My first book ever

I received an invitation to fill out a questionnaire for writers. It's really long, well over 100 questions, and I will not have time to do it. But, I can answer some questions here.

1. First book you ever read.

That one is easy. First or not, the only book I can remember from early childhood is Bullerbyn, by Astrid Lindgren. It is amazing that I can see the cover so vividly to this day. I believe we had to read it in the first year at school, and I remember that we had homework - draw a scene from the book. I even remember the scene I took back to school and received the highest mark, although the scene was drawn by my mother...

2. How did you begin to write

Embarrassing story, but true. I knew very early on that I would write some day, though I never rushed to it. One day I read a short story by this very well known author. I did not like the story, so I decided to re-write it. And I did. I completely rewrote it. Then I showed both versions to my friends and asked for their verdict. They picked my version. To this day I remember their faces when they found out who wrote it. Of course, it wasn't really my story, it was plagiarism, but this experience (repeated several times with other short stories) allowed me to learn some basics, such as story structure. And the day came when I wrote my very own. I showed that one to my pals, but I was so embarrassed (not because I thought it was bad, but because of exposing my very own innermost thoughts that go into writing) that I wrote two versions of the story and presented one of them as the original, penned by a "real" writer. Although the story was liked, as were some others that followed, it was a very long time before I could admit that these were 100% mine.