The first story I remember writing was when I was in second grade. We had daily journaling that was part of our curriculum, and I chose to use that time to write this creative, action-packed little tale. I called it "Belle and the Magic Pigtails." It was a story in which a pair of magical pigtails would help this particular family whenever they were in need. The pigtails would help them fly, bring them food or supplies, and even keep them company when they were lonely. Considering the fact that I was eight years old, I can't imagine that the story was very good, but it sparked an insatiable hunger somewhere deep inside of me that thirsts for stories and language, friendships and adventure, and the thirst has done little but strengthen throughout the eleven years of my life since then. If you're anything like me, you likely have a similar tale of how your passion for the written word began. On the occasion that I tell people this story, though, or even sometimes when I just tell them that I'm a writer, one of the most frequent responses I get is something along the lines of "Okay, but why do you write?"

To be perfectly honest, I don't know.

I write because there are just 26 little letters in the alphabet, 26 arrangements of lines that appear meaningless unless you've been taught the sounds associated with them, and maybe I want to see how many combinations of them I can form.

I write because when it's late at night and the world is silent, my mind is anything but.

Maybe I write because I live in a society where a 19-year-old girl has little say in the real world, so I make up my own where I have all the say.

I write because my grandpa did.

I write because every piece that I create has molecules of me scattered throughout it, my rawest thoughts and feelings and very essence shining through the spaces between words like beacons of light crying, "Look at me!"

I write because maybe I'm a little bit dramatic, and I'm allowed to be when I do.

I write because "Belle and the Magic Pigtails" was never published, but maybe, if I'm lucky, something else of mine will be one day.

Maybe most of all, I write because I don't know how not to.

So no, I don't have a concrete answer to why I write. And maybe I don't need one. It's like being asked your favorite food when you can never choose between pizza and pineapple, or your favorite movie when your genre preference changes from day to day. It's fluid, but it's always there. Because for whatever reason, there's something in me, like there is in every writer, young and old, author and amateur, that needs to. It's as simple as that.