I’ve been writing since the sixth grade. Well, ever since my best friend at the time asked me to look over his fiction story so he could post it on his blog. As I was reading his very perplexing story, with characters that didn’t really make sense, I realized I wanted to do what he was doing. I want to create characters that would tell a story, that would act out their lives with words I typed on a laptop I borrowed from my dad on the weekends I was with him. But that’s not how it all started.

The very first story I ever wrote, I misspelled the title. Obviously, it wasn’t a strong start. Luckily, I didn’t even know I misspelled the title, so I thought I was on a roll. Disease 101, or how I spelled it, "Deases 101." I was 11, so how successful was this story really going to be? But that didn’t stop me there. You see, at 11, I still felt most boys were pretty gross, unless I thought they were cute, but I need a male perspective. My male characters sounded just like my female ones. I asked my best friend, and this started a college-ruled red notebook trade. We would write when we were supposed to be taking notes, then pass it to the next person during the five minutes between classes. Then we would spend lunch in the library trying to perfect the crazy plot our 11-year-old minds created. At this point, I didn’t consider myself a writer, just someone who writes.

Seventh grade, I wrote my first book. It had the same plot line as the "Vampire Diaries" TV show, but I finished that 208-page handwritten book. I was so proud of that book that I stuck it into a shoebox and slid it under my bed with all the lost clothes to keep it company.

Eighth grade, my best friend and I decided to give Disease 101 a second shot, and we finished it, and Disease 102, 103, 104, and 105, all crammed with bad handwriting and even worst spelling, into a hefty stack of notebooks. Of course, when we graduated from the eighth grade, the notebooks were split up between the two of us, so that way one couldn’t publish this three-year idea without the other. And yet, I still didn’t think of myself as a writer.

High school brought on a whole new set of stories. My brain was creating more complex characters, and easier-to-follow plot lines. I began making crazy-long character description sheets based off people I would either see at school, the mall, or randomly on the street. I began jotting down different ideas, filling the margins of my notes with dialogues and snippets of ideas, unfinished thoughts, and weird names I thought I could turn into something great. And yet, I still couldn’t tell anyone I was a writer.

I kept my writing in secret. I didn’t want to be considered weird, or unusual for loving something that wasn’t video games or binge watching TV. But yet, I really did love it. I loved putting my ideas and thoughts on paper, creating something that would be considered art. I tried to share it with others, but every time I got the chance, I feared getting told that I sucked at something I loved. So I never allowed myself to really try. I would grow my craft in secret.

I kept it a secret for a really long time, until my family noticed that I jotted down ideas, and word fragments that would turn into hours of handwritten pages of books that had no beginning and no end. Just a middle. I was so good at the middle part.

Senior year of high school, I took a creative writing class. This forced me to share my thoughts and ideas. It turns out, I actually had some wisp of a talent. Yet, I still couldn’t call myself a writer.

I couldn’t call myself a writer until second semester of my freshman year of college, when in fact I enrolled myself in an intro to creative writing course. This is when I finally started admitting it. I had been a secret writer for so long that to actually share who I was with everyone, felt so freeing. It opened up a whole different side of me. Then I couldn’t stop talking about it. I told my roommate all these crazy story ideas I had, and how I had these hopes of becoming a famous author, or, well, at least a published one. Or how I planned to just simply share what I had to say with the world. It took me a long time to accept this part of myself because I was afraid of failing.

Sometimes the hardest thing is loving yourself, but once you do, it can lead to amazing things.