Why Did I Become a Writer?

Ah, the age old question of what got me writing in the first place. I could tell you that I've been an avid reader ever since I learned how to read. But telling you that would be rather, well, boring. And although that is true, there's far more to my writing journey than that. But it would be completely wrong of me to avoid the topic of books because books are the very reason I developed a passion for words in the first place. Of course, growing up with legends, such as Dr Seuss, Enid Blyton, C.S. Lewis, and Beatrix Potter, certainly shaped my little imagination and got the creative juices bubbling.

A book series that was all the rage when I was a small child was the famous Harry Potter. My dad had copies of all seven books on his bookshelf and at the age of around 6 I wondered what they were all about. Lo and behold, by the time I was 8 years old, I had devoured through the first book, swiftly making my way through the series thereafter. How my little imagination longed to receive my very own letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! Alas, my luck ran out. Even though I didn't get to attend Hogwarts in the flesh, my imagination took me there constantly, allowing me to feel as though I were a part of the wizarding world. And it was through my imagining that I had magical powers that could be harnessed through a wooden wand is really what made me want to become a writer.

Fast forward a bit, when I was about 12 years old, I became obsessed with the book series, Percy Jackson (I've read all five books at least six or seven times each!). Now combine Harry Potter and Percy Jackson and it makes for a wonderful and magical playground in a young mind. This inspired even more creative juices to start flowing, and soon I took a whack at writing my own fairytale world full of magical creatures and evil villains that needed defeating.

Soon, notebooks became my most treasured possessions. I would sit for hours, doodle writing small pieces of dialogue, sketching maps of lands that didn’t exist, naming kingdoms, crafting backstories for heroes who were braver than I felt at the time. My characters wielded swords with confidence and traipsed through desert lands with courage, even when I was still trying to find my own voice. In many ways, writing became the safest place to explore and discover more about myself.

As I grew older, the stories I consumed began to shift. The magic didn’t disappear — it simply changed form. I discovered that enchantment wasn’t limited to wands and mythical beasts. It lived in metaphors, in the quiet unfolding of a character’s heart, in the way a single sentence could make you feel understood. I began to realise that writing wasn’t only about escaping reality. It was also about interpreting it. Feeling it. Experiencing it. 

Looking back, I can see that my early love for fantasy wasn’t just about magic. It was about possibility. It was about stepping into worlds where ordinary children discovered they were capable of extraordinary things. And perhaps that was the seed that truly took root in me - the belief that stories have the power to awaken something dormant inside us.

Writing became my way of making sense of the world. When life felt confusing, I wrote. When things felt painful, I wrote. When I couldn’t articulate something out loud, I wrote. When I felt deeply, I wrote. Words became both my anchor and my wings.

I may not have hopped through a magical wardrobe into a different life. I may not have climbed an enchanted tree. I may not have received a Hogwarts letter. I may not be the daughter of a Greek god. But I did discover something equally life-altering through all these magical tales I became so found of as a child: the ability to create. To take blank pages and fill them with meaning. To shape emotion into language. To build bridges between hearts through carefully chosen words.

So what got me writing in the first place?

It was wonder. 

It was the desire to belong somewhere and to something bigger than myself.

It was the thrill of imagining impossible things and daring to believe they might, in some way, be possible.

And perhaps most of all, it was the quiet realisation that if I couldn’t step into the stories I loved or become the heroine I so desperately wanted to be, I could simply write my own.