Everybody receives their calling in life. It doesn’t matter if they receive their calling when their eight months or eighteen years old, one day, they will receive their calling of what to do with their life. For myself, it was a little bit different.

I received my calling when I was seven, but I didn’t realise it at the time. It started when I found an old accounts book, and started writing a random story. To this day, I still don’t know what inspired the story: it was a fantasy of a young girl sent on a quest to save her hypnotized friends from an evil wizard. Maybe it was because I was a big Harry Potter fan at the time, I don’t know.

On my thirteenth birthday, I began a diary. At the time, I was copying the famous diarist, Anne Frank. My initial plan was to start writing at thirteen, finish at fifteen and see how I’d changed. Instead, I continued my diary when I was sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, all the way through into my twenties. My diary became my escape through the ups and downs of school, university and family. It also helped me look back on happy and sad memories throughout my life.

Even back then, I didn’t just confine myself to my diary. Throughout my teenage years, I wrote my own poems (abysmal ones, I will admit) and started stories. Started stories – I never managed to finish one! As I grew older, the urge to actually finish a story became stronger. It was only then, that I realised what my true calling really was: to be a writer.

Paper Has More Patience Than People.

Anne Frank, 20 June 1942

To write means to express yourself. I found it a lot easier to express how I felt to a piece of paper, rather than a real life person. I found myself being able to let out my emotions on paper, channel my real life problems and experiences and turn them into stories and poems. Particularly during the coronavirus lockdowns, I had time to fill notebook after notebook with my ideas.

Now, I have actually finished not one but two story drafts. I’m not saying that they are ready for publication yet, but one day I hope they will.

What it means to write to me, means being able to change emotions into stories that people will enjoy. Maybe one day, I’ll see my name on the cover of a book on sale in the shops.