I Always Knew

I always knew that I wanted to write, and I always knew that I wanted to publish. My interest in writing changed as I grew, but it never faded away. It was always a huge part of myself. I’m sure many writers can relate to the feeling. When you hold a pen in your hand, it feels right. Or maybe you prefer a keyboard. Either way, it’s not about what is written or how it is written. It’s about expression and letting the world see something that you have created. It’s leaving a piece of yourself, a piece of your dreams, free to roam and be seen by those that wish to open themselves to another’s imagination.

In grade school, I wasn’t entirely interested in reading. I enjoyed stories, but after a few pages I couldn’t seem to keep interest. I don’t know what it was. It may have been that I just wasn’t looking for the right types of books. Maybe it was more that I didn’t enjoy what school had assigned and assumed that everything else would be the same. Or maybe, maybe I didn’t like that my mom was always trying to push me to read. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with wanting your kids to read, and it’s great that she cared enough to try so hard, but there’s something about someone telling you that you should do something; that sort of ruins the fun of it, especially at a young age.

Still, there had to be something that got the wheel turning. You don’t just decide you want to write when you don’t even like reading. How can you expect to have the focus for completing stories when you can’t even focus enough to read one? Poetry was my first step towards where I am now and where I’m still headed. Poetry can be a little odd at times, and I didn’t always understand it, but it was short enough to keep my attention and the words were always so pretty. It was a school assignment that got me to actually try writing some poetry myself. If you were to ask me how my first poem came out, I’d tell you that it is horrible. It’s a little cliche, very cliche really, and it was simple.

I’ve changed a lot since I wrote that first poem. I can hardly relate to it at all. The only thing that stuck from that poem up until now is my love for rhyme, but back then that poem said it all. I was simple, I was hopeful, and I saw spring as a beautiful thing. Looking at the poem now is like looking back at myself. My first poem is my first achievement. It is a marker of the first time I have ever truly felt accomplished or worthy of anything at all. After that poem, I kept going. Writing became a passion, an obsession. I was never able to stop, and I still can’t stop writing now.

Eventually, I started reading books. It took a lot of annoyance from my mom, and one special book in particular, to finally get me into reading. When I finally found a story I liked, I looked for more. I got lost in other worlds and began to think up my own. One day I started to write stories, then I went on to expanding my ideas until one day, I had a completed book. I suppose there is a lot more that could be said on the topic of my novel, but that is a story for another time.

Now I find myself eagerly awaiting December 10th, 2013, the release date of my collection of poetry, A Dark Escape. Poetry was the start to all that I have done in writing. It seems only right that it is the start to my journey in publication.