I am a reader. I always have been. I love books and am constantly making additions to my little library. I’ve been an avid reader since I started my journey into literacy.

In first and second grade I read every single book my elementary school had about frogs. I then went on to write and illustrate my own book about them. That was not my first experience with writing - since there had been various class assignments - but it was the most memorable. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first project I undertook for my own enjoyment. I LOVED frogs and I felt so strongly about sharing my love that I did the research, compiled the information, and shared it in a way that my peers could understand. Never mind the fact that I don’t think anyone besides my family and inner circle ever read it because I was too shy to share with the class… But that’s not the point. Fourth grade was when I ordered my first poetry books from one of those Scholastic book sale magazines. Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and Edgar Allen Poe played a significant role in shaping my young mind. Fourth grade was also the year that I watched nothing but Animal Planet. If you know me at all, that probably explains a lot. In sixth grade I was introduced to Shakespeare and was reminded of my love of poetry. I have a notebook with a couple poems that I wrote that year and it’s interesting to look back at what my younger self thought at that time. A few years passed and I took up creative writing again in my sophomore year honors English class. I wrote a short book of vignettes for a class project that I felt very proud of. The student teacher we had was not so impressed but hey, you can’t please everyone. Thanks to inspiration from Charles Bukowski and Sylvia Plath, to name just two, I picked up poetry again and it became a habit which I have continued to this day.

Writing has always been a very personal and cathartic experience for me. Thanks to encouragement from a few close friends of mine, I’m becoming more comfortable with sharing the words flying around my head. I’m still a very private person with what I create but I have started to expand outward. My first success was having one poem (out of six or so) chosen to appear in the high school’s literary magazine. Four little lines and a rousing 17 words, but I was in there! I was rejected the year before but that only made me more determined to be accepted as a senior and it paid off. I recently submitted a few poems to a local zine called SLC PINK. I’ll be waiting for a while to find out if any of those were accepted but I’m optimistic about it! And if not this time, there will always be another edition to submit to. The hardest part can be persevering and continuing to put your work out there after numerous rejections, but that’s a part of life. Can you imagine having one person not like you and deciding to completely stop talking to everyone? That’s silly! There are so many people (myself being one of them) that are willing to support you and send you positivity and über cheesy motivational statements if you get scared or come down with a bad case of writer’s block. Look for ways you can get involved or make your own. I started with a notebook and now I’m writing for anyone that will give me a few minutes of their day. Maybe eventually I’ll move on to something bigger but for now, I’ve found my place here.

I am a writer. That’s the reason I joined this Odyssey community. It might be the reason I’m still sane. If you haven’t tried writing just to write because you’ve been traumatized by the education system, try it again. Just for fun. You don’t even have to show anyone, I promise. Write for the world if you want to, but write for yourself first.