What inspired me to start writing? Let’s see…
I guess it began when I was four and my brother was three. We lived deep in the woods, high up in the mountains. Our mom was often gone or drunk, and she rarely paid attention to us — so I became my brother’s protector. We’d wander through the forest, and I’d make up fantastical stories about creatures and magic to keep him entertained.
I had to grow up fast. I was very advanced for my age, mostly because I didn’t have the luxury of being a child. When I was taken from my mom and placed in foster care, I started telling myself stories to help me fall asleep — little worlds I could escape into.
At five, my grandparents finally got custody of me. They ran their own business and didn’t have much time to watch me, so I spent a lot of time alone. I made up stories to entertain myself, sometimes acting them out, sometimes just letting them live in my head. Eventually, I started writing them down.
Most of my childhood was spent in solitude. I was different from other kids — I only had two friends, and my grandparents were strict about letting me go anywhere after school. So I found friendship in my characters. Writing made the loneliness feel less heavy.
On the hardest days — when I missed my parents and couldn’t understand why they never came back for me — writing became my escape. Sometimes it was the only way I could tell my mother how much I hated her for leaving. I’ve always wanted to write an autobiography, but every time I try, the memories are too painful. So I found another way: I detach from some of those moments and write them into someone else.
And that, really, is what has inspired my writing. It’s how I survived. It’s how I made sense of the silence.