"I love to write because it is a reminder of just how lucky and free I am."
1. Ever since always, in every place across the world, people have been telling stories. Even before humans created written language, stories were being told over roasted dinosaur meat around the campfire. Every society on the face of the planet tells stories in one form or another, which leads me to believe that making up stories is just as essential to our survival as eating and drinking and breathing air. I love writing because when I write, I feel connected to my deepest humanity.
2. Writing is the one area in my life where I get to have absolute control. I can be or do anything when I write! Nothing is too fantastic: I can host a fancy dinner party and have monsters come waltzing in to ruin everything! Or pretend I'm the scientist who discovered the moon! Or shrink down to the size of a mouse and live inside a wall! Or tunnel into the center of the Earth and build a city of gold! Whatever I want, I can make it be.
3. Writing affords me a chance each and every day to just sit with my thoughts and be still. I live in a city, with lots of hustle and bustle and people everywhere, and I love that. But I also think it's important to sit and be quiet with yourself and your thoughts. Writing for me is very meditative and calming, and helps to keep me peaceful in a very frantic world.
4. Every writer is influenced by everything they've ever read. All the books and stories that have passed through your hands have also somehow made their way into your thoughts, whether you are aware of it or not. I love that idea. I love to think that when I write, I am in some ways sitting down with all the books I've ever read, and also, in some ways, sitting down with the writers who wrote those books. I like to think that I'm connected to a long line of people just like me, people who also loved to write.
5. Lastly, I love to write because it is a reminder of just how lucky and free I am. Sadly, there are governments throughout the world that feel threatened by the written word. Writers who live in these countries are persecuted and imprisoned, their writing censored, their lives threatened every day... simply because they love to do what you and I love to do: write. Writing becomes, therefore, a constant reminder of how very fortunate I am. It also becomes a challenge to you, to me, to all of us: to face the fact that not all people are free, and to work to change that.
Zulema Summerfield is a member of our Young Writers Program Board and is the one of the co-authors of the Young Novelist Workbooks. She has been reading and writing since as far back as she can remember. Zulema has worked with young people in all kinds of ways, from teaching them about rocks and squirrels, to helping them write book reports, and leading awesome field trips to petting zoos and amusement parks. Zulema is currently working on her MFA in fiction at San Francisco State University. She lives with her husband (The Incredible Hulk) and her cats (Little One and Big Foot) in San Francisco.
