Fourty-Two

I owe my writing career, as short as it is, to Harry Potter.
I didn't write at all when I was a kid.
I just read.
like a worm.

First I went through a very - very - short lived fantasy genre phase. Then mystery. Then time-travel. Not sci-fi. Time travel.

in retrospect I still haven't gotten out of it

And then a bit later, romance.
It was probably between time travel and romance where the option of fantasy popped up and I never gave a second thought to it. No. No. Fantasy was odd, and centuries away. I could deal with sci-fi, maybe. But certainly not fantasy.
By the time I'd gotten into Harry Potter, the internet was coming into fruition. I was probably thirteen when I was looking up Harry Potter pictures online. (Just for the sake of it. Because oh my god the internet and these images were free. Ridiculous notion.) And I fell upon a manip of someone's fanfiction. Holy hell.

Which then brought me to fanfiction.net, then harrypotterfanfiction.com, then portkey.org, then finally livejournal. Please note these are listed in order of ascending quality. Although portkey had some really great stuff.
Anyway. I don't label myself as fanfiction writer often, but when I do, it's always with pride. Fanfiction got me started. It made me realize Hey. I can write? It's not just...books that appear out of nowhere and into the library? Everyday people like me can just...write?

hells yeah son. I'll drink to that.