This is a story less about the technology itself but rather to what it granted me access.

I have always been an avid reader. I loved books since I was in elementary school. I had started reading when my mother told me how she used to read all the time. She had told me her favorite series was "Nancy Drew," so, since I was at the age where I wanted to be just like my mom, when I went to the library, I checked out a lot of the books from the series. Since then, you would rarely find me without one or two books on my person or shoved up to my face.

I loved the stories, the worlds that were offered amongst the pages. I couldn't get enough and I marveled at how people could weave such tales and complex characters to share with the world. I was a regular at my school and public libraries, and I spent as much time as I could in one of them. When I had to leave, I dragged the books with me.

When I was in seventh grade, I had a class in the computer lab. We were given free rein of the Internet, and I was currently caught up in a series by Anthony Horowitz called "Alex Rider." Throughout the many books, the main character, Alex Rider, remained 14 despite the many things that were happening in his life. I was curious to see if he ever aged up.

On Google, I searched, "Does Alex Rider turn 15?" I was faced with a few links that explained what the series was about, about the author, and such things, including an answer to my question. Yes, he did eventually have his birthday. I clicked to the next page for more information, and at the top, I saw "Alex Rider Crossover | Fanfiction." Intrigued, I clicked on it, and that is when my life changed.

Fanfiction is a curious thing. It is how fans can interact with the fictional works they enjoy, creating their own stories using the templates the original creators had set or manufacturing new tales by their inspiration. Until then, I had never heard of it.

When I clicked on that link, I was faced with hundreds of stories about Alex Rider, but none of them were by Anthony Horowitz. These stories were written by fans of the books. They had taken what Horowitz created and went with it their own ways, expanding past the plot, exploring alternate paths, or giving life to their own desires for the characters.

Just like with most books, I dived right in and became obsessed, realizing eventually that there was more than crossover and more than Alex Rider on the website. A whole new world had been revealed to me. Every time I had access to the Internet, you would find me on that archive of tales. Once I made myself well acquainted with all I sought, I realized...I wanted to do what these people were doing. It had never really occurred to me that I could do what the authors of the books I loved did. I never thought I could be a writer.

I had written essays and made up small stories, but I had never considered that I could forge my own narratives until I saw others already doing it. Authors had always been these untouchable masters of their crafts, their skills to be admired but never matched, but this archive was filled with a bunch of people like me, fans of fiction and their own ideas on what to do with it.

My first piece was terrible, but at the time, after I opened Microsoft Word and wrote my first work, I was Shakespeare. I was the cream of the crop, master of literature and prose. I became a writer at that moment, and I still am. I am proud to say that I have evolved over the years, grasping the concept of plot and improving my skill with grammar and expanding my repository of vocabulary.

So maybe it wasn't the technology itself that impacted my life, but it was what technology allowed me to glimpse in that prime moment that shaped a lot of who I am today. I am a writer. It is a large part of my identity.

I have old books filled to the brim with burgeoning ideas that I used to drag around with me until they started falling apart, writing in them constantly when I should have been paying attention in class. I have countless documents of rarely completed ideas and half-baked plots stored on my hard drive (though some have been lost over the years) and even more stories than that constantly ruminating in my mind from when I wake up until I fall asleep, creating stories in my dreams. My college essay was about being a writer, and I write for magazines and blogs.

I am constantly using my words to express myself or weave my own worlds, and yes, I still partake in fanfiction. If I were a superhero, fanfiction would have been my radioactive spider. I don't know who I would be if it wasn't for it. It is through the same technology that made me discover my voice that allows me to this day to share it, and I don't plan on ever stopping.