Why I Write

Writing has always been somewhat of a well engrained hobby of mine. I was able to write short stories long before I could adequately read at grade level. God how I loved to write and make up new worlds in my head. Adventures galore! There was absolutely nothing I couldn't come up with. In the second grade, (before reading skills emerged, my general education teacher signed me up for the Young Authors program, and I was assigned to write a short story for the event, and that was when I wrote my first fan-fiction.

When I got older, my mother gave me my first diary; I wrote and wrote in that shiny pink journal until the pages were falling out at the seams. Most of what I wrote about myself however was just random babble about how my stepfather did something else that pissed me off—though those are stories for another day. The fact is, from a young age, writing became an outlet, a way to figure out how to communicate thoughts and ideas that were my own.

By the time I was late into my elementary school years, I had finally caught up in my literacy ability and was reading at grade level, making great strides in finally succeeding. This was where my ability to describe things took flight. I became obsessed with adjectives, and I was constantly trying to find new ways to use the vocabulary I was learning. This all took over when I was withdrawn from public school, and my mother taught us from workbooks at home for my entire sixth grade year. This is where my love to read blossomed rather aggressively and unapologetically. I have three siblings younger than myself, two of which are fairly close to my age, and the lot of us would go to the library to check out books. (My own Hauls were usually large chapter books that grew in difficulty with each passing week, up to the amount of seven or eight) By the end of the school year, I was reading all of my own, my sisters, and nearly half of both of my brothers’ book hauls PER WEEK.

When I was finally placed back into public school, I had a language arts teacher who designed her lessons around many different writing tasks. One day, she gave us a prompt; describe our most beautiful place utilizing all five senses as descriptors. This is where my passion for writing truly blossomed and burst through me for the first time. I unloaded thought and flow into that page, writing much more than I was assigned, but the words just wouldn't stop. Days later when I brought it home to my mom with a ten on the top, I felt overjoyed! Even more so when she read it aloud to the both of them and the two beamed with pride. It was shortly after that that I dreamt up the concept for my first novel. Unfortunately it is still in premature works even after a decade (groan), followed by so many more concepts after that. Soon short stories began to fill the pages of notebooks meant for school and homework, but once I started writing I just couldn't stop. That is how it has been ever since.

Now, I'm sharing my thoughts and ideas for the very first time on a public platform, in the hope that it will spark a wave of unimaginable creativity that will allow me to truly embrace the dream that I have been fantasizing about since I was a small child. I am finally taking the step at breaking through the fear of failure—and its terrifyingly wonderful. I haven't figured out just yet what my writing will focus on, but someday damn it, I just want to be great.