How My Favorite Books Growing Up Got Me Writing

I’m often asked how did I start writing. Well, it began with reading. In 5th grade, we had to read 50 books for the school year. Me being me, I went for the easy books that I could finish by in 5-10 minutes. I did that for a while until the teacher told me that it would take two of the smaller books to count as one, so I would have to read twice as many.

I was a bit upset about that. I did not like to read. So my teacher handed me a book saying, “I want you to read this. I know you’re going to like it, but if you read more, only two count for the whole year.”


I didn’t understand what she meant until I read the first book. It was the Hidden Staircase. Yes, a Nancy Drew book. Just like that, I wanted to read every single one. I understood why only two would count. Because like Lays chips, “You just can’t have one.”
every Saturday, I started going to our local library. Taking out armloads of books to read. Believe it or not, they would all be read in a week. Of course, I had to get more. I love the feeling that those stories gave me I wanted to write my own I was 12.


Even though it’s taken me many, many years to get to this point, I finally got here, and I love every minute of it. The most important thing is that it’s never too late to start even if you have to write one page a day at the end of the year you have 365 pages.