I don't believe anyone can truly be identified in one definition. Ever. You yourself are growing in your own ways constantly, a constant snake shedding its skin to a new day, a new hour, maybe a new month...but either way, you're never the same for long.

I've always had an artistic outlook, whether it be through the eyes of sorrow or through bliss, or through naivety. My aunt heard me singing "Do You Love Me" in her car when I was 1 1/2 and was laughing so bad she had to pull over the car and ask my dad, "How does she know that song?"

All his reply was, "She knows too many songs."

Needless to say, that's what I do. I'm currently studying to be a music therapist, now in my junior year at Seton Hill University, and I'm 20 years old. Oh yes...and if I didn't say it, my name is Sarah...but I prefer to be called Jade with my fiction. Most of my friends call me Steps. I live about a county away from Pittsburgh, PA and I am mostly an optimist and an outgoing personality. I used to go up to strangers when I was 5 and tell them my name, my phone number...you get the gist.

The strongest things that influence my life are passion, family and music. Everything else fits in those 3 categories. Love is passion to me. I have a wonderful man in my life, Bryan, and I truly do believe he is the love of my life. The reason I study in college is passion. Writing is a true passion for me. And recently within the last 2 years, I've gained a passion to learn about cooking and have tried going gourmet, even considering culinary school.

Family and friends are all one. I treat them equally. I would do anything for a friend, even if it meant something major. I am fiercely loyal to my friends, so you really can't lose me.

And music...what else can I say?

I tend to be a bit of a work-a-holic. You've seen those...when they're not doing something that blows their brains out with stress, they don't know what to do with themselves? That's definitely me. I am generally a friendly and nice person, though I definitely have my moments of being female. Grr. I aim to please everybody, I tend to agree too much, and am also fiercely emotional when something goes wrong.

I believe life is 2 things: inspiration and passion. Something to inspire you definitely keeps your head up...and passion is something to keep you grounded at the same time. My family has been a big factor in the person I am today. I know for a fact I would never be as strong as I am. My family has gone through much personal trauma during my life and before...and still to this day. The fiction that I write is vaguely based on my life and what I have dealt with. My mother has lived through 14 years of a nondifferentiated cancer that originated in her brain and has been relatively healthy. My father is not in my life currently, but ever since I was 12, my mother and I moved out of his house because he was an alcoholic and we were done with that part of our lives. My sister, Jess, has cerebral palsy along with many other physical ailments. I'm not looking for sympathy, I don't need it. They make me stronger...and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I feel the music within my bones and blood...almost like the music changes my mood extremely. My mother used to notice when I was 14 that I used to be a very angry person after listening to Korn and I find I still get that way sometimes. I even cry when I hear Tim McGraw's "Don't Take The Girl". The music I create and the music that I listen to both influence me. I can play mediocre piano, guitar, drums, and I'm a voice major; I've also learned flute, clarinet, saxophone, and violin. I enjoy thoroughly the thought of helping people, such as last night when I helped Bryan sort clothes to donate to the Veterans, I just felt good helping him, even though it was little. And the idea of working with music to help heal...is mindboggling, and I will never get over it. I worked with clients in the last year (clients with mental retardation on my first practicum) armed with only a guitar and some ideas...and some magical things happen that I surely cannot explain here. Just know...your writer is purely passionate about what she does.

I started writing seriously when I was about 12 when I first moved to my new house with my grandmother. Over the span of 4 years, I had written about 60 sets of crappy lyrics that I have since disposed on. The time when I got the Internet in 2001, I instantly clicked into the fanfiction scene and started writing about my favorite band at the time, *NSYNC. Most of the time, my inspiration really didn't come from anything in particular. Staying Friends has got to be my most outrageous piece of work I've ever written. I wanted to write about things I was afraid of...and there is it. I need to rewrite it though, it came out of me when I was 16 and there are HUGE plotholes. Also when I was 16, I came out with Losing Everything and I found myself nominated for countless fanfiction awards, 7 of which I actually won. Not Letting Go was a joke at first, but I love how cynical it is. It's almost like I don't give a fuck really. Other fics such as Pushign Away But Staying Together and If Only Not To Live The Way I Do were written on the basis that I wanted to go a different direction with my writing. Creativity bubbled for a while and I was getting more into the anti-social poetry thing for a couple years until last year, when I picked up fanfiction again. I started writing Epiphany and The Edge when I was in a real slump, back in the fall of 2004...I was starting to pull out of it. I actually let Epiphany go for 5 months when I got mysterious feedback on it and decided to finish it...I worked on it meticulously and there is a TON of me in it. I felt drained after I finished it, then I got into full swing with Perpendicular, it's been finished for a good 4 months now. I have now permanently picked up Inertia and it is going strong.

Hopefully I'm not out of ideas yet. Like I said...I'm not simple. But I hope you all like me anyways.