From the farthest reaches of my childhood memory until today, I have always loved writing. I don’t remember ever being taught to write stories; it just sprung out of my heart naturally. After all, the world is built on stories, and we (especially as children) are surrounded by them; I absorbed them and let them flow back out. One of my first stories was a saga following a dog named Tucker. The story didn’t have an end, or any planned plot. I figured I would keep writing whatever came next until I reached the last page in the notebook. I gave not a second thought to this approach, because Tucker wasn’t about a story line for me. It was about creating Tucker's world, and giving him an exciting life. He was almost as real to me as real life, and delighted in all his adventures. Although I have continued writing throughout my entire life, I have significantly less time to do so now that I am in high school. I long to continue developing my skill and passion, but I am hindered by my lack of time to do so. But no matter how long I go without writing, or how rusty I feel when I return, writing greets me as the same powerful, lovely art that it always has been. I love how within the creation of stories there are infinite possibilities, and no limits or rules. Stories take words and make them more than words, to express wonders and questions, answers and emotions that can’t be said any other way. Recently, I have been exploring this facet of writing through poetry, which is a relatively new writing form for me. Branching out into new styles, such narrative poetry, has sparked significant growth in me as an author. Since the first time I put a pencil to a page, writing has been an integral part of my identity; I believe it would be disloyal to God and the identity He has given me to abandon it. In the fall, I will minor in creative writing at Taylor University. Although I already had a minor, I added creative writing because I couldn’t let it go. I want to be intentional about developing my skill and passion for writing, in a more committed setting than I could independently. I want to equip myself with the education to take my work beyond what the little girl who dreamed up Tucker ever would have imagined.