If you were to walk into a classroom in an elementary school and ask the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up," you would get a very wide range of answers.

You could hear anything; from veterinarian, princess, astronaut, to even a few who might go out on a limb and say they want to be "a famous person." Anything is possible to them and they chase whatever will fulfill their dreams.

If you were to walk into a classroom of high school seniors and ask the same question, you'd get much different answers.

For example, you'd hear about being a physical therapist, doctor, or accountant. At that age, many are looking out for job security, reputation, or how much money their respective fields make.

It's weird to think that within every lawyer was a little kid who, at one point, wanted nothing more than to be a professional football player.

Something I've noticed, however, is that there are usually a few kids who dream up a future and never give up on it.

In the corner of that elementary school classroom, there's a little kid who is devouring a book or filling notebook pages up with stories and fantasies of anything you could imagine. If you were to ask them the question, they would say that they want to be an author.

These kids are the ones who graduate from high school and still say that they want to be writers. These are the same kids that have goals of one day working at the New York Times or traveling the world to work on stories and then publish them for the world to see.

These kids are the ones who, by the end of high school, have spent hours sitting in their rooms at a computer or with a journal, writing poetry and chasing that dream of being an author or writer. I'm not ashamed to admit that I was that kid and so were a few others from my high school.

At the age of 10, if you were to ask me what I wanted to be when I "got older," I would have confidently told you that I wanted to be a librarian and write books. I wanted to be like James Patterson, as he was my favorite author until middle school.

I was the kid who always brought a book to recess and, although I want to write and pursue journalism, I still plan on publishing a book in the future. That's a dream I don't think I'll ever let die.

In tenth grade, I met someone who was also considered "that kid. He calls himself "Adel the Author." He was a friend of a friend back then, but today, he is one of the people who reads nearly every single article of mine that gets published.

I'm not gonna lie, neither of us liked each other very much back in our tenth grade days of studying Thoreau and Emerson in our Honors English class. However, once I learned that he was a writer and had the same crazy dream of being published, I started to take to him a little bit more.

I've always been wary of letting other people read what I've written. I didn't really think anyone cared and I still have a constant fear that what I won't interest anyone with what I write.

But, sure enough, every single week, he bugs me until my articles go live on Odyssey and I can send him the link.

He runs an Instagram about his writing journey and he posts some of his works online. Whenever I get a notification that something of his goes live online, I always check on it and read it.

It's comforting to know that, no matter what, I have someone who supports my writing and is always available to bounce ideas off of.

Every once in a while, I think back to that little 10-year-old version of myself and wonder about what she'd think of me going to school for journalism. What kept my dream alive was knowing that everyone who's ever "made it" in writing was probably in the same place as me once before.

What still keeps it alive today is knowing I have friends that will back me and my writing through it all. If I can't do it for me, I do it for the other little kids out there who have the same big dream.

We, as writers, need to support each other and I'm so proud to say that I have made some amazing friends from working in this field. Working on keeping our dream alive helps maintain the fire in all the little kids who share our dream.