Roshani Chokshi
Hi Ava!
In hindsight, I have always wanted a career in writing.
When I was a child, I couldn't quite articulate that. To me, writing was stealing a bit of magic. And like many other kids convinced that their Hogwarts acceptance letter was wedged between the postman's car seat and irrevocably lost, I needed to find my magic in other ways.
Writing was that other way.
My parents dutifully raised us on fairytales and world myths, allowed us to watch unsuitable movies (I will never get over watching Twilight of The Cockroaches at age 9), and let us construct bizarre blanket forts and "camp" out on the patio. They let our imaginations grow wild. And when I decided to write down some of these experiences in poorly stapled booklets, they let that imagination grow too.
Every time I wrote, I was trying to stake a claim to something. A moment, an emotion, a hurt. Writing was my way of making an experience my own. It was my way of infusing something with magic or coaxing magic out of something that felt otherwise mundane.
If you had asked me then what I was doing, I probably would've told you I was preparing for a fruitful but dull career in sorcery. But if you ask me now, I would say that I was preparing for a career in writing.
In hindsight, I have always wanted a career in writing.
When I was a child, I couldn't quite articulate that. To me, writing was stealing a bit of magic. And like many other kids convinced that their Hogwarts acceptance letter was wedged between the postman's car seat and irrevocably lost, I needed to find my magic in other ways.
Writing was that other way.
My parents dutifully raised us on fairytales and world myths, allowed us to watch unsuitable movies (I will never get over watching Twilight of The Cockroaches at age 9), and let us construct bizarre blanket forts and "camp" out on the patio. They let our imaginations grow wild. And when I decided to write down some of these experiences in poorly stapled booklets, they let that imagination grow too.
Every time I wrote, I was trying to stake a claim to something. A moment, an emotion, a hurt. Writing was my way of making an experience my own. It was my way of infusing something with magic or coaxing magic out of something that felt otherwise mundane.
If you had asked me then what I was doing, I probably would've told you I was preparing for a fruitful but dull career in sorcery. But if you ask me now, I would say that I was preparing for a career in writing.
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