My Memory Log

My Narrative Essay

*crosses fingers my only school friend in my English class reads this and points out all my mistakes like the grammar Nazi she is*

PLEASE TELL ME IF THIS IS BORING BECAUSE I MIGHT READ IT IN FRONT OF MY CLASS TOMORROW AND IF IT'S LAME THAT WOULD GO INTO MY 'MOMENTS I EMBARRASSED MYSELF AT SCHOOL' LIST. (It's a really long list.)

Finding My Passion

Ever since I was born everyone praised my older sister. She was a better dancer and, due to being older, smarter than me. When my little sister was born she wasn't exactly normal and she had some issues. This made her more special and protected. Tori, being the smart one, found her passion earlier than her mind stretches; dance. She's just a junior in high school but has her entire life is planned out already. Lisa, who's only ten, has a passion as well; watching YouTube gamers play Five Nights at Freddy's. Even now I just barely know what I want, but up until almost a year ago I had no passion in life.

It was 2013 and Tori was squealing about a book she read on a reading and writing website called Wattpad. She wanted to make another account, even though she already had two, so she could get the author more votes on the book. She ran out of emails and my mom said no to creating a new one, so she visited me, her last resort. Behind both my mom's back and my own, Tori set me up a Wattpad account; I only found out when she asked what I wanted for my password.

I warmed up to the website and spent six months reading books and being too afraid to do anything else. During this time Tori was talking to my mom about posting her 'beautiful masterpiece' on her account. I got tired of her constantly talking about this, and how she would say she could write better than me. Determined, I sat down on my computer and decided to write something twice as good as her story. Sadly, I was only [age] and had the attention span of a fly and quit every book I started writing half way through.

I continued to write different books, but also branched off to other things on the website. I started participating in making graphics, such as book covers and profile pictures, as well as talking to the people in the clubs. I made many friends, many whom I still talk to, and one of them was a girl named Ari. Ari had started a challenge called A Chapter a Day Challenge. You were supposed to write a book in one month, posting a chapter every day. I participated starting September 2014 all the way through November with fails. I came to the realization it's because I lost track of where my book would go because bad planning.

On the last day of November I sat down in the room I share with Lisa and planned out my December book. One day earlier I had read a book about a girl who wrote letters to her dead lover and used that as inspiration. I also used two Dance Moms fanfictions I read earlier that month as inspiration. I titled the book Letters to David, and it was about a girl named Julie who was writing letters to her brother about her life three years after the death of him and their father.

The day after I posted the first chapter I opened up a thread, a discussion in a club, and offered to make graphics for the payment of an honest comment on the first chapter. Although only one person used the graphic I made them, I was able to pull in a few readers. After posting chapter two I got the courage to ask my mom to read it. A few minutes later she came back to me and yelled at me for making her cry-then she told me to finish the book already. I grinned, happy that even though I had never really experienced a close death, the pain I felt while listening to My Immortal by Evanescence was enough to help me be sad enough to make people feel.

Chapter four is when I reached a huge achievement. Wattpad has a ranking system based on how many reads, votes, and comments you make a day. Compared to how many people are on Wattpad, just being in the last place of the ranks is still better than most. I just barely noticed in small printed letters was Short Story #419. I let out a loud squeal and wrote out chapter five where I thanked everyone in an author's note. Later I checked my rank and saw it went up to Short Story #169. I wrote a small chapter 5.5 and said thanks once more.

The next day before even starting the next chapter I checked to see if I still had a rank, since sometimes ranks could disappear overnight. My new rank was Short Story #119, which meant my book would be on page six of the What's Hot list. A loud, high pitch shriek came out of my mouth, loud enough to fill my entire house. Lisa came running into the room to make sure I wasn't being murdered. "What's wrong?" She asked. As a reply, no words came out of my mouth. Only small gurgling noises and large exhales of breath escaped my lips as I over exaggeratingly pointed at the computer screen. I let out a noise which is similar to the sound a cat makes when someone steps on its tail. She rolled her eyes and walked away.

After writing chapter eight I decided to be brave and do something harder than asking my mom to read; I asked Tori. The next day when my mom was driving us somewhere they brought up the topic of my book and Tori told me that chapter seven almost made her cry, and Tori never admits to crying. That night I sat in front of my computer in shock before writing more.

It was chapter fifteen when my inspiration fell. I went too far off my plot, so far that they had entirely different love interests. I was trapped in what felt like a cave with only darkness and spiders. The mind in this cave was only incoherent thoughts and scattered images. Ito me it was a cave, to everyone else it was just writers block.

It took until December 30th for me to pull through and finish what I had started. I sat down and wrote ten chapters, and planned out the last ones I would write the next day. Luckily I had written the epilogues when I had just started the book so I would know how I wanted to end it. I waited anxiously before it was finally New Year's Eve. That night around 9:00pm while my family was obnoxiously eating all the chips and watching TV, I stepped away and sat down on front of the computer so I could write. For extra inspiration and to lift my saddened spirit, I started to play a playlist on YouTube made up of Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift, starting with the song they sang together. I grinned and, after spending a moment to gush about shipping them so hard, started to write chapter twenty-five.

By 12:00am on January 1, 2015, Letters to David had 30 chapters, four epilogues from different POVs, a complete explanation on what happened to the characters, and a long author's note full of thanks. In just 31 days it had 1,158 reads, 206 votes, and 242 comments. Currently it has 3.2K reads, 337 votes, and 455 comments.

It took about a month, maybe two, after finishing for me to let go and realize why it meant so much to me. Letters to David has plot holes, terrible grammar, and, at one point in the book, just my main character ranting about nothing. I wasn't in love with my book, I fell in love with the feeling writing gave me. After years of searching I found my true passion; writing.