For as long as I can remember I have loved reading and writing. There has been no point in my life when I hated it and some hip, new teacher came along and rapped Shakespeare, making me understand its importance. Growing up, everyone around me loved reading and writing and so did I. As a child, I would devour any and every book I could get my hands on, which eventually led to me trying to write. By reading and writing at an early age, I gained not just a love but a skill that would help help me throughout my life.

Being such an avid reader, I decided to challenge myself in the third grade and read the biggest book I could find: "Little Women." But 8-year-old me couldn't even stay awake to finish a chapter. Like, I literally fell asleep reading. Even now, I'm not a fan of the classics. "Lord of the Rings" was way too long and most of it was just describing landscapes, people, or history. Most people disagree, but the books just aren't fun to read for me. At the time, I thought this meant I was dumb and should be able to read it. Now I know, I was still figuring out what kind of books I liked and I won't like everything even if it is widely considered a great book. By middle school, I found my favorite book, "Eragon," about a boy who finds a dragon and then has to save the world. It was the best book ever at the time. I went back and read it about a year ago and, while I still loved it, I had grown as both a writer and reader to see where I felt it had failed.

Then, I found out the the author, Christopher Paolini, had actually started writing the book when he was 15, which inspired me to pursue writing as well. When I was about ten, I had a writing class. Unfortunately, the teacher was unqualified and just generally an asshole. We did plenty of writing, but we didn't get much feedback and I wasn't really sure how I was supposedly improving. Well, one day we had a group assignment to write a story using three words pulled from a hat. We picked bubble gum, light bulb, and kitten. We proceeded to write an absolutely ridiculous story. It was about a man who was shocked while changing a light bulb and chewing bubble gum simultaneously. He then gave birth to bubblegum kittens. That's right folks, the man gave birth to baby cats made out of the bubblegum. The kittens, then proceeded to wreak havoc on society, destroying buildings and cars and causing general chaos. Then King Kong showed up and ate the kittens. But wait, there's more! They, then ate King Kong from the inside out and took over the world, making all other living beings their slaves. We named the bubblegum kittens after our teacher and he was upset. I was told later that he cried. As a middle schooler, I found nothing more inspiring than deeply offending a teacher with my writing. My love of writing was renewed.

To my dismay, that experience did not automatically make me a good writer and I stopped any creative writing attempts until only just recently. Instead, I poured my efforts into essays for school. There, I was able to get solid feedback and actually learn how to become a better writer. By the time I was assigned my first research paper my Junior year of high school, I was ready to kill it. But I got a C....

I tried to look on the bright side and use the feedback given to write better papers and I did. I got As in my college composition classes and eventually realized this was the only thing for me. It wasn't until my sophomore year of college that I decided to immerse myself in the field completely. Since then, I have written almost non-stop and plan on continuing to do so.

I like to credit this to the books I read growing up and the books I read now. While I don't always have the time to read since I'm doing so much writing now, I still try to whenever I can. Reading has and will continue to influence my writing from stylistic choices to ideas for a new story or even just a different worldview to write about. I am a good writer, because I read.