MADDIE MADDEN

            When I attempt to think of a single reason why I write, it is impossible. There is no one eye-opening moment that sparked my interest in putting a pen to paper or one writing assignment that roped me in forever. Rather, it is a consequence of multiple factors that have built on each other and shifted over time as I have matured. I guess the story begins with why I began to read.

            I began having stories read to me from such an early age, as most children do. My family and I would travel to Woods Hole, Massachusetts, a small town in Cape Cod you have probably never heard of, for a week or two every August to stay with my grandparents and cousins. My grandfather, or Poppa as my cousins and I called him, used to read Dr. Seuss’s Fox in Socks on constant repeat to all of us, much to his despair. All seven of us would squish next to each other on the broken in and worn grey striped couch, eager to hear the story we already knew so well. We insisted that my Poppa recite the tongue-twister so often that he hid the book somewhere within the house and, despite our tireless searching, it was never to be found again.

            My hunger for hearing stories intensified as I grew older, and my mom and dad would alternate nights reading Harry Potter to my sister and me before we went to bed. The entire day I would anxiously await the time of night where one of my parents would sit on my big purple chair with my sister on their lap, and I would peer over their shoulders as I sat on top of the back of the chair.

            I found the stories so overwhelmingly compelling that I was unable to wait until the next night to hear more. I no longer wanted to rely on someone else to relay the narrative to me, so I began to teach myself how to read by picking up where my parents had left off at the end of the night. Some of my most vivid childhood memories include waiting to hear the familiar sound of the door downstairs rolling shut, switching the lamp on my nightstand back on and determinedly squinting at the words on the page in an effort to piece together the fantastic stories of witches and wizards in their schooling days.

            When I reached the age at which I began to write in school, I no longer wanted to wait for someone else to produce these stories for me. I would find small notebooks around my house and fill them with fictional stories about magical lands and young children exploring them. The first of these notebooks was a small and orange with a peace sign on the front. Being the shy child I was, I kept it hidden in the drawer of my nightstand whenever I wasn’t writing in it to avoid others' eyes.

            It was not until I started bringing home essays and pieces of writing for school, when I was around eleven or twelve years old, that I began to let my parents read my writing. I was assigned to write an essay for my English class about one of the main characters in the book we had been reading, and I asked my parents to read it over. This was the first time I began opening myself up to feedback regarding my writing, and to my surprise, my parents told me they thought I wrote well. This was high praise, especially from my dad who is quite the harsh critic. My mom even told me that she wanted my grandmother to read some of my work.

            My Grammy is an author of historical fiction novels, and my Poppa was an author of scientific non-fiction books, so writing is somewhat in my family. I think this is why it meant so much to me that I had found a personal passion for writing, and that I may even be good at it. My Grammy began to read my writing, but I would only share with her the pieces I was particularly proud of. I was very self-conscious of how people would perceive my writing. I was cautious about which of my pieces I was going to reveal. My Grammy praised my writing and began to recognize me as the writer of the cousins, which gave me a deep connection with her. Our shared love of books and language was the predominant reason why I continued to write.

            I now write because it is a solace from the chaos of everyday life, and something I feel comfortable with. I have grown older and pursued many different areas of interest, each captivating me for some amount of time, but I always found myself eventually hitting a wall. Writing is what I keep coming back to. It is like the familiarity of returning home after having traveled far and wide across the world to visit many new fascinating destinations, each different from the next. Even though you loved the trip, you are relieved and comforted to be back.

            That is why I write now, but in a year, maybe even next week, the answer will undoubtedly look a lot different.