I used to hate reading. In middle school, I was always behind with the reading goals set by my teacher. I didn’t read during class or pass any test over the books. English was easy, but the books weren’t my thing. Because of my hatred for reading, I decided to become a writer. In the sixth grade, I thought it was easier to be a writer than a reader. My plan was to write so many books that I didn’t have to read any books. I could just read my own and take quizzes on them.

When I first started writing, it was terrible. My characters didn’t make sense. Everything about the stories made no sense. Even now my stories still aren’t what I want them to be. In my junior year of high school, I wrote a paper for my English class. The paper was extremely hard. I had to write about a book, which was about the Holocaust that we read in class. My mind was crowded with ideas, and innocently I end up putting all of them on the paper. When I turned it in, I felt extremely proud of the paper I had written. I wanted to show the world and shout at top of my lungs, “I did this!”

My teacher didn’t feel that way about my essay. My paper didn’t focus on one idea. My paper expressed every idea I had. My spelling was terrible. So when I got my paper back, it was cover with lines and words that definitely didn’t mean that she liked it. She almost shot down my dream of being a writer. I really wanted to write a strongly-worded email to my teacher. How I felt my essay was great and I was also upset that she didn’t think I was as good of a writer as I thought I was.

I wanted my first essay to be amazing the first time around. I now know that it is impossible to be naturally good at something. I learn that you have to work really hard to be amazing at something. I get better when I keep writing. The more I wrote, the better I got. The more accepting I am of people not liking my work the more I will improve. With this new knowledge, I realized that to be an amazing writer I have to keep practicing.

I learned from reading that knowledge is power. I have learned about things I never would have learned if I hadn’t opened my mind to books. Books change the way you view everything and everyone. Books are what made me the smart open-minded person I am now. I believe that the same thing applies to college. College is a way to become a better person.

When I go to college, I will learn from my professors how I can become a better writer. I know college will give me the chance to achieve my goal of being a bestselling writer. College will inspire me to write about more tales and teach me how to show my audience what I have envisioned. With a degree, I’ll show the whole world my literary creation.