The Reason I Write

I guess you could say that I have the passion for writing in my genetics. Quite a few of my family members all have had the passions for writing, but the one person who sticks out the most for me is the man I felt the closest to as I was growing up; my father.

Although my father wasn't a world-famous author, he did have his moments. Growing up, I was always seeing him update his blog. It wasn't his full-time career, but he was always finding time to write during any free time he'd manage to scrape up. That was when I realized I wanted to write the way that he did. He never let anything come between him and his writings. It frustrated my mom half the time whenever he would choose his blog over the family, but in the eyes of young me, I only saw a man who was dedicated in doing the very thing that he loved. I wanted that. I wanted to fulfill my passions that very way. If it wasn't for my father, I doubt I would have ever been encouraged enough to realize just how much I loved the idea of becoming a writer, or even an author.

He even encouraged me to make my own blog account when I was a child (but my blog mainly consisted mainly of little articles based around my cat or my dog, or even my Webkinz collection (what could i say, I was only a young child).

It was actually the small blog I had that gave me the inspiration to film YouTube videos; instead of only writing out blogs, I decided I could also film out my vlogs as well. Although, when I was younger, my parents had a stict "no showing your face on the internet" rule so my video blogs consisted mostly of little scripted vlogs I made of my Webkinz or little fanfictions I managed to turn into video form (almost like a tv show.. except they're created by a ten year old).

I've been writing for as long as I could remember, but the one moment I'd never ever forget is the moment when my 5th grade English teacher read over some paper I turned in about some random fictional story I had wrote up in just a couple hours and told me,

"I cannot wait till I see your name on bookshelves in every book store."

To this day, I still have that quote living rent free in the back of my mind and although I have no idea where that teacher is today, I still hope to one day make her proud by getting my name up on a shelf in bookstores all over the world.

But what writer doesn't dream of seeing their name on the spine of a book sitting on the shelf inside Barnes n Nobles, Books a Million, etc.?

As I was getting older and became a teenager, I started writing on websites like Archive of Our Own or Wattpad. I'm sure most people have heard of at some time of their lives. I've always had a love for writing fanfictions since I was a child, but as a teenager I really hit my stride the second I discovered the band One Direction.

I'm sure you heard of them; they were that british/irish boyband that went from hitting the X Factor stage in 2010 to taking over the world by 2012.

Of course this wasn't my first time I wrote fanfictions. I really hit my fanfiction-writing stride when I was about ten years old when I began writing stories about Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, The Jonas Brothers, etc. I had about maybe about a hundred different stories.. which looking back sounds like an obsession, but what can I say? Once I started writing, I just couldn't stop.

As a teenager with a Wattpad account, I was able to read a ton of other fanfictions written by other users which of course gave the writer brain in me multiple different ideas for what I wanted to write myself. And boy was I obsessed. I used to read and write fanfictions while riding the school bus, in between classes, and even occasionally during class (if any of my old teachers found their way onto this article, I promise it was always after I was finished with my classwork and definitely never during any of your lectures). I even made a deal with an old friend of mine that we'd both start a fanfiction at the exact same time just so we could see who's story was able to get more reads than the other faster. It was a pretty fun challenge I must say and I do recommend you do it if you had another friend who also loved writing. We used to get together and discuss our future plans for each of our books (without spoiling what's going to happen in the story, of course) and critique each other on what our books were lacking or needing to be a better book overall.

Of course writing fanfiction did begin to not satisfy my love of writing as I grown older. Eventually, I did throw in the towel with wattpad and start going my own seperate way with my writing. I would write in private in journals or even on random websites I'd find every now and again via google. I found this one website, Harness Magazine; a magazine where women can go and write articles on what they're passionate about or even write down poems for a chance to be published or discovered. It did satisfy me for the time being but eventually I branched off to sites such as Vocal where I could be paid to do what I love.

Now, my Vocal journey did not start off as a success. I published about three stories back in 2017 and just left the website in the dust until 2021 when an old college friend of my mom told her about some website she was writing on to make herself money (Vocal). It was then that I realized I should definitely try and not give up on myself this round.

Now, it's only been about a couple weeks and I am obsessed with writing on this site. My biggest fear is getting writers block, but I've learned to realize by looking at all other creators on this website is that you could pretty much write about anything and make an article about it. Hell. I could probably just write up an endless amount of fictional short stories, or even try and attempt a multiple part story (example: chapter books/novels), and it'll be acceptable enough for this website.

I've seen so many other users talk about how during their first year they attempted to just write something every day or almost every day and that's exactly how I want to start off to try and get my Vocal account out there for others to be able to read. Although, I am still trying to find my way when it comes to what I love to write the most, I hope that Vocal.Media can help me find exactly that.