I started writing stories when I learned how to use a computer keyboard. As soon as I could understand letters and the delicate way you piece them together to create a word, I began documenting them. As a little girl obsessed with Nancy Drew, I wrote a story about a girl who called herself Samantha the Great -- she was investigating the case of a missing baseball card. As my nose got stuck in the latest fantasy, I wrote about giants and trolls and elves and trees that could speak. When I was a teenager, I was convinced that I was going to become a spy, and thus wrote about a teenager who was forced to become a secret agent and save his family from foreign terrors. For a dear friend who loved all things Jane Austen, I wrote about three English sisters and their pursuit of love in a rigid society.

There has been only one time in my life when I was not crafting a story. In high school I grew so busy with my studies and show choir performances that I only sat at a computer to crank out a paper or lab report. My weekends were consumed with friends and homework, and the hidden worlds on my old computer screens slowly drifted away.

Then I had the opportunity to take a creative writing class at my university. Finally my homework would consist of creative material. I received positive feedback from my classmates and professor, and eventually added a creative writing major. Now, as a young adult, I write of realism and the way a small town in Alabama reacts to a missing girl.

In order to further newest novel's plot, I felt the need to inhabit every ounce of Alabama life that was open to me. Of course, being a college student from small-town Ohio does not necessarily provide such opportunities. With a little online research and Facebook searching, I finally came in contact with a man who was willing to reminisce of his time living in Alabama. He recently responded to my inquiry, and as we continue our conversations and I gain more and more detail about the wonders of his life, I am nearly moved to tears at my realizations.

Over the past year, I had again fallen out of touch with my written work. I felt as though my imagination truly had disappeared in the five years I had left it alone, and that I would not be able to continue or finish my Alabama novel. Yet as I correspond with this man, I discovered my reason for writing: obsession for life.

I realized that I am a writer because I want to document life. I want to create a text that will transport a reader into the small town or big city or barren country. I want to accurately depict the way a young girl feels while swimming in a dark pond or the way a father feels when his daughter disappears. I have this unquenched desire to know all there is to know about the human experience and the deepest facets of the way we live.

As a child, I needed a screen that would capture the images of my imagination; I needed a place that allowed me to always return to my dreams. Writing gave me that. And now, as I have grown into an adult, this need to return to my mind and search for the answers of my hearts deepest questions, writing still provides the answer. It will always provide the answer.