I would not be half the person I am today had I not spent my entire childhood reading. I read for both pleasure and knowledge from an early age, finding it easy to disappear in words. I knew almost from the get-go that I wanted to do that someday: make the stories that appeared on the shelves. There wasn't a specific book that made me think, "I could do that." After writing for upwards of a decade now, I have a couple that come to mind that I thought I could do better than, and they serve as a sort of competitive inspiration. I was extremely interested in a few series when I was young, including but not limited to Harry Potter, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Percy Jackson, which taught me the joys of mystery and intrigue. I experimented with books discussing philosophy and media literacy in my teen years that developed a purpose to the stories I was creating. They no longer were blabbering tales, but instead had a purpose and intention behind every character in every scene that helped everything to feel more real. When I was about eleven, my mom brought me a book from the high school library about how to write a book, and I think I asked her to re-check it out for me about thirty times. It was called "Dear Ally, How Do You Write A Book?" by Ally Carter, who had written a few series I had skimmed over the years. The book detailed everything from the conception of an idea to the copyright sale. I learned how to formulate a plot and keep people interested in books as an artform. I consider that book the catalyst of my dreams of becoming an author; if it isn't directly responsible, then it at least was the factor that sent me head-first into the world of serious writing. I think you could make the argument that every book you ever read makes an impact on you, even if it isn't a big one or a very positive one. You can never eliminate a story from your brain once it enters, and reading stories taught me that I could create that phenomenon for other people if I did it well enough. My stories are a combination of every story I have ever read and every lesson I ever learned, many of those lessons coming from said stories. The books I read taught me to dream big, but they also taught me the skills to achieve those dreams. My dreams are still every bit as big as they were when I was small. I think every big dreamer I know is a reader. When you read of every possibility as a child, it seems impossible not to dream big.

I needed to be better than my brother. Even at seven years old, I knew that I needed something to make me feel better than my brother. Naturally competitive and three years younger, I had yet to find my "thing." A simple school assignment changed all of that for me. My brother was in fourth grade and needed to write a story for his English class on my mom's computer; naturally, I was jealous because he got extra time on the computer! I asked my mom if I could have a turn, if I could try writing something on there, and she said no. So, being the petulant child I apparently was, I whipped out one of my handwriting notebooks and started a story inspired by Laura Ingalls Wilder, whose books I was reading at the time. I chose the name of the sister of a friend of mine for my main character, and something was written in the stars: this was going to be my thing. I kept going, obsessively, and soon far surpassed the linguistic abilities of my older brother, who expressed surprise when my work was good enough for him to plagiarize for another school story when he was in seventh grade. It was a crazy full-circle moment. He knew his work in fourth grade inspired me to start writing and now, three years later, he was taking inspiration from my work for another school assignment. That was all writing ever was to him: a school assignment. I preferred it that way. I've always thought of my older brother as a mega-genius, the type of guy you can ask about anything and he'll know something about it; I just wasn't like that. His writing, though infrequent these days, is good. I never wanted him to take much of an interest in it because it was the first thing I ever felt better than him at --- and that's probably petty, but it remains true. I have been writing for just over a decade now, and the effects are visible. It remains the only thing in the world I consistently crawl back to. My English grades have skyrocketed, and I am often responsible for editing the essays of my peers. I don't think I could live the rest of my life the same way if writing wasn't a part of it. I use it to show off my other interests; I use it to show off, too. You can't live more than half of your life with a hobby and not feel like you wouldn't be the same without it; it becomes an intrinsic part of you, a habit of a lifetime. It becomes a piece of your heart, and the idea of living without it becomes unbearable. It changes who you are. It grows up with you. And, in the blink of an eye, you can't imagine growing up without it.