Chapter 1: The Beginning

As a teenage author, looking through my young lenses at the professional world of publication is. . . well, daunting, to say the least.

There are many challenges I'm already facing such as writers block (a real burden), feeling inferior, and the consistent spiral of overthinking that plagues many of my peers, too. But, taking on this challenge of publishing my first book has only filled me with the relentless ambition to succeed.

And this, here, is where my journey begins.

I came up with the idea for Fisheye on a late night while lying in bed, allowing my thoughts to wander outside of my head for a bit. I had been thinking of things I could create and get out into the world before feeling ready enough to put out my full-length novels when I suddenly sparked the idea for this project, something that could hold safe one of the many writing forms that I adore: poetry.

I've loved writing poetry since the fifth grade when my writing teacher instructed us all to write a poem, each line based off of the letters in our name. I doubt I can recall the details of what I had written now after seven years, but I remember the thrill of it. Making each line rhyme with the next, creating such lovely, lyrical sentences with just a few words in each one. It filled me with a joy I'll never forget.

That same school year, I had my very first poem published through a writing competition. ''Family,'' it was titled. And placed on the 14th page of The America Library of Poetry's 2020 poetry collection Together. My second poem ''The Ghost in the Garden,'' a far bit darker than the first which I wrote at 14, was published by Roi Fainéant Literary Press. I remember my parents being so proud of me, and I couldn't help but be just as proud of myself.

Since then, I haven't stopped writing poetry. I have so many random lyrics scattered about in my notes app, each one titled hastily with the time I wrote it at because I couldn't think of any good titles. This past summer, I was lucky enough to spend three weeks at Boston University for a creative writing program and let my creativity just pour out of me onto the paper. I wrote poem after poem after poem, each one far better than the last. All of which I will undoubtedly be including in Fisheye.

Writing is a kind of wonderful magic that can never be taken away from me, not until death do us part. It is in every breath I take, every throb of my heart, every beautiful, horrific, melancholic, wayward thought that comes to me. Although sometimes being able to put something, anything, down seems impossible, I know it'll always come back to me eventually.

And now, fellow readers, writers, artists, and dreamers, I welcome you to take part in my creative journey. To laugh, to cry, to breathe, to write! Everything wonderful that you can think of, every impossible thing you can dream of, I hope you find pieces of it here as you join me on my quest to success.

Welcome, one and all, to the creation of Fisheye: A Compendium of the Written Thoughts of a Dreamer.