I love the written word. I love how much emotion words can carry when written just right. I love how open it is to interpretation; how one story can affect people in so many different ways.

I love the smell of books. I love that tingle of anticipation when I open a book I haven't read for the first time. As I flip to that first page, the musty smell of -- whatever paper most books are made from -- wafts towards my nasal cavity and I even love that smell.

Reading is personal. Rarely do you see two or more people reading the same book; same sentence; same word. There is a solitude you can never find anywhere else in the world, hidden away among the paragraphs. An illusion that only one may enter and create and color. A world no one else will ever see - safe from opinions and comments and is simply there for the sake of being there.

Writing is emotional. I suppose that is why it is so hard for me -- On one side of the balance, there is me yearning to write and publish. On the other side, there is the me that is so paralyzed with the fear of rejection. I know me better than anyone else and though it may be my style of writing being rejected, I know that in my mind, it is my views and my emotions that is rejected.

The balance is tipped.