It was a cold, winter day in February of 2007. Well, as cold as it can get in New Llano, Louisiana, which isn’t very much. I walked into Mrs. Bailey’s fifth grade class like I did every weekday morning. This was before I switched to Mrs. Koch’s class due to my advanced reading and writing abilities. I sat down at my little wooden desk in the fourth row, second last seat. I was starting to panic because the end of the second marking quarter was in just a few days, and I was nowhere near reaching my AR goal.

Every marking quarter I would read so many books that I didn’t have to worry about not reaching my goal, because actually, I always surpassed it, but I was slacking a bit this time. I’m not sure how this happened, because I loved reading and I always, ALWAYS, met my AR goal. When I would read and finish a book, I would rush to one of the computers to take an Accelerated Reader quiz and receive a certain number of points based on the difficulty of the book and how many questions I answered correctly. The lowest level of AR books was a two, and the highest was a ten. I read books at a level seven, so I always had a sufficient amount of points that I needed. But this time was different. This time, it was three days before the ending of the marking period and I still need some twenty-five points! I rushed to a computer to start taking random quizzes. The problem with this plan was that I failed every single random quiz I took. This was going to be a difficult task, since the average number of points for a book was somewhere around five. How was I going to read five books in three days?
As soon as school ended and I got off the bus, I ran home to find any book that would possibly give me the most points. The first book I picked up was Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce. I had seen my mom read it before, and I had always wanted to read it. I knew nothing of the story, but I love the way the book felt and looked. With its red hardcover and the picture on the front, I was drawn to the book. It was the smoothest book I’d ever felt, and it was hard and cold. I liked that. But when I opened the book, I couldn’t help but start to fall asleep. I might have read thirty or so pages before I decided to just wing the AR quiz and hope for the best. I managed to get maybe two out of the five points I could have gotten. It was time for me to go back to the bookcase and find another book.
As I was searching once again, I stumbled upon the first of the Harry Potter books that I had gotten from a friend a few years back. I always hated Harry Potter for no apparent reason, but I knew that Harry Potter books were worth anywhere from eleven to eighteen points and in this dire situation I was in, there was no room to be picky. I would have to suffer through it. I never knew that reading Harry Potter would be what changed my life forever.
When I was a little girl, I always wanted to be an actress. That was my backup plan if I couldn’t be any of the other things I wanted to be: police officer, doctor, firefighter, joining the Peace Corps. But when I realized that any of those jobs might have to deal with blood, I couldn’t do it anymore. I knew immediately that I’d have to find another career where I would be miles away from touching or seeing any blood. But that actually made me very sad, because I just wanted to help people so much, and I thought I would never get the chance if I couldn’t be a doctor or a cop or a fire fighter. It was until sixth grade that I never knew I wanted to be a writer, and I would still be able to help like I always wanted to.
After I devoured Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, I rushed to read every book in the series after. By the summer, I had already read the first five books. It was during the summer that I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in just two days that I had nothing else to read. What else was I to do other than to reread and reread them?
When sixth grade started, one of the first topics we worked on was poetry. I loved to write it. I loved finding the right words to say and saying them in such a way that people were moved by what you wrote. Within just a few weeks, I realized that I loved writing more than anything I’d ever loved. I had just recently discovered Harry Potter and learned all about poetry, and I knew from that moment that whatever I did in life, it was involve writing. The first story I ever attempted was a story I was co-writing with my best friend Jasmine, about a beautiful princess who was meanest girl in the kingdom and forced to live as an ugly peasant until she could learn how to be kind and caring and compassionate. That story didn’t go too far though.
For the next two years, all I could think about was my career as a writer. I would stay up really late sometimes and have nothing better to do at two in the morning other than continue to write my new book, Prom Nite. In eighth grade when we were signing up for the electives we would take in high school, I told my guidance counselor immediately that I didn’t want to take anything other than creative writing.
Well, I started high school and it started to go downhill from there. I didn’t have creative writing until the second semester, and I liked not having a real class. So when the second semester came up, I decided I was going to drop the class. I didn’t even think I liked writing anymore. I mean, of course I still liked it, but was this the career I wanted? The only reason I went that first day was because I didn’t want to be THAT kid who didn’t come to class on the first day of the new semester. So I begrudgingly left my study hall to go to a class I didn’t even want to take anymore. That was when I first met Ms. Small, the greatest English teacher I’ve ever had. I know that if it hadn’t been for her and her class, I might never have love writing again.
Just that first day in creative writing brought back all the love I’d ever had for writing. Our first assignment was to do what Ms. Small called “freewrite” on the topic of “Why I Write.” “I just love to write, and I feel that the more I read, the more I want to write! It is my dream, well, one of them, to become an author! Writing is just fun, and I feel that I write pretty well. Maybe not totally fantastic, but I do. I would be a good author. Writing poems or stories is a good way to express yourself, and it’s a passion of mine. Without writing, I don’t think I would feel like myself anymore; writing is just part of who I am. –Tori.” I would never have believed in that moment that I would win first place in the Joyce Carol Oates writing contest, nor that I’d actually being going to college for journalism.
It’s interesting, I think, that I finally chose writing as my career path. I think that writing is one of the best ways to express yourself. And sometimes it’s hard to find the words to explain everything that you want to explain and that’s when you pick up a book. Writing is an outlet for the imagination that runs wild behind closed doors; it’s a way to open the doors of your mind and express anything you want to. Reading is a way to escape the world you’re in and travel to any other world you could possibly imagine. Reading has helped me in so many different ways. I’m not sure I could have gotten through some of the things I had to if books hadn’t been there to help me forget about all my troubles, even if for just a moment. That’s one of the biggest reasons behind my need to write; I want to give back to everyone for everything they have given me. I want to be the person who can help you get away when you need to, and books are the only way you can find. I want to be the person who writes the book that helps you decide that you want to be a write. I’ve always wanted to help people, and while I may not have completely kept myself away from blood, considering that blood is always a possibility in the horror genre, I finally found a way that I can help people while doing the thing I love most in this world.