At the start of every school year, teachers always propose the same question: What are your academic strengths and weaknesses?  For strengths, my answer has remained the same for years; writing. I consider my history with writing interesting to say the least. 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 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 jokes, comics, murder mysteries, and so many other kinds of interesting stories.  I even made some short series, like Vampiressa and Stolen Then Missing.

Coming from a gifted and talented elementary class, I was always open to the idea of sharing my stories with my friends and classmates.  We had all been in the same class for five years, and some of my friends were amazing writers, so I was always happy to take in their input to improve my writing.  My writing was not super strong, and I had yet to find my identity as an actual writer. I think this was a major turning point in my writing history. Understanding that you can always do better is what makes you do better.  If I were to have had the mentality that my writing was outstanding (which it was very far from), I would have never been able to truly call myself a writer and improve myself.

With that comfortable feeling, my best friend and I published The Fight For Survival on a website called Wattpad.  It was a twenty-four chapter apocalyptic fiction story following a group of teenagers through their everyday lives during a zombie apocalypse.  Having an audience was pretty interesting because it got me to think: how can I blow their minds? This got me thinking outside the box. What new characters could I introduce to create tension within the friend group?  How could a character’s passiveness at the start of the story play a part in the ending?

I continued writing every day on Wattpad going into middle school.  However, my writing changed from short adventure stories to awfully sappy and cliché 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.  Unlike before though, I was reluctant to share my writing with anyone. No one-and I mean no one-other than my best friend, was to know about my stories.  The idea of having people who I barely knew read something like fanfiction put me into panic mode.  I felt that having people know that I spent so much of my time writing, fanfiction especially, would subject me to an unimaginable amount of ridicule.  With Wattpad it was different. I was not seeing my audience every day, nor did I have to see their menacing faces every day in the halls.  I wanted to keep it all my own little secret.

But one day, my worst nightmare came true.  I forgot my notebook in my science classroom.  I even remembered the exact location of it: next to my desk, on top of the radiator, in front of the calculators and notebooks.  I did not bother reacting to the situation, I just accepted the fact that my social life that had not even started was going to end.  A friend of mine in another class found it, and eleven-year-old me could not believe her ears when she was handed the notebook. My friend found it cool that I was writing fanfiction. I realized then that sharing my writing with strangers should not be something scary.  I should be open to the idea of getting a stranger’s opinion on my writing. That way, they would not feel compelled to sugar-coat their critiques to spare my feelings, because they had no reason to.

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 the idea 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?” and “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 from 8 years ago once again.