I cannot say that I have always written, but I have in fact written from a relatively young age. Second grade, I think I was about 7. I remember writing silly fantasy stories in class, then I was writing about cats when my parents refused to get me one. Of course they intertwined at a point and I was writing about cats in fantasy settings.

One day my grandfather asked me what I wanted to be when I would grow older, naturally I responded, with all childish naivete, that I wanted to be a writer. He immediately changed his countenance and said it was stupid, that I would never make enough money off it. I think I stopped writing after that. But fate is what it is, and it was him of all people that brought my writing back: he gave me a big yellowed notebook, saying I could write in it, or draw, whatever. I saved it for a rainy day. It was the summer of 1998, around my thirteenth birthday, that I sat before the TV in granny's house, watching as always whenever I was in Romania, Cartoon Network. One of my earliest favourites was Scooby Doo, and I was delighted they were showing it. Cartoon Network had not yet reached Israel at the time, so I was happy as a clown to be there, watching it. The name of the episode struck a chord that brought on a story of 155 paqes, in that notebook, that I never finished. The episode was named "Fortress of Fear" and I don't think that phrase found itself written down, but it's hardly the point, now is it?

I wrote like crazy. I just wrote. It was my pride and joy. Naturally, since English is not my native tongue, or even my second, the story was written badly, and the idea was horrendous. Trying to read it now would be pain, but it was the beginning that had no end.

I started writing poems too around that time, first in Hebrew and the finally moving to English. I wrote a short story with a bad ending, corny as Hell, at some English class, and I told myself I'd write another one of those. The next ended up having 28 pages and a happy ending. Then another story, and another, the ideas piled in my head.

Before I knew what metal was I was writing dark poetry, a fascination with death and evil finding a temple in me before I understood what it meant. It was silly childish awe, but the tendency was obviously there. My stories had always had a darker tone, and they went on, more or less, like that. A good day would be a day in which I wrote some pages in whatever story I was writing at the time. I'd sit in class with my notebook, and over it, pages of the story. I could never stop writing. I had the dark stories, I had the nicer stories, I had poems.

But somehow, the stories faded, and I could no longer truly write them. Every once in a while I'd get an idea, write a paragraph, and then forget about it. I was writing mainly poems, my earlier stories forgotten, my later ones lying unfinished on pages filled with my tiny handwriting.

Eventually, the poems faded as well, and I'd write one every couple of months. I wasn't truly worried because I knew how much writing means to me and that it could never die. Plus, there are always stories in my head, scenarios and words chasing themselves. I've also been writing a diary for 10 years, it's one of my OCDs. So I let it rest. Until it found me again.

Every once in a while I'd check my "Stories" folder, and read things I forgot I wrote. I found this page of something that was not really meant to be a story, just a quick silly thing, but it caught me. And so I wrote. It took me a while, but I was there, writing at home, at work, in Romania, in Israel, whenever I would want to. I finished it in early summer 2008, entirely surprised that I had actually finally finished a story; my first complete story in some ten years. I knew since, that it was back. I began another one, that I am finally posting here, finished in December, while laziness got the best of me. I started another one, but the idea was slightly off so I stopped it to focus on another, an idea I've had for an equally long period of time, ten years or so. Right now I'm blaming my awful job and studies for my lack of writing it regularly, but I am not worried. Writing is by far my life, and my first and foremost love. It makes me terribly happy. I am a woman of words. Always a story-teller, always a poet, always an edmirer of words.

And it's about time you read some of it.