Ask The Author–Why Did You Start Writing?

I can’t believe it’s September already, and this is our first official “Ask the Author” post. I haven’t had anybody ask a specific question, so I’m going to start with a general question that I’ve seen asked before. And our first question is…

Why did you start writing?

I think at the very beginning I started writing because my mom wrote. I wanted to write like she did. A huge turning point in my life was when she attended a writers conference when I was something like ten or eleven. My sister and I got to stay with my cousins in California, which seemed like a big deal. That part provided a lot of memories, but the part that changed my life the most was when my mom came home and told me about the authors she had met and the things she had learned at the conference. She started writing more, and I became aware of the world of writing. I tried to write like her. I entered a short story contest and won first place for my age group. After that, it was just something I loved. It became a part of me. I took classes in school. I wrote things on my own. I just couldn’t not write. It became as natural as almost anything else, and I loved it. I would fall asleep imagining and planning stories. I would occupy my free time writing stories. I always carried a notebook with my current work in progress. I would itch to write. If I couldn’t be writing it was like a little nagging longing in the back of my mind. Sometimes it would grow strong enough I couldn’t ignore it. Sometimes I could suppress it in order to get through important things like classes and homework and stuff, but it never left entirely.
As I got older, although my reasons for writing stayed the same, my reasons for what I wrote changed. I started writing Gateway to Aviandria because it was something fun to share with my friend. Then, I began writing it because I loved the people and the place in it so much. I kept writing it because it was my own perfect story I know I would have loved to read. I finished writing it and decided to share it because I knew there had to be others looking for something like that. I wanted others to be able to find the story I had never quite been able to find. Now, I write because it is part of who I am, but I also write to share something special with others in hopes that they can get happiness out of the words I put together and that they can feel better for having read it. That has become my number one goal as a writer.

What is something you do because it is a part of you? Why did you start doing that thing?