I've been writing avidly since I was about eight or 9 years old. Basically, any notebook I could get my hands on I would instinctively want to fill with pages and pages of stories, or poems, or thoughts. It was an urge I couldn't ignore. Usually, when I wasn't reading, I was writing. Eventually, I started typing my stories in addition to writing them down, and I became really good at typing (even if it was only with two fingers at first). More often than not, I would go to the library during recess to write longhand, then type up what I'd written. At the end of fifth or sixth grade, one of the librarians came up to me and asked if I wanted to save my writing on a floppy disk, because all the files would be wiped off the computers at the end of the year and she didn't want to see all my writing go to waste. At the time, I thought this was really silly -- not because she was offering to save my writing on a floppy disk, but because I didn't intend for anyone to read or even see it.

I wrote because I enjoyed it. I could be occupied for hours with paper and a nice pen. Writing also became a sort of coping mechanism. When the world got to be too much for me, I would write about it. If I was in a bad mood, I would try to work it out by writing it down. I also did it with the hope that one day I would get published -- but then I wouldn't even let my own mother read what I'd written. I knew I couldn't get better without some criticism, but I didn't know if what I was writing was even any good, so I didn't really have the confidence to show it to anyone. It wasn't like my work never saw the light of day -- I submitted some short stories for small writing contests at school, and I even tried to start a class paper a few times, but for the most part I kept it under wraps.

After a few years, the fervor with which I wrote started to fade. I started to get writer's block way more frequently, and often the desire to write came when I didn't have any ideas, so I would just stare at a blank page for a while before getting frustrated and giving up. Because of that, I started to think I just wasn't able to do it anymore. How can anybody be a good writer if they can't even think of a single sentence? My notebooks started to fill up with half-finished ideas, some only a few paragraphs in length, and when I went back through them I only saw pages of writing with thick X's drawn over them to signify that I'd abandoned the project.

When I got to be a senior in high school, I had the opportunity to take a creative writing class. I was very excited, but pretty apprehensive, as well. It had been a while since I'd written much of anything of my own volition, and I hadn't ever really written creatively for a grade before. I was concerned about being able to present quality work while also meeting the deadlines. The first few assignments proved to be relatively easy, and I started to hit a stride again. What really encouraged me, though, was the feedback I got from my teacher. It was just the right balance of praise and criticism that raised my authorial self-esteem, while also putting me on the right track to make my work better. Writing was starting to be fun again. I still hit a wall sometimes (writer's block strikes at the most inopportune moments), but it wasn't anything I couldn't work through.

When I came to college, I started writing to cope again, and I loved it even more for its therapeutic nature. Then one day, while I was thinking about what major I wanted to declare, I thought about how much I missed writing and wanted to go back to it, so I took another creative writing class. This one was a little more intense, being that it was a 200-level college class, but I felt even more challenged and even more satisfied with what I was creating. The criticism I got was more specific, and I was able to improve my more upon my work. It was then that I knew I wanted to write professionally, regardless of what anyone said the market for writers was like.

In a nutshell, I write because it's what I'm truly passionate about. I'm happiest when I'm creating something, whether it's a story, or a poem, or a blog post. I write because it's still an urge I can't ignore, and one I know I shouldn't. I write even when I don't really feel like it because I know that I can always revise. I write even when I'm down on myself because even if I don't like it then, I always appreciate it more when I can look at it again with fresh eyes. I write because I love to, and I don't know what else I'd be doing if I didn't.