I never considered myself a creator. I never saw myself as the type of person who could come up with things beyond what was already created. I had a wild imagination, that I knew, but I never made the connection between creativity and imagination. For me, creators were the people who made what I read, what I watched, what I played. They were the influencers, and I was the influenced. As I got older, I learned the way my imagination made me a creator.

I’m a storyteller.

I’ve been writing stories my whole life. My first came in the fifth grade, a Dr. Seuss wannabe tale of a far off land filled with far off creatures. It lacked a plot, reason, and quality illustration, but it was a process all the same. Each character’s personality, looks, and lifestyle came from my mind, and I hold them close to my heart.

Seventh grade brought a second chance at creating a new story. The challenge brought recreating the story of King Arthur. I gave him a twin sister, Annalise, who was separated from her brother at birth and raised as a peasant in the kingdom. She becomes the one to pull Excalibur which causes a whole mess of problems for Arthur’s future. This story became a turning point in my creative spirit. I understood how I could manipulate multiple worlds to my whim. I could take old stories and change their universes to be as I please.

Years pass. Writing became less about what I could think of off the top of my head and more focused on being able to write an argument that not only proved a point, but also I worked to create stories within these essays. Anything to stand out against the sea of other essays that would be next to mine. This has become a strong basis to where I am in my writing game. A creator with a message.

I’m still fighting a dream. All I desire is to be able to create a world of my own to share with others. I want to tell a story within a story that doesn’t just entertain someone. I need to tell the story that stays with a reader long after they have read the last words. After they’ve shut that book, I want them to be turning over the reason for my need to tell this story in their head. I want it to become the center of their attention until they have understood a message from my story, my world, my creation.

I’ve created smaller stories. Short pieces that contain a meaning hidden inside that although aren’t as heavy as a whole novel could create, but they are not created for nothing. Everything I write, everything I share has a reason behind. Some are more obvious than others, some require a whole lot of attention paid to it. However, I believe the constant writing will help me in creating these worlds I have already began to imagine.

I’ve already started. These stories come to me in dreams, in random thoughts, in two hour sessions in front of a laptop screen. Every moment of my day is one more moment where I am trying to understand the world I am creating in my head. Does that sound crazy? Am I crazy? (Yes, but that’s not the point. I promise.) I am constantly trying to escape the world I live in to create the story that is begging to escape my mind.

It gets hard sometimes.

There are days where the world in my head is in full swing and I am still here on earth trying to focus on the life I have on this earth. Writing is not a merging of reality and this crazy dream that’s stuck in my head. Writing is completely removing my mind from reality and forcing entirely into this dream world of mine. Writing is forgetting about everything and everyone that doesn’t exist in this fictional story. Writing is keeping my soul alive and my mind dazed.

It gets frustrating.

Writing, creating can turn myself into my own enemy. My worst nightmare. My mind works to ruin me; it wants to break me down to nothing. Writing is usually the way out of that mess. However, there are many, many days where I want to throw out all these ideas and just end this career that hasn’t even started for me. There are days where I write five, six pages of this world, but I erase them with minutes of finishing. I immediately despise myself afterwards, but at the same time I feel it must have been the right thing. Books aren’t made in one sitting, and it’s okay to go from draft to draft… to draft… to draft… and so on until it’s what I want.

“It won’t be good enough!”

“No one will ever read this.”

These are the constant yells that are going through my mind as I attempt to get the stories in my head out into the open. The first is one especially challenging to deal with. I am my worst critic. We are always our worst critic, and this is something I grew to understand. I will never be happy with what I write. I always believe it could be better, but I know when something is done as well. As for the idea of no one reading this, I know as I think it that that is technically a false belief. I have an amazing support system behind me, minus my own mind, who I know would read this story for the sake of supporting the dream of a mad girl, and I love them for supporting me.

Take no offense amazing people of my life, but this message I have to share hidden within my newly created world must reach more than just my circle of family and friends. I have a message to give to the world, and it’s going to take an amazing story to make it happen. I believe that I can create this world, but at the same time I am the one who keeps knocking myself back.

I’ve become someone else. I’m a creator. I am a mad girl who currently has five worlds smashed into my mind that are just dying to escape. Five worlds, five separate stories.

Better start writing.