The Beginning of Everything

(Journal #1) The start of my love for writing.

I’m not the kind of person who can sit down and listen to hours of information. I enjoy TED Talks about topics that interest me, but I couldn’t listen to one for hours. However, I can read for hours. Reading is something that my parents encouraged my sister and I to do when we were young, and we became so engrossed in most books that we would read everywhere. At camps, we would read instead of playing sports. Read during five minute or five hour car rides. Literature, both sophisticated and informal, is a format I understand and appreciate, and I grew up loving. One of the first books I read was “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” with my mom. It was the first time I connected with characters that didn’t exist, a concept that I couldn’t even wrap my head around. Never mind that it was a fantasy world- C. S. Lewis made me feel like I was there. It was books like that that made me want to learn how to create worlds and characters that people could connect with and relate to. When I got older, I was more interested in teenage fiction about more realistic stories. One of my all-time favourites is “She’s Come Undone” by Wally Lamb. Describing how the main character, Dolores, finds herself, and finds happiness, is something I connected with and wanted to follow. Over time, different authors and writing styles have shaped me and how I like to tell stories. I’ve been able to draw inspiration from their techniques and add them to my own style. Even from my first experiences, I knew that writing would change my life.