What inspired me to be an author?

Aug 23, 2026

I decided to be an author less than a year ago. I’ve been working at it for twenty years, but the explicit decision is very recent to me. 

I was inspired to become an author when I was a kid. We moved around a lot, so I was always introducing myself to people who I might know for a while, but probably wouldn’t. I learned the power of an introduction. I learned the power of being unknown around the time that I learned how much I love the complexities of world-building and the breadth of human nature that can be explored in the imagination. 

To me, writing, and reading are a passively collaborative experience. It’s shaped by anonymity, or lack thereof. The writer doesn’t know who will ultimately read their words. The reader may not necessarily know the writer. What they know about one another colors everything, and when writing a novel, I think there’s beauty in not knowing. The experience of writing and reading is framed by everything from how heavy- or light-handed the narration is to the very skill and perspective of the author. It’s filtered through the imagination and experiences of the reader. To the writer, words are a shot in the dark. To the reader, it’s someone rearranging the furniture in a room every time they leave it. A room they repeatedly fill and empty and navigate, where they might imagine they’re someone else, or no one in particular. 

I despise the idea of friends and family praising a creative endeavor they don’t actually like or appreciate because it’s by someone they care about. I’m frustrated by prejudice when I watch someone not listen to what I’m saying because it’s me saying it. Writing is an attempt to remove myself from the experience and let the words bursting out of me speak for themselves.