I’ve Always Been a Writer, Bitch

Blog Post 2: I’ve Always Been a Writer, Bitch.

When did I decide I wanted to be a writer?

When did I know?

Easy. Kindergarten.

I was already crafting fantastical stories—not just knights and princesses, but some real Stephen King, dark fantasy, sci-fi crossover energy. I had the imagination of a chaotic genius and the handwriting of a Catholic school prodigy. My teachers said I was gifted, and honey, I believed them. Because they weren’t wrong.

And reading?

Books were my cocaine.

I read like a little literary crackhead. That’s not hyperbole. That’s my truth.

The smell of a book—new or old—still does something to me. Hiding away in a corner, cross-legged, a novel in my lap (and not some baby picture book either, thank you very much)—that was my kind of high. I was the heroine, the protagonist, the sidekick, the villain. I lived in those stories.

When other kids were playing video games, I was deep into novels.

And let’s not even talk about the Scholastic Book Fair or Reading Rainbow. That was my Super Bowl.

I’d beg my parents for money, do chores, gather pennies like I was running a depression-era hustle, just to get books. I remember watching my mama write out that $5 check like it was a check for a car.

“Here, librarian. Now give me my damn books.”

The Babysitters Club. Sweet Valley High. Madeleine L’Engle. Goosebumps. Maya Angelou. Tolkien. Poe. Wordsworth. Toni Morrison. Mary Shelley. Stephen King. William Damn Wordsworth.

Line ’em up. I read ‘em all.

I had a milk crate bookshelf in my room in Alaska (Army brat life), and I’d stack my books like they were Crown Jewels. Pull one out with reverence. Flip the pages like they were sacred scrolls.By the time I was seven, I was reading my mom’s 400-page grown-folk novels—The Thornbirds, A Love Story, books on the Holocaust, world events, ancient civilizations, Civil War dramas, the Wild West… I understood the world before I understood people. But the world didn’t scare me. People did. And books? They saved me from them.

So when people ask me, “When did you know you wanted to be a writer?”

Since I was four. Since the day I could read a book by myself and disappear into someone else’s story.

I wanted to show the beauty of the world, like those writers showed me.

I wanted to let people get lost in something bigger than their pain.

And I still feel that today.

I love the way words can draw out emotion.

How an author can make you feel, see, hear, or rage—just by the rhythm of a sentence.

I love the poetic. I love the ugly. I love the eloquent and the cold-blooded.

I love words. I love books.

This love affair is no longer something I’m hiding or downplaying. It’s not something I’ll brush aside for the sake of a “real job” or anyone else’s comfort.

I’m a writer.

I’m a reader.

If I never become anything else (outside of being a mother), let me be that—until I take my last breath.