I'm a professional writer and I have always been writing. It helps me get ideas out there and talk about personal experiences. Writing also helps me connect with people and process difficult topics. I have not chosen writing, it chose me. I started quite young, at seven years old, when I received a journal for my birthday. I started off with descriptions of my school, family and classmates. Later I started writing about my interests such as Native Africans and indigenous peoples and about books I had read that made a big impression on me. In my teens again I would start chronicling the social behavior I witnessed in my peers in a comical way and write stories about their silly antics and contradictory actions. I mainly was trying to copy the satirical prose of Ephraim Kishon whose comedic family short stories I enjoyed reading. My mother eventually bought another journal for the express purpose of writing letters back and forth with me every night when I couldn't sleep. I would write before going to sleep while she was watching her news and murder mysteries, and she would write me back while I was asleep. So every morning I woke up to a new letter. Writing is in my blood. My mother is a published writer and poet in her community and so was my grandfather who wrote and produced many poems and song lyrics. He was also a composer. I doubt I will ever stop writing even if I never get published. The most important thing for me is to share my thoughts and to express myself. I've led an interesting life and I believe some of what I write might be of some benefit to others at some point