, egregiously so, was a batshit abstract-expressionist/linguist aunt who spent 3 painful summers teaching me to read & write greek & russian (cyrillic, used by 29 languages), or at least trying to. (i did learn the alphabets, which proved invaluable whenever i started doing any etymological research.) in my teens & early 20s, i was part of various l.a. pome-making cabals, including the beyond baroque workshop, & paul vangelesti's various workshops & radio shows & marathon reading sessions. paul vangelesti was my first real mentor, as were a couple of people at beyond baroque. (this was pre-dennis cooper beyond baroque.) another odd mentor was the journalist & essayist adela rogers st. john. when i read gravity's rainbow, which had just come out, i was so gobsmacked that i did not write for several years. it wasn't so much a writer's block as a silent meditation on form & genre. i started writing plays & screenplays, & had some staged readings. & attended writing workshops run by working writers, one by a science fiction writer named sheila finch. another run by a former story editor at mgm who'd worked with hal ashby & robert altman. at this point i had also attended the clarion writing workshop at m.s.u., & begun selling stories. there were editors at antaeus & at story who were very encouraging. (a totally left-field mentor was a photographer named brian vikander who trained me as a photo-researcher — something i did for five years, 45 to 60 hrs a wk., while also writing short fiction & getting some of it published.) a major mentor, tho, & did not realize it at the time, was algys budrys, who bought my first story, & would have bought a couple of others & a novel, but for the u.s. postal service fucking up & sending his letters back with "no such address" stamped on them. through the years he offered very good advice, mostly about who was buying, who wasn't, & mostly i took it. at some point i started placing my stories in uk & croatian publications, & hit a really bad patch. i have had a few pces published in the past few yrs. now it is a matter of finding the time to focus on writing. working as a translator, as a linguist (among other projects i finally finished & published "curse + berate in 69+ languages" with r.e. nash & soft skull), & as an editor (i edit gobshite quarterly, which has just returned to a print edition after a website exile). i am sending things out again, & of course response times are glacial. (same as it ever was.) oh, & there is this other odd mentor, this odd bloke, r.e. nash.