I started creating characters when I was in middle school. My cousin and I would brainstorm ideas and write them out on paper in class, then we would act as our characters after school. I would write small stories, but it was the beginning of high school when I really started to get into writing. I remember sitting in my freshman math class and writing a story about a girl who was planning on running away with her guy best friend on a large ship to live out her dreams of traveling the world…