I actually remember the exact moment that I decided that I wanted to be a writer. I was ten years old, and I was worried about my future. Here I was, getting older, double digits now, and I didn’t have a career plan. So I asked my dad, “What should I be when I grow up?” He took me seriously and said, “Well, you’re creative. You could be an architect or an interior designer or a writer or an investment banker…”
I stopped listening at the word “writer.” I had always loved books — that’s thanks to my mom, who introduced me to Charlotte the spider and Faun Tumnus and Taran the Assistant Pig-Keeper — but I had always thought of writers as these magical, mythical beings who cast these spells that enchanted me. Until my practical father listed it out as if it were an ordinary career, it simply hadn’t occurred to me that an ordinary person could become a writer.
After that, I latched onto the idea. I raided the library for every how-to-write book that I could find. I drew maps of imaginary places. I created lists of superpowers and magical objects. I even read the phone book in search of perfect character names. (Probably the only middle schooler for hundreds of miles to do that.) And of course, I wrote and wrote and wrote. And I never stopped.
