And eventually ensconcing myself into the new world that each book, each chapter, each page, and each line held for me.  Although I was not cognizant of it at the time, characters and their stories not only enabled me to free myself cognitively from my world; but paradoxically, they helped me to understand the world around me.  This personal relationship with the written word would eventually become dormant over the course of my adolescence.  During my secondary school years, my life as a reader of literature was disconnected from my life as a writer of literature.  Language and composition components were sectioned off from literature.  For the most part, composition was cornered off into one large assignment:  the research paper.  The culmination of the fragmented and limited curriculum disillusioned and eventually discouraged any literary pursuits.  At this point in my life, the Word no longer held power.