I was six years old when I wrote my first novel, a fantastical Harry Potter spinoff which featured an imagined version of myself as the main character. It was a world in which I desired desperately to live in, and so I utilized the ingenious powers of fiction to insert myself into it. Fantasy was the first thing I ever wrote, something that ignited a lifelong passion to tell stories, and to not just tell them, but to give the reader a way to escape reality, even if just for a little while.

Growing up, fantasy was equivalent to freedom for me- it gave me a way to escape my own thoughts and explore worlds I could have never previously imagined. It forced me to expand my thinking, to consider moral, ethical, and social perspectives I might not have otherwise encountered. I loved YA and fantasy novels for these very reasons, loved the small glimpses into a character's intimate thoughts and lives that allowed me to feel as though they were real people. It was book series such as Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, The Hunger Games, Divergent, etc, that helped shape both my character and many of my thoughts and opinions.

But there was a certain stigma associated with YA literature, a relatively new field. It wasn't taken seriously, was seen as a transitional genre that occupied that strange gap between childhood and adult life, not something meant to continue beyond one's adolescent years. I couldn't be a "real" writer and love YA; no, I had to expand my palette and discover works of literary genius. If I wanted to someday be a successful author with an established and respected career, I had to abandon my lifelong love of "children's books" and come back to the real world, the very concept of which had led me to explore the realms of literature in the first place.

As I got older, I began to read more "adult" books, temporarily departing from the world of YA literature. I was young and intent on making a name for myself, and so I would willingly do whatever I had to follow in the footsteps of my literary heroes, writing about what I truly love be damned. I fell in love with the works of authors such as Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Kerouac and Huxley. I loved reading their stories, loved the ways in which they explored moral and social conflict through an adult lens. But mostly, I loved the respect that came with reading them, the stigma that allows one well-read in the classics to seem intellectually superior. I wanted, for once, to feel pretentious in my intellect, and so I let their style bleed into my work, as if complicated speech and beautiful prose were enough to make me a great writer.

And while my work sounded pretty, it felt hollow, empty. I could write well enough, but I missed the lush world-building of fantasy, the aspect of escapism that so many YA books had always given me growing up. I wanted, more than anything, to find a way to synthesize my love for YA fantasy with my desire for gorgeous writing; to bring together the adult and the magic, the mystery and the beauty.

I recently wrote and a published a novel, a YA about a boy who suffers from dissociative amnesia in the wake of his family's death. But it was YA based on the real world, a story that required me to spend hours poring over street maps of real cities, planning out a realistic journey to places I had never been to. It was tiring and dull, causing the process of writing- which had always been a joyous thing for me- to feel like a research project. I wrote, and I loved writing, but I hated the fact that everything had to feel as though it could truly happen in real life. There was no escapism in that story, and in fact, when I finally finished it, I was relieved to be able to exit the world, a world of pain and suffering, loss and tragedy. It felt like watching the curtain fall on one of Shakespeare's tragedies, a strange sense of relief to be able to come back to your own life.

And while these types of stories are important to tell, they weren't the kind that made me fall in love with fiction. I wanted to write the kinds of stories I wanted to read, which meant that I longed for an idea that could blend intellectualism with magical realism, fantasy with sociopolitical exploration. I sent my novel off to agents and learned to spend my days waiting, checking my email endlessly, hoping for a response. In all those months, I did not write.

I had always had some kind of project going, had always had a document in which a story was being written. Having this type of creative outlet kept me sane, kept me expanding as a writer, honing my craft and discovering my style. But in the sixth months after finishing that novel and finally starting a new one, I suffered from writer's block in a way that I never have before. I knew I wanted to begin a new story and I knew I wanted it to be more meaningful and relevant than ever before, but I was entirely out of ideas. I felt tired with the process of writing, worn out from endless research and planning. I ached to be that six year old girl again, just sitting down at her computer to write, and loving every minute of it.

Inspiration finally struck during the middle of my philosophy class, when a rough outline of a new character came to me and I started jotting down notes on her. The next thing I knew, I had five pages filled of my notebook and half a plot of a new book. I went home, sat down, and began to write. And then, all of a sudden, I had almost 5,000 words, and I loved it, and I didn't want to stop writing.

Spoiler: it was fantasy.

I realized within the first chapter that this had to be the key to my sudden wealth of inspiration. Because it was the reason that I had originally begun to write- this freedom to build any kind of world you like and fill it with any kinds of characters you like and create whatever type of conflict and story you like. There are no rules in fantasy, and I can't tell you how refreshing that is. I have a city based on Ancient Greece, set in the middle of the desert, where half the buildings look like modern cities and the other half are palatial gardens, and everyone eats Indian food in steel kitchens and works at computers which happen to be housed in cave-like dungeons. I have a character with purple eyes. And I can do that, because it's my story and it's entirely from my imagination, and that, for me, is what writing is all about. Telling the stories that are uniquely ours.

I'm up to almost 25,000 words on that novel now, and I wake up every day excited to write. I have hundreds of notes on all the characters, but none of it feels like research. In fact, I don't even feel as though I have control over the story anymore. The characters have come to life and now I am simply telling their story, writing what is bound to come next, but not forcing it, not overthinking it. And I never want it to end. More than that, I actually enjoy the process of writing it; I'm finally writing the type of story I wish to read, and I think that is what makes all the difference.

I used to think there were all these rules to writing, that I couldn't be successful unless I could write something proving my intellectual superiority and creative mindset. I used to be foolish and naive. When I think of my favorite books, I think of novels that have given me characters I can relate to, characters I can see myself in. Characters struggling to settle the moral arguments being waged inside themselves, characters falling in and out of love with each other, characters understanding that they aren't always good people, that they aren't always going to be okay, and realizing that that doesn't mean they're worth any less. I think of lush world building, complex plots, and stories of magic and mystery that have kept me up all night, wondering what could possibly come next. I think of how I want to be a part of that legion, a part of the writers that taught me that the world is entirely what I make it.

And who knows? Maybe someday I'll see my name on the YA bestseller lists next to theirs. Maybe someday I'll be able to help teach people that all that matters is that they tell the stories they are burning to tell; that they build their own worlds and that they love every minute of it.