"It didn't happen all at once. I didn't wake up a writer. I became one — quietly, messily, over time."

I don't remember the first story I ever told.
But I remember the feeling.

That little rush in my chest when I finished a sentence and thought, "This might be something."
That thrill when someone else read it and said, "Wait, I like this."

I think I fell in love with writing the way most people fall in love with anything:
Not with fireworks — but with warmth. Slowly. In pieces. Through hours spent lost in other people's worlds until I realized I could build my own.

✦ What Got Me Hooked

I was the kind of person who:

Made backstories for strangers on the train.

Cried over fictional characters like they were real (and they were, to me).

Rewrote the ending of shows in my head because "mine felt better."

At some point, the stories I wanted to see just didn't exist — so I started writing them.

Was it always good?
Absolutely not.
Did I keep doing it anyway?
Every day.

Because something about creating — about holding messy little ideas in your hand and shaping them into something beautiful — felt like coming home.

✦ My "Firsts" (aka Mild Embarrassment in List Form)

First story ever written: A wildly unrealistic fantasy adventure featuring a talking wolf and a sword that glowed for no reason. Iconic.

First compliment I got on my writing: "Wait, this doesn't suck." (I've held onto it forever.)

First time I cried writing: When I realized I was writing a character's pain to understand my own.

First "I want to be a writer" moment: Not when I finished something. But when I started something and felt excited to come back to it the next day.

✦ Not Just a Hobby

There's a moment when writing stops being "a thing you do" and starts becoming "a part of who you are."
For me, that happened quietly.
When I started writing not just because I had ideas — but because I didn't know how else to feel things properly.

Writing helped me process.
It helped me cope.
It helped me exist.

So no, I didn't fall in love with writing.
I became myself through it.

✎ Quote I Live By:

"Write hard and clear about what hurts." — Ernest Hemingway

I don't always know how to do that.
But I'm learning.
And that counts for something.

Next up: I'll take you inside my little worlds — the stories I've written, what they mean to me, and the fictional people who live rent-free in my brain 💭