I was the kid who loved writing in school; I was the kid who struggled with meeting the page requirement for essays. Probably not in the way you're thinking though--instead of having the reaction of absolute dread that my classmates all shared when a five page paper was presented to us, I was the one who sat and sighed that my paper only had to be five pages.

When I decided that I wanted to take this whole writing thing away from just a school environment, I didn't think much would come of it.

The question I got from people who couldn't believe that I actually liked to write in my free time, and not get graded for it, was why--why would I want to do this? I must be some kind of crazy person. Well, that hasn't been disproven yet (shrug).

My answer is simple: I love to write. Try to get me to talk to you for hours on end, and you probably won't be very successful (unless you're really freaking cool). Give me a pad of paper, and I can bust out long, never-ending paragraphs about the most mundane of topics in minutes. It's absolutely ridiculous, and I hate it sometimes. I wish I could turn and talk to any stranger I see on the street. Life would be so much easier.

But I think people talk too much about nonsensical crap that doesn't actually mean anything. Why add to that?

I want to move people with my words. When you think about it, it really is amazing, putting your thoughts down on a piece of paper, allowing hundreds, thousands of other people to look over them, and most certainly judge them. Whether you know it or not, you're silently judging me right now. But that's okay.

To me, this is the most vulnerable a person can get. By reading my words, you have a first-class ticket right into my head. Thoughts that I have never spoken to another soul have been written down and read by god knows who. My heart is on my sleeve. It's scary.

But also exhilarating. I sincerely appreciate all of the comments from friends and loved ones, comments about how much they enjoyed reading one of my pieces and how they now expect novels (hahaha). Up until a couple of months ago, I never let anyone, besides teachers, read anything that I wrote. This is all new to me, and apparently something I shouldn't have been so hesitant to do.

Writing is a release. Right now, I'm sitting at my kitchen table after a long day of classes, sipping tea, watching a freighter traverse the water, beautifully lit up in the darkness, fading out of view, my favorite rock station playing in the background, and my perfect little cat curled up in the rocking chair behind me. But you would never know that. Cool, isn't it? (Writing--not my pathetic excuse for a Wednesday night).

Yes, I love it. No, I don't plan on stopping.