I fell in love with writing....
I mean I really fell in love with writing around first grade. I don't really know what started it but once I found my voice with writing, I became a storyteller. I convinced my mom to buy me a diary. I started telling my stories there. I would talk about what I did that day, describe what I hoped my future would be like and sometimes write poetry (we learned about Haikus that year and I was obsessed with poetry from there forward).
As an only child, I found that my imagination was my best friend. I was constantly creating these amazing stories of pretend in my head. I decided to put pencil to paper on some of them. In those early days a lot of my stories started with "Once upon a time..." or had main characters such as puppies and kittens but I loved that I got to create.
As time continued, I wrote longer diary entries, poems and stories. Hoping to someday be a published author. In high school, I got my first chance. I was selected to serve on Imprints, a newspaper column on Sundays that published stories and poems from local high school students. We met once a week (or maybe less, but that's not important) and "pitched out stories." If our idea was selected, we wrote it and it was published in the newspaper. It was amazing!
I had dreams of going into journalism for college and maybe I should have. At the time, I had dreams of staying closer to home, I didn't know if I could handle the nights and weekends of journalism. I wasn't sure if I was any good at writing so I didn't pursue any creative writing majors or English. Again, maybe I should have.
Instead I became a teacher. I try every day to instill a love of writing and reading in my students. Life got busy for a while so I didn't write (or read) for a long time (at least not as much as I wanted). Now, I'm back to it and hoping that I can share my writings with the world (or literally anyone besides myself).
-Natalie
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