I started writing five years ago. It's a funny story, actually. It happened by accident when an older writer criticized my first poem as "meaningless poetry" and then left me hanging, boasting about how many books they had already sold. I didn't understand what had happened at the time. Is that how you treat a young person who has just poured all their emotions into their writing?
Later, I found out that my writing wasn't their type. Their writing was old-school; flowers, moons, seas, mountains, coffee, and love. A poet is supposed to be about love, right?
I wasn't cool enough because I was writing about how it feels to walk as a pedestrian without a cigarette to smoke.
That's just me.
After that experience, I started teaching myself how to write in a more diverse and engaging way.