I’ve always been a creative.
No, I wasn’t one of those people who came out of the womb writing the next Great American novel. I didn’t create little books out of folded construction paper, and I don’t think any of my elementary school teachers viewed me as a future author.
Of course, there was some creative writing in my life. My school had “bare books” which students had to complete each year, though topics varied depending on the teacher. Other creative writing assignments existed, too, but I never wrote outside of them at the time.
But there were always stories in my head. I would spend hours some days, pacing and acting out the worlds my mind came up with. Though I didn’t know the word ‘roleplay’, that was exactly what I did on the playground and in my neighbors’ front yards.
And in the sixth grade, a discovery brought those stories from my mind to paper.
It began with an English assignment that sounded tedious at first: a writing journal. My teacher, Mrs. Frank, wanted her students to write multiple short passages each week, on any topic they chose.
While the writing part wasn’t difficult, I quickly became bored with finding random topics to write about.
That was when Mrs. Frank offered a suggestion that would change my life: write a creative story.
Like a fish to water, I took to creative writing immediately. I wrote about dragon demigods and people surviving strange plane crashes. I wrote in every POV possible (yes, including 2nd person). I wrote much more than the minimum requirements.
And, most of all, for the first time, I wrote outside of the assignments.
Now, I wasn’t like some young writers who were magically able to publish a novel at seventeen years old. In fact, I’ll likely talk another day about the maturity of my writing over time, and how I truly wasn’t ready to publish until now (even if my mom would say my writing was great).
But once I put my stories down into words for the first time, I didn’t stop.
Writing didn’t just become a part of me, I became my writing. Writing is how I understand the world and how I get the world to understand me. Even if I sometimes worry about how my writing compares to others, I never find it enough to give up. Writing is breathing to me; I can’t live without it.
My relationship with my writing is why I’ve chosen self-publishing over traditional publishing. It’s not about getting a ton of money or awards (though some nice comments will be cherished forever), it’s about getting my identity out there.
That’s what writing is, after all. My identity.
It’s been years since I’ve been able to see Mrs. Frank, as she moved schools, but the love of writing she instilled in me has stuck. All because I got bored of writing about random articles I found on the middle school-level news site we had access to.
With my first book coming out, though, I hope one day to show her how far I’ve come.
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