Hey guys! My name is AnnaB. That’s my pen name, which I use because I’m not quite twelve yet. I’ve decided to start this blog because I can’t remember a time that I didn’t love to write. When I was five, I wrote a picture book series about an orphan named Strawberry. Actually, I can’t say that I actually wrote them, because the books were mostly pictures of two girls–one with a strawberry head and one with a square face and body. But still they were stories, fully developed from an idea to page with a beginning, middle and end. I regret to say that seven years later, my drawing techniques fail to exceed those of my youth. In short, I stink at drawing.

But that’s good, because this blog is not about drawing, it’s about writing. It’s about the beauty of what a human being can do with words. It’s about the books that have touched my heart, and why my dream is to do the same for others. It’s about how you (I’m talking to kids here, people) can create stories like that and follow the footsteps of great authors like JK Rowling, Suzanne Collins and Sharon M. Draper.

When I was in first grade, my teacher typed up stories for me based on what I told her. My first one was supposed to be non-fiction about a stay at my cousin’s house. Yet, somehow my crafty little mind wove in a fiction story about a lost cat.

I became serious about writing in fourth grade. My teacher gave us writing assignments. I wrote three pages more than I was supposed to. I wrote each night on my iPad, and although the stories needed lots of work, they pleased my teacher. She taught me about double spacing and how to format dialogue, something the other kids didn’t seem to care about.

It’s a bummer that they chose middle school for math to get hard, because last year, in fifth grade, I wrote in every spare second I got. There was no time for math, I tried to tell my mother, who also enjoys writing, every time she told me to “get off the computer, Anna. Five minutes has already turned into twenty.” Didn’t anyone get it? I had a career to pursue. Thankfully, I haven’t failed math… yet.

This year I’m in sixth grade. When you look at me, I’m a normal girl. I have thick brown hair, pale skin and green eyes. I’m usually wearing a shirt with a cool graphic design or quote on it. I like basketball, TV and Jennifer Lawrence. But inside this funny, average girl, it’s Harry raging war with Voldemort; it’s Katniss singing to Prim; it’s disabled Melody in her pink wheelchair fighting to fit in.

You don’t have to get into writing as a young kid. You could just be starting now, or you could be like me. You might think that you hate writing (although if you’re reading this blog, you probably do have an inner writer inside of you. Now just wrangle it out from behind the bars of a cage). Point is, writing has changed my life. And it can change yours, too. You just have to give it a chance.

~AnnaB