Ever since I was a child, I loved reading. I remember reading the Magic Tree House books to my dad for 30 minutes at a time to get in my required reading for the day. I would often want to read more and go over the requirement. I remember in third grade we had a contest to see who could read the most in the school year. Whoever won would get Chick-fil-A for lunch. I didn’t even have to try, granted Chick-fil-A was a huge incentive. I won with nearly double the amount of pages as the person who got second place. Long story short, I have always been a big reader, and reading and writing often go hand in hand.

I don’t remember ever really liking creative writing though, until I discovered it had no boundaries and I could write about literally anything. That was weird to me at first because it felt like lying. Now I know that although fiction may not be true, it’s often a way to write about certain feelings or events without directly saying it. There is always meaning behind it.

I had never thought of myself as a writer though until a couple of years ago. I heard about the Odyssey because my friends had began writing for them, so I decided to apply. I got the position and began writing articles. Some weeks would be easier than others, topics would come more easily, but it didn’t really matter because it never felt tedious.

I had written too, since I was young, whether it be in journals or in small story bursts, I was always writing, often without even realizing.

Now, as I came to college and have been trying to piece together a major and figure out what I want to do for the rest of my life, writing has presented itself even more prominently. I’m in a creative writing class and so far we’ve written a short story and three poems. I never thought writing fiction would be hard, or that poetry would come so easily to me. I’m good a journaling, writing narratives, not necessarily the creative stuff. Eventually I caught on.

Writing is an underrated art form. Everyone should write, daily. Write something, anything, besides texting or coming up with social media captions… unless you are texting or posting poetry. Writing is an easy way to vent and get your thoughts out, especially if you don’t feel like anyone is going to understand them. Through writing you can slowly begin to discover yourself, how you think, what you think about most, and many other things... so pick up a pen and discover yourself today.