When I was a kid, whenever I was asked what I wanted to be when I was older I would always blurt out whatever I thought was cool or what I wanted to do at the moment. My answers ranged from princess to astronaut on a daily basis, but that's what most kids do anyways. It was when I was around the age of eleven that my answer was a writer. In my sixth grade class we had different assignments that involved creative writing and I always found myself enjoying those assignments more than anything. The topics ranged from day to day and the more we wrote whatever story we came up with, the more creative my stories became. One day when my teacher was discussing our assignments with us one by one, she went over my paper and pointed out the grammatical errors I had and she told me something that stuck with me even to this day. She told me that I had a wild imagination and that my stories were entertaining to read. She told me that whenever I had to read my stories in front of the class, the students would hold on to each and every one of my words. She then told me that I did a good job, gave me an A then sent me on my way. I was only eleven at the time and didn't think much about it, but it struck me in a way that affected the path I chose in life.
It wasn't until the eighth grade that another teacher told me something that really struck a cord in me and pushed me in the right direction. My eighth grade teacher gave us journals we had to write in and she would give us random topics we had to write about. Most of the times they were topics about a big event that was going on in our lives or something about literature that we liked. I don't remember what topic she gave us, but it was a creative writing topic and when I put pencil to paper, the words just flowed out of me. She collected our journals and read through them and would give us her feedback. It was when she got to my journal that she stopped us from doing the worksheet she had given us and asked my permission to read my journal entry to the class. I gave her the okay and she read what I had written to my entire class. When she finished, she told me that my writing gave her goosebumps and that I wrote beautiful things. She then told me that I should strengthen my skills in writing and never quit. For the rest of the eighth grade she would give me appraisal on my different writing assignments and encouraged me to pursue a career in writing.
She planted a seed in my head that eventually grew and continues to grow as I go into my third year of college. Soon I would have different notebooks and I filled the pages with random ramblings and thoughts and ideas. For the first few years, my writings never made any sense and I'm sure they weren't that great anyways, but once I found the right tone, words flowed onto the pages endlessly. If I didn't have my notebook on me, I would grab a pen or pencil or whatever was available to me and scribble down my thoughts on a scrap piece of paper. It wasn't until I got into college that my writings soon became poems or short stories and where I found what I wanted to do in life.
I've never been a "normal" person. I've always been quiet and shy or loud and outspoken; there is never an in-between with me. I've also never been good with speaking my thoughts. If I'm upset, sad, happy, whatever it was, I have always had difficulty finding the words to speak them out loud, but when I had a pencil in my hand, what I wanted to say would be written out much better than I could ever physically say. What I found was that I wasn't the only one who had a hard time speaking my thoughts. I found other people who related to what I had written and understood what it was like to try and find the right words to say. Whenever the words were trapped in my head and I couldn't find a way to get them out, I would just pick up and pencil and scribble out what it was that I wanted to say and I found that my writings had a bigger impact that if I had spoken the words.
I think I was born to be a writer, but it took the encouragement of my teachers to help me realize this. I had struggled for years trying to always find the right words to say, but always coming up a little short. When I began writing, I found the words and found the courage to be the person I am. Now I can't seem to put the pencil down and I've filled more notebooks with words than I have ever spoken out loud, but my writings say a lot more about me than I could ever explain.
