I'm A Writer - Contest

I've decided to write about how writing found me and how it's is, and is going to, change my life for the better. This is an entry for a contest called You Are A Writer by PositiveWriter.

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The story of how I came to write is sort of confusing seeing as I don't remember all the pieces. I do know, however, that it started when I was very young. Even as a child of a single mother, I had everything I wanted and can't remember a single time that I was ever upset about not getting something. The "toy" I remember most, however, was a simple waitress booklet that my mom used when she worked. I remember the way it looked, how it folded open and had a yellow pad of paper on one side and pocket for papers on the other. In the middle was a little pen holder. I remember my mom giving it to me when I asked, and letting me keep it. I remember going into the strange walk in closet off the living room and sitting in there to write.

The closet was built for three little girls. There were three coat hooks, three benches that opened, and three shelves. I loved it. I would sit on one of the benches and write my stories. Once, I remember walking out with a story written on the yellow paper. It was my very own spin off of The Three Little Pigs, called The Three Little Wolves and instead of getting their houses knocked down, they ran into the forest and told their mom about the bully Pig that was picking on them.

Of course, I wasn't more than five or six at the time, so I probably couldn't spell and wasn't full of original ideas, but I loved it and I had no idea why I'd rather sit in a closet and write in a waitress notebook than play with my little sister or wrestle with my brothers. I'm pretty sure that once I ran out of paper in the notebook that it was forgotten, but that's not the end of my story.

Two years after I moved to a new state, I moved to a new house again and got a little journal. Probably just two inches by three inches, I can still remember the blue cover. I wrote in it, promising to make it an everyday thing. After a few days I wanted to hide it, to keep it secret, so I stuck it under my mattress, where I lost it for months. I didn't find it until I was changing rooms and taking my bed with me to the basement.

There must've been stories in between that journal and sixth grade, but that one that I still have saved in an email was called GIRL and it was sort of like Twilight before Twilight was anything. It was about a boy who changed schools and met a girl who was practically claimed by a boy named Eli. This story didn't get very far, but it was stepping stone.

The next year my mom bought me a new journal. It was a hard cover and sort of looked like it belonged to a Twilight theme, which I loved at the time. I had pages of poems and stories taped to my bedroom door and writing had become an everyday thing. In this journal I wrote everything I couldn't say out loud. I was in an unhappy place in my life and at thirteen and fourteen, I couldn't see a way out. In my journal I wrote about not feeling accepted in another new school and the problems I was having with my mom. I wrote about my weight issues and how sad I was all the time. These were things I wouldn't tell anyone. Instead of confessing that I wasn't eating, I wrote poems in my journal about just wanting to be the girl people thought I should be and wanting to be skinny, like my mom and my sister.

For me, writing became a way to feel better and get out of my head. I confess that it wasn't all good. Looking back at it, my writing skills were nonexistent, but just writing set me on a path that I will never stray from. To this day, going into my senior year of high school, I can't open that journal without crying and wondering how I ever felt so sad.

After seventh grade, I found the wonder that is online writing websites. I started by just reading what others were writing. I spent hours reading stories of unknown people. They weren't famous or making a lot of money, but they loved what they were doing and they were doing it for the hope of someday being as good of a writer as the greats.

When I was in eighth grade, the drummer of my favorite band died and the writing site (this writing site), which hosted many fan-fiction stories about the band, went crazy with distraught fans who felt that the world was missing something now. Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan was one of my idols. Not only was he one of the reasons I'd started the drums in sixth grade, but he was crazy in the best kind of way and I believed in everything that he was.

So, after crying all night long and hoping it was either a sick joke or publicity stunt for their new album, I took to my laptop and starting writing a story about his death. It was a fan-fiction like many others, but it focused on the feelings and the consequences of grief. It took me five months to get the courage to post it here on Mibba, but I finally did it and my life was changed irrevocably.

In the three and a half years, I've evolved from being a fourteen year old, eighth grader with passion, to a seventeen year old, high school senior with a talent and a passion that is going to take me places. Because of my writing, one of my previous teachers offered to write me a recommendation letter to college. Just the idea that I could be good enough to deserve such help means the world to me.

Not only have I been writing since I was a child, I'm going to be writing until I'm too old to type or hold a pen. Someday, my time is going to come where arthritis takes my hands and keeps me from doing what I've always done. But I figure that by that time comes, I'll be able just to talk to my computer and it'll write down my words.

Writing has always been there for me. From when I was in first grade until now. It got me through a depression, about fifteen new houses, being the new kid again and again, and is now shaping my future. Without writing, I see myself stuck in a lower middle-class lifestyle. While I love my family and I'm so grateful for what my mom has done for me, I have a chance to do more and I owe it all to the fact that writing found me.

In my darkest days, in my happiest moments, writing was there. I've told my journals more than I've ever told a human. Words are just... they're a way to make others understand and a way to express emotion. I don't just want to write, I want to influence. I want to take a series of words that people use everyday and make them into art; make them beautiful. I love writing because I can make people cry, smile, believe, identify, understand, and accept. In my own little Mibba world, I make a difference, an impact. Without writing, I never would've.

I've always been an artist. I've always been in love with music and books. I've always loved the stories they told and the way they made people feel. They take normal people out of their ordinary lives and drop in the pages of the greatest adventures, love stories, and tragedies and let them experience it for themselves. I want to do that. I want to expose people to raw emotion, new places, and a way to arrange words that they could never.

My story is simple. As a child, I wrote. As a kid, I wrote. As a teen, I wrote. And now, on the edge of being an adult with my entire life in front of me, I'm going to write. Because I'm a writer and I always have been. Writing is my past, my present, and it creates my future.

I wouldn't ask for a better life, because writing isn't just a talent or a hobby, it's a lifestyle. I live so many lives at once. In the pages of my stories, I'm there. In the wording, the character's flaws and unique tendencies, I'm there.

I'm no longer just a little girl with dreams to big to fulfill. I'm not the chunky girl with the long hair who never fit in. I'm not just Maddi. I'm the girl who loves stories, texts with perfect grammar, and who has written 700,000+ plus words in the last three years. I'm a writer. It's all I love and all I am. I wouldn't change it for the world.
August 6th, 2013 at 11:10am