Yep, I wanna be a writer (and yes, I said "wanna" instead of "want to" because the connotation is different. It's not grammatically incorrect if I want it that way). I know what you aren't going to say because you are most likely thinking it and predicting that you are 100 percent right. She can't make a living out of that. She's too young. She isn't the greatest at grammar. What can she make up that hasn't already been written down?

Don't worry. I'm used to it. Really, I am used to those thoughts, and I have been used to them since I was in the seventh grade and deciding that I could do this — I would do this. Yeah, I wanted to be a writer at 13 years old, and I am still believing in myself. Back then, I was so sure it would be easy because when you are a sheltered middle school kid, puberty seems harder than a grown up's reality. I just thought that if I wrote something down, and I walked into a New York Times office, I would get my chance. I'd be a 13-year-old with the most creative mind the world had ever seen, and who cared if I was socially awkward, head hidden behind a book or hunched over a notepad. I would be huge. I may even get a movie deal.

However, for all you skeptics believing that I still believe in that, it's quite the opposite. I understand that fighting for the life I want, desiring my words to be read, will not be easy. I will cry over it, like I already have, I will hate it, like I already have, and I will give up on it, like I already have. Nonetheless, I will keep going like an aspiring doctor, actor or a janitor. If you want something, it's going to be difficult. You just need to work for it.

Again, this is to clear the air between the skeptics and I. So you ask why I want to be a writer? Well, like I said, seventh grade happened ... and "Twilight" happened. Here is a writer who made millions off of sparkling vampires and my preteen brain thought (don't laugh) that I could write it better. So I stole all my dad's notepads and wrote two books with my own and Stephanie Meyers' characters, and my friends read it, telling me I had a gift. The ego boost was nice, but I wasn't in for the critique of other 13 year olds.

When I wrote ... when I write ... the characters I craft completely invade my mind. I think about them during class, I dream about them at night, and when I am not in class or sleeping, I am writing about them. I am them. It's a high that no drug can give. I have read so many books. I grew up with so many books. When I create people and imagine readers connecting with them the way I connected to Percy Jackson and Harry Potter, it made me hope.

I could change a kid's life just by using words. I had power and I didn't need to be seen, and I didn't need to scream. I whispered through my words and I could make mountains in a kid's head move the way a parent's words of wisdom couldn't.

Then I kept going, writing two books with my own characters, using notepads of course. Then I rewrote the first one two times on a computer and deleted my work in anger. I had started researching how hard it was to make it in the creative world of being an author. Every time I read my work, there were grammar mistakes and plot holes — more red than black ink.

So I wrote another book. I couldn't finish because I gave up.

Then I wrote another one. I didn't finish it either.

I had no plan. I was a sophomore in high school and I had no plan. I would read earlier work and be disgusted because I didn't sound like the authors I read when I was growing up. I couldn't be like them. I was overeager, taking up flash drive and desk space. I had a notebook full of book ideas, but I didn't think they were original enough. Would they wow anybody.

I wrote four hundred pages and stopped because I was letting teachers hint that my writing needed work, I was letting my friends dictate how they wanted my stories to go, and I was letting myself psych me out. I had original work in my head, and i couldn't get it out because I was actually choking.

Then I won a poetry slam. I never wrote poetry in my life, and I received five out of six perfect scores at my school poetry slam. I spent weeks writing that poem, I preformed in front of a mirror three times a day, and when the time came, I preformed it in front of those friends and teachers, and as I surprised them, I surprised myself.

That weekend, I never wrote like that. I just ... wrote. I couldn't stop. I wouldn't stop! For so long, I felt like I wasn't good enough, like I would never make it to some author's caliber. However, at that poetry slam, it wasn't the applause or the scores that made me celebrate.

Those were my words ... and they moved people. I did it. Now, I just want to do it again.

So yes, I wanna be a goddamn writer. I want a movie deal. I want a thick ass book with my words spilling out of it, and I will make all my friends who don't like reading stick their faces in it. Maybe my book will change them. Maybe my books will change them. Maybe my books will change everyone who doubted me. Writing is my life. I have a long way to go. My grammar sucks because I am too excited to keep my words at bay, but that's what editing is for. And my head is swimming with ideas (yes, I started a sentence with "And," as a writer, I can do that. I make my own rules.) I am not alone either.

My characters are right their with me.