Growing up, I was always flowing with creativity and energy. I loved imagining I was roaming the streets of Paris clad in a striped turtleneck topped with a beret, sipping on a coffee in a cafe with a view of the Eiffel Tower. Some situations were way out of the ordinary, like the one where I was stranded on a barren planet full of giant foods.  Conjuring up scenarios like this was like second nature to me, and writing gave me the ability to relay these stories and make them worthwhile.

   The first time I can recall truly enjoying writing and doing it consistently was at the age of eight in the third grade. At the start of the school year, my teacher told us about our writing journal. She said in this journal, we would have to write every night about anything we wanted. My classmates sucked their teeth, but I sat there excited with my eyes wide and gleaming already creating stories in my head. I always looked forward to sitting at my stained brown coffee table, taking out that pink and black checkered notebook, and writing the first idea that popped in my head. I wrote awful jokes, comics, murder mysteries and so many other kinds of interesting stories. I even made some short series, like Vampiressa and Stolen Then Missing.

   From then on, I always considered English my favorite subject. Though essays were tedious and reading passages was tiresome, creative made up for all the negative feelings I felt towards other assignments. In fifth grade, I had a fictional narrative assignment. Minecraft was the fad at the time, and I wrote six pages about my friends and I venturing out around the vast realm and coming across a glitch in the game named Herobrine.  My best friend and I even published a story online on a website called Wattpad called . It was a 24 chapter apocalyptic fiction story following a group of teenagers through a zombie apocalypse. Writing it out and tying loose ends was tough, but the satisfaction I felt after completing and publishing a new chapter drove me to expand my writing repertoire.

   I continued writing everyday on Wattpad going into middle school. However, my writing changed from short adventure stories to awfully sappy and cliche fanfiction about a band called 5 Seconds of Summer. As embarrassing as it is to admit, at one point I became so engrossed with writing fanfiction that I filled an entire notebook with ideas and writings.

   Now, the flame that was my love for writing has burnt out. The last full-length story I wrote was around 3 years ago. I always have these spurts of inspiration and creativity every once and a while, but by the second or third paragraph it ends up bleak and I give up on it completely. Rather than being a hobby, now writing feels like a chore. And at times like that, I always ask myself why can I not write anymore? What could possibly be the reason as to why I stopped doing something I loved so much? These questions constantly bore through my head and I have yet to find the answer. For now, all I can do is push myself to keep writing every day and see where it takes me. Obviously that spark of creativity will not come immediately, but patience is a virtue. Hopefully, I can get to where I want to be with my writing and feel that excitement again.