Writing has always been a part of me, as well as reading. Words have always been a part of me. To me, they've always been beyond intriguing. For me, once I started writing, I never really stopped. As silly as it sounds, I fell in love with words at a very young age. My mother says that my first word ever was “No,” which is natural, because I’m definitely one stubborn gal. She said that ever since then, I didn’t stop talking. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that that’s true. What great things words are.

I was a big reader of Dr. Seuss books back in the day. Eventually, I substituted my mom reading me Dr. Seuss books for me reading my mom Dr. Seuss books. As far as my beginning writing stages go, I learned how to write cursive in kindergarten. I would steal any paper my mom had written cursive on and copy it down, and I would even watch her write – eventually, she just taught me how. By the time second grade came around, when my class was just learning how to write in cursive, I was bored and ready to start something new. I was always so excited to learn a new way to work with words.

I wrote a lot of songs when I was younger. I enjoyed singing, though I may haven't been the best singer. I remember one of my earliest songs was a song I wrote for my parents in 2004 about the election, telling them not to vote for John Kerry. Looking back now… Maybe rooting for Bush may have been a mistake on my part...

What really inspired me the most was receiving my first creative writing award. I was in third grade, and one of my teachers had suggested that I enter in a contest. I had never entered in anything before, and I wasn’t too big on sharing things I had written. Nonetheless, I entered the contest. I was given a prompt. The prompt was maybe simple to most, but to an indecisive third-grader, there were so many options! It read, “If you could fill an empty swimming pool up with anything in the world, what would it be, and why?” I know what you’re thinking: that I chose money, puppies, or Bratz Dolls. I’m far too strange to choose something as simple as puppies. I wanted to choose something that would benefit me and others – others meaning other nine-year-olds. I thought to myself, “What is something that kids will never get tired of?” It came to me! Naturally, I chose to fill the pool with blue slushies. I thought that’d be enough to share with all of my family and friends. We could either drink out of it or, all sanitary things aside, swim in it and drink it at the same time… Of course I wrote down many more benefits to my slushie pool that I’m not going to detail, but in the end, I got first place in the creative writing contest. I received an award and a coin collection – nothing major at all – but to me it meant more. Receiving that award with my name on it served as an incentive for me to keep writing creatively, as funny as it may sound. Not only did I want to keep writing creatively, but I wanted to further improve my writing as well. I gained so much enjoyment out of it, and also gained enjoyment out of other people reading things that I wrote. It became my little hobby, my little passion.

I’d say reading Harry Potter books over and over and staying inside in writing all day isn’t a popular activity among many, but I did just that. Books make people smile, laugh, and imagine. What are books made up of? Words, of course. I’ve written my fair share of short stories in the past. I did a lot of writing in middle school, and I was even a part of a small creative writing club. I carried my penchant for writing with me to high school. Fast forward to high school me, when I started to realize that I wanted my stories and the other pieces of work I had written to be something more. My whole life I’ve been told I should get into acting, or I should be on stage, or I should be on screen. That didn’t appeal to me as much as it appealed to those that were suggesting me to do so. I put some thought into it. What do actors do? They act out stories. What if I could create stories for actors to perform? That’s when it clicked for me. I wanted my stories brought to life. I didn’t want to just imagine my stories or have other people imagine them. I wanted to bring them to life in front of my eyes. Motion pictures really appealed to me. For some reason they appealed to me much more than actors on a stage. Fast forward to present day, college student me. I decided to major in screenwriting. I love films, and I love making people happy. Movies bring the best and even the worst emotions out of people. I believe that screenwriting is a combination of those two things; it's creating the entertainment. I hope I can write a screenplay that will ultimately be put on the big screen. In the end, I hope that the things I’ve written, or the things I will write, will please people. Bringing my writing to life is a dream of mine, and I hope that I am successful and go far with screenwriting.

Writing started off as a hobby for me. It was nothing extremely serious. Sooner than later, writing will be a big part of my career. The little experiences I had when I was younger really did contribute to the person I am today and the goals that I have currently. I’d really like to look back on everything in the future, smile, and laugh to myself knowing that it simply all started with blue slushies.