Recently, I moved home from college for the summer, and upon doing so I have run into many locals who appear to have read my Odyssey articles. People I haven't seen in over a year will approach me and tell me how much they love my writing. These compliments have made me think a lot about why I began writing in the first place, and how it has changed me as a person.

I have always loved stories. I think I acquired this love from my grandmother. I can remember when I was little how we had a big book of fairy tales which was read forward and backward countless times. When I had no interest in those, my grandma would make up her own stories and tell them to me before bed. This on-the-spot creation of stories was my original inspiration. Sometimes, I would attempt (as a 4 or 5-year-old) to tell my own stories as well, but as assumed those never came out as sophisticated as I would've liked. From there, I took my stories into the classroom. Every writer's notebook assignment was the creation of a new story. Just recently, my grandma sent me a large envelope filled with photocopies of marble notebook pages of unfinished stories. They were innocent creations from a 7-year-old me. They were my start.

Throughout elementary school, I stuck to fictional stories as my go-to for free writing assignments. These stories often were somewhat bizarre with strong notes of fantasy. I would get home from school and sit at our desktop computer for hours, typing away at different stories. In fifth or sixth grade, I wrote a five-page story entitled "Elfloy and Quillog" about two fairies in love. In sixth grade, we had to rewrite a fairy tale and needless to say I had a blast. It was after sixth grade though when everything started to die down. Junior high was filled with essays and book analysis, not stories. And it only got more selective from there. Creative writing disappeared from the English curriculum. Ninth and tenth grade were filled with reading and tests and essays. Eleventh grade focused on analyzing and perfecting the different types of essays for the AP exam. Twelfth grade was heavily focused on literature and essays regarding the literature. In my four years of high school, I probably had three creative writing assignments in total. I remember one specifically from senior year because it was my favorite assignment from that entire year. We each had to write a chapter of a book that the whole class was reading. This assignment was a breath of fresh air and reminded me of how often I would write as a child.

When I started my classes at college, I realized how little of a voice everybody seemed to have. There was no creative writing. There was no easy way to express yourself. I considered starting a blog because I just wanted to write stuff. But then, I wrote an open submission for the Odyssey. And then I became a writer on the Odyssey. And then I became Editor In Chief of my college's branch. I write an article every week for the Odyssey because I want to, not because I have to. I write funny things. I write scary things. I write emotional things. I write what's on my mind. Because it's real. It's me. I write because when I write, I have a voice. Where's your voice?