When I was about 15, I was really into reading books. I would look up every book by my favorite authors and made sure that I had read them all. It was to the point that I even started thinking about other stories that would be cool to read and started writing short stories. I was only 15 so they were not the best stories and they didn’t have that great story lines, but I was extremely proud of them. I only showed one of my best friends these little stories, who said that I was really good and he wanted me to send him everything once I wrote it. Unfortunately, I lost motivation shortly after and stopped writing during my junior and senior year of high school.

Something clicked though when I came to college. I have to say that I owe most of my motivation to my favorite band who I rediscovered the summer before. I feel that being in the new environment of campus helped as well. I also started writing most every day. If I wasn't doing homework, I was working on this new story. I would find a new idea in everything I did. I had planned out plot lines, character back stories; I was so excited about it all. I was finally back in the groove of writing again, then the worst thing happened.

At the end of my freshman year, like literally two days before I moved back home, I lost my flash drive. My bright pink flash drive with colorful polka dots fell out of my backpack at one point and was gone. Gone forever! I felt as though I lost about a year of my life. I spend those last two days on campus looking everywhere and to no prevail.

After losing my whole story, with the exception of some small parts I had on my phone, I lost the drive to write. Again.

Since losing my precious flash drive, I have told only two people about the story and what I was writing about. They have both told me to rewrite it, and I was even told that my story sounded like something my favorite author would write. Telling them about the story I wrote and the positive feedback I received has helped me want to write again, to the point that I will go throughout everyday life and think about a witty line, a perfect scene, or an interesting character. I tend to write them down either in a notebook or on my phone, making sure that I won't lose this round of notes.

I realized that throughout the bumps in the road and all the setbacks you have to keep practicing and doing what makes you happy. Who knows, I might end up on Oprah's Book Club list.

P.S. If anyone at Saint Leo finds a flash drive that looks like this, I would greatly appreciate it if you would return it to me (even though it’s been over a year).