by Megan Soyars

Created on: January 31, 2011

I've loved writing since I was very small. I have a particular memory from my toddler-hood, which I believe sparked my passion. I was watching my mother at the kitchen table, playing with a strange machine. The machine was small and gray and covered with the letters of the alphabet. I remember feeling a certain pride as I surveyed the letters. I knew them all, A-Z, and I even knew how they magically paired together to form words, and those words paired together to form sentences, and those sentences made stories that I could read and enjoy. Thomas the train, all these stories were my favorites.

As I watched my mother type away on the mysterious machine (it was a type writer) I noticed she was actually creating something. Sheets of paper came out of the machine, covered with the words my mother had typed. The sheets looked almost like the pages of the story books I read. As my mother pulled the sheets out of the typewriter, I asked her what she was doing.

"Writing!" she explained to me with a smile. "A story just like the ones we read together, only this story for grown-ups."

I was amazed. I'd never considered that my story books were created by real people like my mom. It must take an enormous amount of talent to create a story, I figured. I was proud of my mother, and promised to read her story once I was a grown-up. And maybe I could become a story writer when I was a grown-up, too.

Seventeen years later, I'm a officially a grown-up, and (officially?) a writer. No, I'm not Neil Gaiman or Stephenie Meyer and maybe my works aren't on the Times bestseller list or gracing the book shelves of the Barnes and Noble where I work, but I'm not really asking for fame/fortune. That's rare for anybody to attain. But I'd like to know that some people are reading my stuff and enjoying it. I've had a couple writing internships (right now I'm working for the Campus Clipper), and I've messed around with fiction and poetry, and I've self-published a children's novel.

Maybe you've been inspired to express your creativity through writing, or you're a starting-out writer like me who needs some tips. I've added some that've helped me become a better writer below:

BROADEN YOUR RANGE
You don't always have to write on what you consider to be your "subject matter." If you're a short story writer, try your hand at news writing.

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