I've always thought of writing as one of my only talents. I recall teachers in elementary school telling me they liked everything I wrote, and that I had a gift. Not only did others praise me for writing, it was something that I really enjoyed doing. It's so cool to be able to write. As soon as I could think, I feel like I was making up stories. And as soon as I could put words on paper, I was writing those stories down. Before I knew what fan fiction was I was writing stories about what I wished would happen on "Hannah Montana." When I write, all my worries are melted away and the only thing that matters is turning the thoughts in my head into words. At an early age, it seemed like I had found something I liked to do and others told me that I was good at it.

But over the years, my love of my talent dwindled a great deal. As I grew up, I began to lose the spark inside me that gave me a passion for words. I feel as though it was too many middle school/high school research papers, too much academic writing made me lose sight of what it's like to be a creative writer. I did not have fun writing for academia and I did not want to write any more than I needed to. Teachers were more critical of my work than they had been when I was younger, and I lost faith in myself. As writing became more of a chore rather than a way for me to escape my worries and have fun, the less I wrote for myself and the less I enjoyed the writing process. History and English research papers were some of the most difficult writing assignments for me to tackle, on top of already lacking math and science skills. As I finished high school, I learned that these papers will come and go and will lead you to a diploma or a degree. They are by no means the only writing that will ever matter in my life. This type of writing is challenging, but it will lead to bigger and better types of writing.

Despite my love-hate relationship with writing, I never doubted the fact that I possessed some sort of talent. And if you know you are talented in something, one of the best things anyone can ever hope to do is make a career out of it. Now as a college student studying journalism, I can tell anyone that giving up writing for yourself because writing for academia is boring is one of the worst mistakes any writer can make.

I hope one day to write for a living, where my college journalism track takes me is still yet to be determined. Earnest Hemingway once said, "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." This is one of my favorite quotes because that is what all writers must do no matter what you choose to write about. You let whatever you have inside of you pour out onto paper. This is one of the reasons why I never want to hate writing, even if I'm writing about something I hate. Every word is coming from my own creativity and is getting me one step closer to achieving my goals. This is why I will never stop writing, and I'll never doubt my talent.