My journey as a writer didn’t always involve a pen and paper or typing on a laptop, but it did always include my imagination and excitement for storytelling, even if I didn’t always realize that storytelling is what I was doing. I was just having fun. But that’s getting ahead of myself.

 

I was five when I wrote my first book. I was sitting at the kitchen table, doodling on a bunch of pieces of pink, scrap paper and writing words to go along with the pictures. The doodles were of a stick figure princess and her dog because, for some reason, my five-year-old mind was baffled that princesses always had cats or horses and never any dogs, so I decided to write a story starring a princess with a dog. 

It was titled The Princess & the Dog.

 

I was more of an artist than a writer as a kid. I loved drawing, painting, anything to do with creating pictures, whether they were of people or landscapes, or just abstract. And I wasn’t half bad. 

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Living in my imagination was how I escaped my lonely reality of being a dialysis patient. I’ve been part of the medical/chronically ill community for as long as I can remember, and it hasn’t been the easiest existence, but drawing, creating, always made it better. 

 

Which is where storytelling comes in. I started creating fictional worlds and characters for me and my little brother, and eventually, other young kids living in our neighborhood. Some days, we were superheroes or vampires, spies, or musketeers, and sometimes, we were a sword-wielding princess (me) and a cat (my brother). 

 

As I grew older, I started to drift away from our fun, fictional worlds, and it scared me. I didn’t want to lose my imagination, so I started drawing comic books on loose-leaf paper featuring the fictional characters my brother and I pretended to be as kids, and I had a blast. Although it wasn’t the most practical storytelling outlet for me, I did have a lot of fun. 

 

At the same time, while dealing with depression, I would watch television (My love for reading took a hiatus at this point). My favorite shows were The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, Once Upon a Time, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Gotham, Reign, etcetera. I was excited by the adventures, the characters, romances, and friendships.

 

I would describe the settings and outfits in my head, and sometimes, I would disagree with the characters’ decisions. I started wondering if maybe I could write or create something better or equally entertaining and exciting, and thankfully, I still had the characters from my imaginary childhood adventures in my back pocket, so I opened my laptop, went to a Google Document, and started typing. 

 

My stories were messy, to say the least. Extremely rough drafts of amazing stories. 

 

When I rediscovered my love of reading, I started to see how I could better my stories, meaning paragraph and sentence structure, dialogue tags, story details, descriptions, and so on. Seeing other writers’ fictional worlds and skills really helped sharpen my editor mindset.

 

I spent years exercising my writing muscles, living in my imagination, and getting to know the various worlds and characters that lived inside my mind. I loved every minute of it. I loved writing.

And while I still would draw or paint, writing became my main focus. 

My happy place. 

 

At sixteen, I decided to pursue publishing. I decided independent publishing was the best fit for me, and I started preparing the first official book of The Masks Series for beta readers. And that decision marked an entirely new point in my writing journey, the beginning of my author career. 

 

Of course, this is an overview of my writing journey. There are many little details, including laughter, pride, frustration, doubt, and more that I didn’t share, and maybe someday, I will, but for now, I think, those are just for me. I will say that I’ve officially been a writer since I was thirteen, but I’ve been a storyteller since I was five, and I’ve always loved it. 

It’s part of me. And for that, I’m grateful.