I'm a Writer, I'm a Writer, I'm a Writer...

When can you officially call yourself a writer? Is it when you publish your first novel, blog post, when you routinely write daily in a journal? Who knows, I think it is different for everyone. To me, I became a writer when I finished my first novel in November 2010. I have been writing since I was really, really young. It started with adding words to the picture books I was making and grew to novels by the time I was 11.

In middle school, we couldn't join a sport after school until seventh grade, so rather than being a normal kid and hanging out with my friends after school I was at home writing. I remember rushing home everyday after school to pop some popcorn in the microwave and run upstairs to my desk with the large dell desktop where I would type away for hours. It was a horror mystery story, maybe a little much for me to be writing at 11 years old, but it was inspired by the books I was reading. 

I was a strange pre-teen, I woke up extra early in the morning and curled up on the leather chair in the living room with a book and hot chocolate before I had to go to school. Then at school I would read, I read every second I could. So much so that I never did my english homework because I was too busy reading my own books. Despite my lack of attention to the actual class I did pretty well in the class anyway grade-wise, most likely because the teacher felt bad for me, I'm not so sure. 

So anyway in 2010 I discovered NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, the challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. The first time that I attempted it, I won and while nothing came out of writing that novel yet besides a self esteem boost and a cool addition to my resume, it was a great experience. This something I continue to take part in every november in addition to the writing I do year round. Hopefully sometime soon you'll find one of my novels on the shelves in Barnes and Noble, but for now I'll keep typing away.