When Did I Decide to Become a Writer?

I like to believe we choose our path long before we arrive in this world—a quiet purpose tucked into the soul. And when we finally set foot on that path, something stirs: joy rises, wonder unfolds, and the heart whispers, you are home.

That’s how I feel when I write, as if something ancient inside me remembers exactly my life goal.

Some spend a lifetime searching for that feeling. But I met mine early, like a secret blooming in a hidden corner of my childhood. I was nine, maybe ten, curled up with a book:
 Ulita Copilariei (Childhood’s Street) by Ionel Teodoreanu. At some point, the young protagonist said, “When I grow up I’ll become a writer.”

I stopped reading. The world around me paused, and something clicked into place.
That’s what I want to be as well, I thought. A writer!
And I never really let go of that dream.

Yes, I wandered a lot, became a translator, a teacher, and even once considered a career as a painter. But every path led me back to the same place: the page, the words, the sacred magic of story. That was—and still is—where I feel most alive.

Why Do I Write Children’s Books?

There comes a time in life when we all yearn to revisit the world of childhood, that magical place where the streets were paved with imagination and every turn led to a new adventure.

Personally, I return to that special place quite often. Writing children’s books allows me to travel back in time, wander in the streets of my childhood and look at the world with wide eyes and an open heart. When you think like a child, everything feels possible. It’s your adult voice who builds fences around ideas, who says this can’t be done, or that will never work. Your grown-up self will take your wildest dreams and pin them down like butterflies, dissecting them under glass, pointing out every flaw until they stop flying.

But if you’re smart enough—or maybe just brave enough—you learn to keep that inner child alive. You learn to guard their voice, to let them speak, sing, stumble, play, and imagine without limits. And that’s what I try to do every time I sit down to write a story.

I write for the child I once was—curious, dreamy, shy, and full of quizzical questions. I write for the children I see now, the ones who still believe in dragons, talking animals, and crazy inventions. I write because childhood is not just a phase, it’s a way of seeing the world with wonder and awe instead of fear and doubt. I write because magic still lingers—in pages, in pauses, in the wondrous eyes of a child who dares to ask what if?

What if the princess grew tired of waiting, tired of towers and silence and secondhand stories, and picked up the sword herself, stepping barefoot into legend to face the dragon on her own terms?

What if the dragon, fierce and fumbling, was not a monster, but had a heart too big for his body? Madly in love with the princess, what if he didn’t know the language of love, but cursed with a tongue of fire, speaking only in scales and smoke and silence?

What if the prince finally arrived—not with a blade, but with a poem and a plume—and instead of a battle, there bloomed a conversation, a peaceful unspooling of stories, a friendship kindled by the fireplace, while rain tapped gently on the castle’s roof?
What if? What if?

So many questions, leading to countless stories that I loved to finish before drifting off to sleep as a child. Reading didn’t just fill my days—it filled my mind. It sparked my imagination, lit a fire in my creativity, and kindled ideas I wasn’t quite ready to share.

I carried those stories with me for years, letting them grow in the background of my mind, until, as an adult, I finally gathered the courage to write them down.


Why Did It Take Me So Long to Go Back to My Childhood Dream?

I’ve always believed that before you can write something worth reading, you need to take two essential steps.

First, you have to study hard, read as much as you can, learn the craft, maybe even go to college. And that’s exactly what I did. I studied literature, became fluent in six languages, completed three master’s degrees, and even earned a PhD in French Literature.

Second, you need to live, to experience the world firsthand and learn from it.

For me, the best way to do that was through travel. Having explored over forty countries, I’ve learned that every journey carries its own lesson. Travel opens the heart and mind, it asks you to bend and flow, to step beyond comfort, and to discover life through new and unexpected lenses.

Every place I’ve seen, every person I’ve met, they all left a mark on how I now think, feel, and, eventually, write.

Of course, there are exceptions to the “live first, write later” philosophy: those rare, radiant prodigies who seem to arrive already burning with brilliance. Arthur Rimbaud immediately comes to mind: he wrote A Season in Hell and Illuminations before he even turned twenty. Mary Shelley created Frankenstein at just eighteen, conjuring monsters from grief and imagination. Françoise Sagan was the same age when she wrote Bonjour Tristesse, a debut that rippled through the literary world. And the list goes on—Lord Byron, Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote—all of them lighting up the page in their teens or early twenties, writing not with the calm wisdom of age, but with the fierce fire of discovery, capturing life as it bursts open: messy, wild, and wonderfully unfinished.

However, I’ve never been one of those early-blooming talents. My path has been slower and humbler. I’ve had to build my voice gradually, by studying, by gathering stories, by letting experience shape me. It’s taken time, but it has also given me something precious: a voice that feels fully my own.

And now, finally, I feel ready. Ready to go back to the childhood dream I’ve kept faithfully alive all these years. Ready to build enchanted worlds and wander through their winding streets. Ready to write—not just with craft and care, but with soul and stardust.