It started in my freshman composition class. “It” being love, a crush, a longing for something more, although what that more was I couldn’t say.  I only knew that after devouring the assigned essays and short stories, I was hungry for more and that I, a notoriously lazy high school student, now stayed up late feverishly revising my essays. I wanted to.  The way we want to do things—even difficult things—when we’re in love. Two years later, at age 20, I dared to speak these words in a hushed whisper: I want to be a writer.

I think we know stuff before we know it. Speaking those words made me afraid because some part of me knew that becoming this person called “writer” would require more from me than I was ready to give.  I deep down knew that in order to claim the title of “writer,” I’d…