Why I write.

There are three reasons for my being a writer. In chronological order: 1) I wrote before I could read. 2) Susan Vreeland failed me in my high school writing class. 3) I feel like I'm still in high school.

My first memory is lying on my stomach in my aunt's bed in Hawaii with one of my mom's paperback books. I can't read, but I'm making up a complete story, out loud, turning each page, my eyes skimming the letters on the page, not knowing what they say, but mimicking my mother who to this day will ignore my calling her until she is finished with her page. When I was that little four-year-old on the bed reading my mom's book, I was twisting my hair around my finger as I read, just like mom still does.

Once I could read and write I began making my own books, with illustrations and text, and stapling them together for a real book. My first book was titled "Me and My Seed." It was about four pages, starring me and my seed. I introduced us, and then we walked away. I'm not sure why I had a seed--I grew up in condos in San Diego where a garden was a patch of gray dirt hidden all day from the sun by the tall patio walls. I don't remember houseplants, other than the poinsettias my mother bought for Christmas. But there I was, just me and my seed.

My next books were plagiarized from the Warm Fuzzie books. Again, I illustrated and wrote the whole book. I wrote a whole series of Warm Fuzzie books on my own, including a nearly 20-page novel titled "Warm Fuzzie Play Atari" (this was the eighties, after all).

After that, I grew and my tastes developed and I wrote books based on the Sweet Valley Series. Twins Elizabeth and Jessica had honey-blonde hair and "sun-kissed skin." My girls would get into very similar adventures. I'd send these books to my cousins who also loved Sweet Valley High, though I'm not sure they read my versions.

When I wasn't breaking copyright laws, I read. I'm an only child and my parents both worked full-time. I was what was called in the eighties a "latch-key kid." Latch-key kids were normal then in Southern California, though it must have been a blip in the history of acceptable ways for raising a child. The time alone shaped me into an independent person, rarely bored, and never without something to read. It helped that my mother let me read whatever I wanted. I mean anything. I was at sixth-grade camp reading Danielle Steel's complete oeuvre.

My high school was amazing: a public school, in a building built on a fault line with no windows. We had no band and no night football games, but we did have a writing class taught by Susan Vreeland, who at the time had published just one (now out-of-print) book and several travel articles. She wore shoes dyed the color of her suits and she gave us the most productive writing exercises--here's three words: raccoon, purse, swim--now write a 50-word story using those words--and she had a favorite (Kim Hokum) who wrote about soccer. I wrote about sex a lot--the phrase is "We felt like pioneers." I wrote a full page on a girl and boy getting to third base for the first time--and each time I did, I'd get an E or a D if I was lucky. I'd run from the room crying and she'd keep teaching as if nothing had happened.

I hated her for a long time, and when her career really started taking off, I'd go to her readings and sit in the back and glare at her. And each time I saw her she'd remember my name and never another one of her students from the past. I'd say hello, and never anything more.

When I signed my first book contract, I went to a reading and told her the news. She was thrilled and introduced me to her audience and I said, "She failed me." She hugged me and said, "Now you know why." Later at that reading, she told me that Kim Hokum was there and I should go talk to her. I looked over and there Kim Hokum was, and I just couldn't go talk to her, though I really wanted to rub it in her face, but I'd stolen my first line of Swollen from Kim's college acceptance letter, so I felt like it might be inappropriate. Ms. Vreeland has since been a friend and mentor and has been generous beyond measure. I dedicated my first book to her. She's been in Europe since my book came out, so I'm not sure she's seen it, but if she reads this, I'd really like that A now.

Though I am 29, with my own apartment in San Francisco, a paid-off car, and a part-time college teaching job, I still feel like that 16-year-old girl. I want to make sure my friends aren't mad at me, my boyfriend is totally dreamy, and I can't talk and watch MTV at the same time. But more than all of that I am still that girl, stuck in the moment that I went to my senior year English teacher and asked her why we didn't read any books by women.

"Do you know of any?" she asked. She really had me because I couldn't think of any. Young adult fiction has moved so far into the literary realm that now I hope teachers are assigning books for young women, about young women. There never needs to be a girl in that same situation. I'm so proud to be on the shelves with the beautiful books there, the experimental, voice-driven, dark truths about what it's really like for teens. For anyone. I read the books shelved around mine and think, wow that's totally me talking. My parents suck, school sucks, I hate my friends, but here's one moment when a person is really talking to me. I'm 29, but I'm so grateful for that 16-year-old girl who is me, and not me, but some unknown author sitting alone in a room remembering the 16-year-old girl that she used to be and certainly still is.

Melissa Lion is the author of Swollen, published in 2004 by Random House, Wendy Lamb Books.