A short story on the beginnings of my writing journey
I wrote my first book when I was in the fourth grade.
I spread out across my bedroom floor with a freshly sharpened pencil and a blank notebook flipped open before me; vivid ideas swirled in my mind like wind through a cloud-filled sky.
Hours later (how did my hand not cramp?!) I had a dulled pencil, fifty barely-legible pages, and a basic beginning, middle and end. My thoughts were spilt onto the page. All of my ideas were realized.
At ten-years-old when I had a story to tell, I told it.
As an adult I have 1,000 stories to tell but 10,000 anxieties suppressing them.
Why was it so much easier for me to follow my passion when I was a kid?
….would you rather know about what that first book was over me having an existential crisis? Ya, me too.
I called it “Vampirates”.
Of course this novel of mine had absolutely nothing to do with the series I was binging at that time called Vampirates, written by Justin Somber……
Okay, okay. Maybe it was. But I wouldn’t recognize my novel for what it is until years later:
Fanfiction.
Still, I had done it. I had taken a story that wouldn’t stop playing in my head like a catchy commercial jingle and I made my vision come true. Ten-year-old me dreamt, did, and was done with a completed project.
The second novel was written around the same time as my first. This one doesn’t yet have a title, but it consisted of about 48 pages and the plot revolved around a girl and her horse……and an alien.
Not at all inspired by another book I had been reading at that time… Stormy, Misty’s Foul by Wesley Dennis. His novel didn’t have any aliens in it though. That was my own personal twist.
Gaping at my masterpieces I was certain of my future fate, and by the end of elementary school I had decided that I was going to be a writer.
That was it. My true career. Goodbye indecision, I was graduating the fifth grade with a made up mind and a real life adult career set before me.
And though over the next eight or so years I decided with certainty upon other careers as well, I did always come back to writing like I had predicted.
After elementary school, as kids can, my dreams flipped like a switch with no questions asked.
The flip-flopping started when I became obsessed with animals. Suddenly I wanted to be a vet and writing became a hobby without a second thought. Simple. Animals + Love = career, duh!
When I started middle school I knew that I was going to go to vet school, learn the technical doctory terms and spend the rest of my life saving animals from life threatening injuries. That was that. Wasn’t it?
It wasn’t.
Soon after, I discovered that someone had to watch over animals in the zoo too. I quickly found my new dream was to be an exotic animal trainer instead (still a dream job of mine)
….but then I enrolled in theatre in my final year of middle school.
Let’s be real my 13-year-old self thought, I was really meant to be an actress.
No, wait, the councilors office had everyone take an employability compatibility test and the computer told me that I was destined to be a zoologist. Since I still liked animals, that diagnostic made sense to me. I couldn’t believe I ever thought I could be an actress. What was wrong with me? I couldnt even act!
Going into high school I followed the path towards zoology just as the computers insisted. No more switching. Right?
Wrong. I flip flopped between acting, dancing, and business through freshman, sophomore, and junior year. I always reverted back to zoology though, keen on creating a successful future for me
….. And then I nearly failed AP Environment Science along with honors Biology. I aced AP Literature and AP English (…not an indicator at all..). Suddenly I had to reassess my college plans. Was I really cut out for the sciences? I had to grappled with the fact that I wasn’t dumb, but that I just think in a different manner. I struggle to view the world in science terms, so what was I actually good at?
Felt like nothing at the time.
I was purging my belongings when I happened upon destiny, one sunny, senior-year day. In a weirdly 20s looking suitcase the size of a Maltese I found my keepsakes. In my keepsakes there were loads of things such as a softball signed by my old team, Girl Scout crafts, and a heart-shaped box, but what really captured my attention were the slightly ripped and smudged pages lying at the bottom. I had rediscovered Vampirates and my unnamed alien-horse stories. I flipped through these books fondly, laughing at myself but also feeling a spark of excitement flitter through me. I was proud of what I had done (even though it was crap, let’s be real), and I loved the feeling of reading something I had composed all on my own (well, besides the fan fiction part). Why couldn’t I do something like this again?
I sat down at my laptop, stress accumulating in my shoulders as the rest of my classmates sent in their college application, and researched English programs. Literature? Education? My thoughts flitted back to my journals, to all the stories embedded in the details and doodles I had accumulated over the years. Creative writing was a safe option. Creative writing was something I knew I would enjoy. (Thank goodness I didn’t do zoology. I hadn’t really understood what it meant at the time.) I didn’t realize it at first, looking back upon my habits of constant journaling and reading, that Creative Writing was a natural part of me.
Even in college though, due to societal pressures, while I had been studying creative writing, I debated my “adult” career. Business Marketing made more sense. I loved kids and learning. Why shouldn’t I go for Early Childhood Studies and after that earn my teachers certificate? I was asked to be practical, not passionate. Creative writing just wasn’t a true degree. It was a fanciful time consumer that would be nice to do but no one wanted to due to the financial suicide it encompassed.
When I told people what I was studying I often received the following replies:
“Oh wow, I wish I could do that.”
“That’s really cool. What do you want to do with that? I’ve also heard its impossible to find jobs.”
“I love that you’re being unconventional and following your dreams.”
This was a bit disheartening at first. Then I realized that no matter what I chose to do with my life, I would always come back to writing. With writing I feel like myself. I can breathe easily and though the processes of being a writer can be exhausting and trying, I know the end results are worth it.
“When I grow up” I thought, at five, ten, fifteen, twenty. I’m only a year away from twenty-five and still I catch myself thinking, “when I grow up-”
Now I’ve grown up and I am a writer.
