Kit Lyman

I wasn't always a writer. In fact, I was a non-writer, a serial quitter of diaries. If you were to rummage through the "Kit's Pack Rat Box," you would most likely find over twenty different notebooks inside. Each would have approximately five pages of illegible chicken scratch, the remaining sheets left forgotten and blank. It wasn't because I didn't have anything to say, for I was a child rarely at a loss for words—tall tales and quips were my specialty. It had to do with three things:

1). I didn't yet know the purpose of "writing it all down;"
2). I thought my imagination was too wild to share; and
3). I realized I had a bit of living to do before finding the right story to tell.

My grandpa once told me that I could do whatever I set my mind to, with help from the right people. As always, he knew what he was talking about. I've been fortunate to have the right people by my side all my life, but not just in the traditional sense. Encouraging parents. Supportive sisters. Invigorating friends. They have been so much more than roles played and spots filled. They are creators, designers, innovators, and builders, helping to mold me—mold my stories. My very own sculptors.

I didn't grow up planning for a life as a writer. Instead, I dreamed of becoming a professional Matchbox car racer, narrator of Barbie soap operas, Build-A-Bear Workshop helper, Pokemon trader, Tech Deck announcer, sideways-pencil-dive judge, and an architect of Lego kingdoms. My third grade self often spoke of becoming a Hollywood starlet, and if the bright lights faded out, I would live out my days as a forensic scientist. It took dissecting a frog in eighth grade to realize C.S.I. was propaganda. It wasn't real life.

I haven't fully moved on from my nonsensical ideas but rather found a different place for them to live. Those pieces of me can exist in my stories, through my characters who make those parts real. Stories have become my atom, those basic units that make up my life.