All my life, I had always hated writing. It was by far my least favorite thing to do. Whether it be for school, work or an extracurricular activity, writing and I just never got along. Throughout my childhood I always thought I could be spending time doing something “better” or more important.  I never fully understood how expressive or liberating writing could actually be. I would consider myself to have been ignorant to how great writing really is. However, my eyes were opened to the wonderful world of composition when I needed it most.

            One night, at the beginning of my freshman year, I was sitting in my room playing Xbox as usual (This is what I considered an “important” activity back when I hated writing.) when my older sister walked in and began harassing me about my recent grades in English. I assured her it wasn’t important and that my teacher was just being a tough grader because it was early in the year, but really I just wanted to go back to my Call of Duty game. My writing woes continued as my Call of Duty skills improved and my sister finally decided that enough was enough. She decided that her and I would sit down every night and work on my writing skills. My 22 year old sister, who just happens to be a published author, worked with me every night from 7pm to 8pm on improving my writing and I began to take a liking to it. She taught me how to take the great ideas I had bottled up in my head and further develop them out on to the paper. I never had a problem with thinking of the ideas, just supporting my ideas with further evidence. My sister constantly preached the line “Spell your heart out to them”. By this, she meant for me to put everything I had stored up in my brain and just lay it out on the paper for my teachers to see. This was very contrasting to my old style where I would just assume that my point was being made and move on to the next topic of discussion. She really taught me what it meant to be a writer, not just a student finishing an assignment.