I have always been mesmerized by books.

I remember when I was nine years old and I would go to the town library to discover new adventures. They used to have reading contests and I would sign up for all of them, grab a book, and sit down for hours, fully captivated by the stories. I even remember one afternoon when I was so into the story that I didn't realize how late it was. It was dark outside, the library was about to close, and my mom came to look for me. She was scared and upset because I had been away for so long. That's how my story with books started, in a little town library in Spain.

One day, my parents brought me an old book (I have no idea where they got it from) that was telling the stories of a little teddy bear. This teddy bear had a human friend, and together they were learning a lot of new things and going through challenges. I don't remember how many times I've read that book, but I remember being in my room and reading it again and again.

A few years later, at school, they launched a mandatory program where each week we would have mandatory reading. We were all given a book, normally a novel, and we would read out loud one by one, one paragraph each. They picked really good books, and that's how I found out about Jordi Sierra i Fabra, who would become my favorite author during my early teenage years.

Then I started borrowing books from friends and asking my parents to buy me novels. The problem was that I would finish reading the book in one or two days, and since the budget I had was for one book per month, I was getting frustrated.

Around 2010, I found out about blogs and, most importantly, blogs with reviews and links to download books. Eureka! I saved some money, and I told my parents I wanted to buy an eReader. My eReader era can be compared to having a strong addiction. I was reading all the time. During the breaks at school, on the bus back home, after lunch, at night before going to sleep. I was one of the few kids who heard from her parents: "Stop spending so much time in front of your books." This was applied only to novels, not textbooks from school. So sometimes I would hide my eReader under my textbook and pretend that I was studying.

But one day, I realized reading was not enough anymore. I wanted to write.

Thank God we had Blogger back then. I created my first blog ever, and I started writing. Keep in mind I was only 13 years old, so everything I was writing was coming with a lot of grammar mistakes, text incoherences, lack of information, and a lot of fantasies. But other 13-year-old girls were reading my stories, and even though they were bad, they had some magic to them because my blogger account started gaining followers. I kept writing and learning from others, and about 2 years later, one of my novels, co-created with a friend, reached a lot of popularity online. Our blog was on fire, people were in love with the story and characters, and we decided to take it to Wattpad. It reached 21K views (back in those days, it was a lot), and we won one of the wattys awards in 2013.

And that's how high my writing journey went. After that, I needed to focus on finishing high school, then university, and then adult life kicked in. For many years, I couldn't read even one book. And that made me feel guilty. Knowing that at some point you were reading 5 books per week and now you can't even finish one in one year, plays a lot with your mind. Every time I started a book, I couldn't read more than two chapters. It was just impossible. The same goes for writing. I couldn't focus on creating anything that was at least acceptable.

In 2017, I opened a new blog since I deleted all the old ones. I didn't want to post stories anymore; I wanted to write random things from time to time. More like a literature diary. Between 2017 and 2021, I wrote an average of one or two posts per year.

And then in 2021, I became a content creator. Finally, I am using my skills daily to read, write, and create amazing things. I also went back to reading! During the last two years, I read a lot, mostly things about personal development, emotional intelligence, finance, entrepreneurship, Blockchain, etc.

But I feel like I wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing today if I didn't have this story. From the little girl reading adventure books in that small town library to the woman creating content for big Blockchain brands.

We are the sum total of our experiences.

So I invite you to remember when your journey with reading and writing started and how it has changed.

Thank you for reading! ❤️