Why I Write

            I was a lonely child. It didn’t start out that way. It wasn’t until about third grade when I realized I wasn’t like my peers. Before that I was fully myself, doing all the things I enjoyed with gusto and not a single concern about how it may make others view me. But around age eight or nine things changed. I became more aware. Other kids pointed out my jumpy feet and loud shrieks. They told me I was annoying and weird. Then my life unraveled in other ways and by fourth grade I was withdrawn and quiet in school. The fact that we moved, and I changed schools so often, along with my very odd habits and personal quirks, made making and keeping friends impossible. But the one thing I did have no matter where we moved? Despite what school I went to or what street we lived on? No matter the state, how strange my accent, how odd my style of clothes? The one thing I had regardless of all else was books. And followed by my love of books came a fascination with words.

            I was that kid on the bus that missed their stop because I had my nose in a book. The one who became the characters and imagined I lived in a different world; who stayed up all night reading a book from cover to cover. I was the child who made up stories and had an imagination so big and wide I sometimes forgot real life. Which served me well because oftentimes I needed to escape from my reality. I was that awkward girl who carried around a notebook and wrote poetry in study hall. The one who looked up words in a dictionary and wrote them down in alphabetical order then tried to use as many as possible daily. I was the oblivious teenager working her first job at Dunkin’ Donuts who got so caught up in what she was reading she didn’t realize she had customers waiting in line. I was the child that desperately needed books and stories in order to survive.

            I always knew I wanted to be a writer. As a teenager I dreamed of becoming the youngest international bestselling author. In college I started numerous adult novels that I was sure would become critically acclaimed literary fiction. Then I had children. My children, I am delighted to say, are just as quirky and different as I am. While reading with them through the years and sharing some of my favorite books from my own childhood, I remembered again the books that helped me when I was young. The stories of daring adventures and dangerous escapes. The characters that were once my best friends. And suddenly my writing shifted. These were the kinds of books I most wanted to write. Books for children who, like my children and myself, need these stories to make them feel like they belong. Stories that can fuel their hopes and dreams while teaching valuable life lessons in a way that they are open to receiving. Books that they can find their likeness in the pages and know that it’s okay to be different.

            I write for the children who do not have friends. The ones that sit alone at lunch or play by themselves at recess. I write for the children who do not fit the mold of how a child learns, speaks, or interacts with the world around them. For the children who may not have a home, or parents, or yet found the place where they belong. I write for the children who feel unwanted and cast aside by society. The ones who can’t sit still in class or have to make up stories just to survive. I write for my younger self, for the stories that could have shown me a better way at an earlier age. The books I desperately needed to read to help me deal with my own trauma and emotions, but no such books were yet written for kids. I write for my own children; to create characters they can see themselves in and know how unique and special they are. I write for future generations, to show them how we are all truly connected and how our actions influence everyone and everything. I write to have an impact--even if my books change just one life for the better, that is enough for me. I write to bring about change and understanding, acceptance and love, to show a different way of seeing things and that all paths and all beings are equally worthy. I write for diversity and inclusivity. I write to create the kind of world I want to live in. I write to make this world a better place.