Writing
Writing Since I Was a Young Girl
I have been a writer since I was a young girl.
My love of writing started with pen friends. 100 friends, to be exact. I would sit in my room for hours with paper and stamps, learning how to tell my life to someone across the world. Those letters taught me voice. They taught me that words could cross any distance.
Then came the newsletter. My mother helped me create it at our kitchen table in California. She believed in me before I believed in myself. We printed it, folded it, and mailed it out. That little zine became Global Teen Club International. It helped me overcome my shyness. It helped other young people become writers too. We started local and then went global.
I loved writing and submitting to magazines. Rejection letters came, but I kept going. In my earlier education I loved journalism classes. I loved working on The Inquirer at Diablo Valley College. I learned the inverted pyramid. I learned deadlines. I learned how to ask hard questions.
But I think everything clicked more when I learned that writing was like hair braiding. Weaving information together. Strand by strand. Fact with feeling. Research with story. Telling a story is not dumping words on a page. It is braiding. It is structure and beauty at the same time.
Learning the process took time. Learning to express myself freely took even longer. I had to unlearn shame. I had to unlearn fear of being misunderstood. School taught me how to explain myself clearly so others could understand what I was saying.
Now I write 3 to 4 pages in a sitting. Then I allow my written words to get critiqued by AI. Then I go back and make sure it still is my work. My voice. My truth. My braiding.
I tried this concept and looked at software for assistance. I ran my essay through Turnitin and it said “original content.” In school we did not have AI or ChatGPT. Your work have to be original and cited. I learned to do the hard work first. The right way, not the easy way.
My mother taught me that we are more similar than different. Writing proves it. A story from a small California town can land in someone’s heart across the globe and say, “Me too.”
Reading taught me to write. Writing was the therapy that allowed me to heal. And now writing is the work that lets me serve.
#WriterSinceChildhood #PenPalsToPhD #WritingIsBraiding #GlobalTeenClub #OnLoanToGod #Journalism #DiabloValleyCollege #WomenWhoWrite #OriginalContent,
