I love to write, and have ever since I was in elementary school. My mom could tell you stories about how my third grade teacher had sparked this love of mine, and I think it had to do with how often we were writing stories. Third grade is when you start to learn how to put coherent ideas into categories: the beginning, middle, and end, and you'd be using these bubble sheets to put things together, et cetera. All throughout my years I had strong relationships with my English teachers as they helped spark my creativity, and I spent a lot of my free time writing; I had the motivation, the ideas, the drive, and the push in order to better myself as a writer. It was a nice time because I could just put on music on my iPod and fill the pages of my notebook for hours on end; my family encouraged me to even consider to be a writer when I grew up.

But the older I became after I started college, the more dulled down my brain became, it seemed; I was losing motivation to write, and I didn't have the spark to do so anymore. Everything else was more important: the immense amount of school work I had to do, working, friends, taking time to rest... Once in a blue moon, I'd get an idea (during the most inconvenient time when I didn't have a notebook to write in or was in the middle of a meeting), but because I couldn't stop everything to write it out, it would rarely come to fruition.

I took a class in high school during my senior year where I would have to write different pieces of writing a few times a month, and the majority of them were some kinds of fiction. This kept me in check because I had deadlines to address, an audience to write to, and an idea of what I needed to do: If I had to write a horror story, that's what I was going to be writing about. But none of those factors exist today, and it's left me feeling lost as a result, whether I like that idea or not.

I love to write; I want to write; that's part of the reason why I'm here creating all these articles, because I need to feel that closeness to my love of writing again (how many times can I say 'write' in this article?). I used to be able to fantasize and articulate about these long lost worlds with colorful characters getting into mischief and trying to right wrongs, but nowadays, it feels like I don't even know how to formulate my thoughts anymore; what I'm thinking isn't translating onto paper. The last time I tried to do this - around a month ago - it felt like I was trying to pander to an audience that wasn't even there instead of making myself happy: I used to write for me, and people just so happened to dig it, too. No character I write about today feels like a character I used to write, and that isn't necessarily a good thing because it means I've lost my mojo.

I made a promise to myself that I would write a book someday; hopefully I can still keep that promise.