![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/leonelb/23wC5muZymTK66RYWYZgcM2C25sJnHyuNF9bQt8hEwQj9Xm6cXRVMoV92AgDfcsqVBG8s.png) ^{Cover - Original image edited with Microsoft Power Point.} ***

Good morning friends, this is my participation for week 15, I hope you like it. Start!

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# My beginnings # Since I was young I started to be interested in reading and writing, but I had my beginnings and some long pauses before I really took that path. Let's start from the beginning, when I was in elementary school, I remember that I wrote some stories as homework assigned by the teacher. My first story was about an abandoned dog that lived in a house where time did not pass. A few years later, I participated in a contest organized by the school and won first place. I was curious about writing and creating a story, but it had not awakened in me the love and happiness that I feel today when writing a poem or reading a book.

![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/leonelb/23w2sH2QMoZxH3ShwcVYdw6NiXS5WG4bNNtJUmHGQan4kk3RQ1BW6uUZ7QmM8JgXFPf3Q.png) ^{1st place in the story contest in primary, around 2006 - Original image taken with the Honor 7s cell phone.}

# Cultivating reading and writing # When I entered high school, one day I was alone at recess and I had a phone with a special function to write a diary. I didn't know what I could write there, but it occurred to me that it would be interesting to write again. Until some of my classmates made fun of it and that discouraged me. At that time, around third year of high school, the guidance teacher said we should read "The knight in rusty armor" and "Who took my cheese", these two books assigned to carry out a later evaluation awakened "the thirst for reading more", I wanted to read other authors and unknown stories and discover new worlds. So I did, subsequently reading the series of books whose protagonist is Robert Langdong, by the author "Dan Brown", books such as "Inferno" or the "Davinci Code", I liked long books like those, about 600 pages preferably. I did not want the story to end so fast! I read also, "The Owl That Couldn't Hoot", "The Shadow of the Wind", "The Years of Pilgrimage of the Colorless Boy", the latter belongs to Murakami and nowadays I have read almost all of his books. When I found out that there were book sales at the university I went crazy, the books were super cheap and although they were not so well known authors, it was like an over dose of caffeine. I fell in love with books, reading and writing. One day, sitting near the university dining hall, I looked at my classmates and asked them for words to write something, I didn't even know what it would be and then this would become a habit. Asking for 10 words to write an attempt at a free verse poem that had no rhyme or meter, but was made from the heart and some hunger in this particular case, at that time it was almost lunch time. It was something magical for me, I didn't know what the heck I had written, but I did something and I liked it. Sometimes, I would get distracted and put writing aside to give more space to my studies and homework at home, other times, I would ask for words and put a puzzle together with them. Much later, I would recognize that I had wasted valuable childhood time on non-productive activities like video games and online gaming.

![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/leonelb/23tc1WDSbsvWMCKqAF3vYRhjJsbQAq4oLYHYga4vHduoA2ekRw3v1v74GP5Pm8Qu8wFHi.png) ^{Writing book, here are some of the first texts I wrote at university - Original image taken with the Honor 7s cell phone.}

# Moving forward # Yes, I had fun with games, but nothing compares to writing. So I decided to take it a step further and challenge myself. I wrote a poem in order to participate in a contest held in my country, I'm talking about the contest to pay tribute to the poet "Rafael Cadenas". In the year 2020 between March and May, I sent my participation and once the contest was over and the results came out, I received an "acknowledgment of receipt" in which it states my participation in the 5th edition of that national poetry contest. And as you may have noticed, I did not win. In fact, I was not even in the top 30 participants who received a space in the anthology corresponding to that contest. That discouraged me a bit and I knew it wasn't easy at all. Despite all that, my love for reading and writing is still intact, I plan to continue reading and writing until the day I die, unless God wills otherwise.

![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/leonelb/242hqQp5ZoxQXq41GQP6U35tsLrBmNfaeLRHZqmbqMs9xjkZd1yNPPzio6XwUYG3m2EXn.png) ^{Acknowledgement of receipt - Screenshot.}

I am currently participating again in this contest and I am waiting for the results to come out in the first week of July. This year I have set myself several goals in order to improve some aspects of my life, especially with regard to organization and the achievement of short, medium and long term goals. # Conclusion # So, dear friends, my greatest pride is to have discovered the world of reading and writing. Anyone could think that this is something irrelevant, but in my case, it has changed my life and many times, it has been the refuge to which I turn to when no one next to me knows why the surface of the water is as cold as a tempane. *** Thank you so much for taking the time to read. I hope you liked it. This post has been translated using the ["deepl" translator](https://www.deepl.com/es/translator), please if you see any errors, let me know in the comments to correct it as soon as possible. ***

leonelb

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