In elementary school I enjoyed writing and reading, and would write stories outside of the classroom and show them to my parents. But nothing to the extent of what I do now. But it was in seventh grade that everything changed. All the seventh graders at my middle school were required to a take a creative writing class as an elective with Mrs. Lauder. Little did I know that this would be the beginning to my writing career. Now most of my classmates moaned and groaned about how they didn't want to take the class, and would rather be taking a fun elective like art or P.E. They thought it was stupid that we had a separate class on just writing. But I was excited, and went into the class with an open mind. I enjoyed writing, and I told myself that the class would be fun. And oh boy was it more than that. My teacher taught us everything from how create a well developed story plot to describing the setting well. Some of the ideas were things I had learned before, but some weren't. We were given many different prompts and topics to write stories on, and my writing fever took over. My teacher noticed my writing and recommended me to join the library literacy and media association club (LLAMA) at school. So I did. This club was run by the librarian and we held weekly meeting in the library reading books, talking about books, writing, sharing stories we had written. Anything related to reading or writing. There were only five or six other people in the club, but it was so much fun. A specific moment I remember that changed me as a write forever was when the LLAMA club all went to downtown Denver to the literacy Conference. It was an all day event on a Saturday, and the librarian and other members from the club took the light rail down to the college where the conference was held. They had sessions run by different authors that you could attend. During lunch they had a an author there to talk to everyone. Her name was Lauren Myracle. I had never heard of her before then, had never read any of her books. But she talked about how she started writing and was encouraged to pursue it, and even though it took her a while to become a published author, she kept at it. I was so inspired her hearing her talk. Immediately after her talk I went and stood inline to be one of her books. She had written a series that was in instant messaging format (tells you how long ago this was) about three teenage friends on their journey through high school. After waiting thirty minutes in line to purchase her book, I went home and I was so excited. I told my parents all about the conference and what Lauren had talked about, and how I was going to be a writer no matter what they said. I immediately pulled out a pen and paper and began jotting down a story idea. I have no idea what it was now, not sure if I ever wrote the story, but at the time, I thought it was gold. My parents were so excited that I had found something that I was passionate about so were immediately open to supporting me. I began writing every second of every day I could. Short and long stories, about anything that would pop into my head. I would share some of them with my parents or my brother, but there were just too many. The summer before my freshman year of high school my mom decided that she wanted to get someone to help me with my writing. She liked my writing, but wanted someone who was a writer themselves or really knew writing to give me feedback. So we hired a writing tutor who was a language arts teacher at my middle school, but I had never had. She worked with me every week reading stories I had written and giving my critiques. This was very helpful having someone other than my family reading my writing and giving me feedback. I went into high school, and my writing became even stronger.
And so here I am, nine years later, still writing, working on the biggest project ever. All because of Mrs. Lauder, LLAMA club, and my writing tutor. I am writing a book. Not just an extended story, but a full length, full fledged book. It is called The Leap, and is a book about self discovery, love, family and life. I began writing it my freshman year of college, so it has been two years in the making. And I am getting closer and closer to finishing it. I am hoping to have it done by spring break (the beginning of March) but may have it done sooner. It depends on how much I have to work on it in the next few months.
It is by far the biggest project I have ever started. But I am enjoying every part of it. It is really cool to see the journey of it, how it began, and how it got to where it is now. I am sort of sad to see it coming to an end, but I am so excited to share it with others and get feedback.