Translating life's experiences and mysteries into stories, characters, and worlds is a soul-baring process. Other people may read your stories and its inhabitants as their own separate, living, breathing things- but as an author, I know that what I spill onto the page are the people and things I am, I know, I love, and I hate. They're the things I'm afraid of, dream of, strive for, and run from.

Right now, I'm nineteen and have had experiences that are totally within the realm of nineteen-year-old experiences, and many out. That being said, I'm still a nineteen-year-old, with a nineteen-year-old brain, and a nineteen-year-old body. Trying to push outside the limits of myself would be just that- a nineteen year of pushing outside of the limits of herself and experiences. I can only write stories that are as wise and as true as myself. I feel like to suggest otherwise would be fraudulent, even trying to write so feels wrong.

Making people relate to your stories, or even just like them, is, in a way, making them relate to or like you. That process is difficult, even on a one on one basis, not to mention in such an indirect experience, stripped of any factors other than pure truth. In that vein, my experiences are not true for everyone. They are true for me, maybe others can resonate with them, but they're all apart of the slideshow of my memory.

I think, being a young author, the challenge is "how can I translate my experiences and ideas in a way people far different from myself will connect with or be interested in?" It's a question I struggle to answer, and I've tried with thousands upon thousands of words, hundreds of pages of manuscripts, and books upon books. However, if even one person enjoys something I write, connects with it, that is all I could ask for as an author. Someday, I'll get there.