I started keeping a journal at 8 years old, but my first piece of writing was when I was nine years old. It was for my class’s show and tell, and of course that means the class had to showcase a particular talent. It just came to me that I enjoy writing, so I wrote my first poem “Colors.” I really wish I knew where I put that copy, so I can transcribe the poem into this blog.

Why did I start writing to begin with? In addition to my passion for the written word, I’m a relatively awful orator — simple as that. I found that it’s really difficult to be interrupted when everything a writer thinks and feels puts all that on paper for others to read. I’m not a good orator; there are very charming and eloquent speakers, and I haven’t been one of them.

I keep motivated because I need an outlet to express myself. Doing it in a public setting — well, to be quite honest, I still don’t like to stand up there in public and talk. That’s the honest-to-goodness truth. And I still resent being interrupted when I’m in my expression mode (as has been the case with me on many occasions, but who hasn’t been there?). I hate to basically be told to shut up, and I don’t like being told my feelings are not ‘valid’ when I express them. Matter of fact, being told what to feel, how to feel or even *if* to feel is my number one pet peeve.

So I can be told to shut up or to be told that I’m ridiculous, overreacting, terrible, selfish, immature or insert whatever nonsensical adjective in there; and therefore, others can feel thumb-sucking justified in feeling superior than me, smarter than me, etc. But I won’t stop writing. Hell, I can’t stop writing — it’s in my blood. And as long as I have breath within me, I will continue writing until the end of my days.