When I was a child, I used to do what I so creatively called “fake reading.” Fake reading entailed me picking up a book, even though I had not yet learned how to read and pretend that I was reading it aloud. I would give my own story to the book, sometimes based off the pictures sometimes it was just whatever story I felt like dreaming up.

I also remember being extremely devasted when I learned that in first grade, I would be learning how to read. Of course, my little six-year-old brain jumped to the conclusion that meant I would no longer be able to “fake read” and come up with stories. What wonderful news it was when my mother told me that even though I would be able to read the books, I could still come up with my own stories. Even better, I would be learning to write, and I would be able to write the stories down myself.

What a magically discovery, and before I even had the skills needed to write full sentences, , I started making my own books with the help of my mother. I would tell her what to write on each page, and then I would go through and illustrate the story. As I gained more and more skills, I started doing the writing myself, and I found more and more ways to explore this creative side of me.

 These early memories contribute heavily to who I am as a writer, and the encouragement from my parents shaped me significantly; however, I have one distinct memory in third grade when I started to feel I could rightfully call myself a writer. We wrote a story in class, I don’t recall the exact plot line, but it was a fairy tale with a twist sort of thing. My teacher thought mine was written very well and creative so she asked if she could print off copies and share it with the rest of the class. This was of course my crowning achievement to date as a third grader, so I happily obliged. My story got shared with everyone as a prime example.

I think this memory stands out to me as much as it does because it was my first bit of validation as a writer. My teacher recognized my skill and rewarded it. Which while we shouldn’t write solely for validation, we can all admit that it certainly does help. This bit of encouragement and recognition is what I pinpoint as the real beginning of my writing career, from that point on I knew at least one person believed in me(that didn’t have to believe in me because they weren’t related to me) , so I pushed forward and kept writing. As I went I was lucky enough to collect more and more mentors who encouraged me, and now here we are, a couple of self published books, a new novel and a beginning of a blog under my belt. So I’ll you with this, never underestimate your belief in someone, you never know what they will do with it.