Just like many writers before me, I  was introduced to the wondrous world of story-telling –with dragons, and swords, and protagonists facing seemingly-insurmountable obstacles pretty early on. I still remember the first day I realized that the thoughts in my head, the people I made up and the worlds I created from nothing, could be transferred to paper. I was telling my kindergarten teacher a story that I made up inside my head. My teacher, always searching for a lesson opportunity, encouraged me to "write it down" so that I could show my parents. She stapled sheets of printing paper together, handed me some finger paint and markers, and just like that –I wrote my first "book".  She helped me carefully write down the words to my story, and later that night, I read my "book" about going to get pizza with a princess and a penguin to my mom. 

       Throughout the rest of elementary and middle school, I became an avid reader and daydreamer. I can't count the number of times I "drifted off into La La Land" (a term teachers affectionately coined when I started daydreaming) in third grade during class. 

For me, books were the closest thing to actual, real-world magic. They captivated and engulfed me. For hours, I could be laying in my bed (WAY past my time) traveling to worlds I had never seen before, hanging off of each word, and gasping any time the protagonist did something risky or narrowly escaped an intense situation. 

     But I believe the thing that set the foundation for my love of writing was my daily third-grade journal prompts. Every day, my incredibly-inspiring and fun-but-no-nonsense teacher would make us write a story in correspondence with a prompt on the board–I LOVED doing journal time. Sitting in that classroom with my journal and pencil in hand, I learned something that would become infinitely valuable in my life. You mean...I can write about anything? I can make stuff up? Anyone can write a story–like the ones I read? 

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