I'm an English major. I study literature every day, absorbing the words of long-dead individuals, digesting the words of those currently writing. Everyday, I read words that others have written, and this makes me wonder what happens when people read the words that I have written. Right now, you, the reader, are looking at the combinations of letters in this article, internalizing their meaning, understanding it in a way that is perfectly unique to you. While readers take what they will from literature, the person who initializes it, who writes the words, is the most important person in this equation.

Writers are like magicians. They have the ability to create something from nothing, to create worlds and dimensions and hidden spots from which they pull their biggest tricks. For writers, magic can be a real, tangible object that they hold in their hands. Writers and artists have the unique ability to create magic and morph it, control it. They can create the past and create the future all while living in the present.

However, the real magic comes when people read their work, and feel the magic too. It spreads, it comes alive, it becomes something you feel.

When I'm writing, I feel magical. I feel the sense of limitlessness and infinite possibly. I can create whatever I want,. Existence lies at my fingertips. When I'm asked why I'm an English major or why I write fantasy stories, I like to come back to this analogy: writing is like falling in love.

When you fall in love, your significant other is the brightest thing in your life, your love together starts a fire in your heart that seems like it can't be put out. The thing about fire is that it burns. It burns hot and fast and bright and you can't seem to focus on anything else when you're standing in front of it. When you're looking at a fire in the dark, the darkness becomes pierce-able and less frightening.

But when the fire goes out, when your significant other leaves, the fire is gone and what is left is a darkness thicker than before. For a few minutes, you can't see anything at all, but then your eyes adjust and you realize that everything will be okay, it will just take time.

Writing does that for me—it keeps the darkness away. I can write about what scares me and have my characters conquer the fear. I can write about what makes me elated, and have that joy spread to other people. I can do whatever I want when I write—I can create a universe or destroy one; I can save the day, and in the next paragraph, find another conflict; or I can write, and create, endless, limitless love. I don't have to write about real events or people—I can create the people living in my mind, the ones begging to be heard.

I don't know why some people have stories living inside of them and some don't. I'll never know the answer to that, but I know why they're living inside of me: They need to be heard. The stories and the characters and the magic needs to be written, and if I'm the only one who knows their stories when it's all said and done, then that's okay. Someone heard them—I did. I believe Ernest Hemingway said it best:

"All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.”

Writing will always be a part of me and a part of my life. Nothing will change that. When one story is finished, another appears to take it's place. Like Halsey states in her song "Control," "...they beg me to write them so they'll never die when I'm dead." My stories will die with me, so I need to get them out while I'm here. I need to share my magic with those who will love it just as much as I do. I need to share it with the readers, the nerds, the outcasts. We all need a little bit of magic.