Everyone has someone who inspires them and their passions, so who would that be for aspiring writer, freshman Lincoln Wheeler?

Lincoln is in journalism, hoping to grow his writing skills as he moves farther in high school, college and adult life. 

At the moment, Lincoln is focusing on journalism but plans to take a few AP English classes farther into high school. His goal is to get a degree in communications or something related to language arts. 

“Publishing novels would be great, but only time will tell,” Lincoln explained. 

Lincoln has always had lots of love and support from his family since he dove into writing. “I would use my limited child vocabulary to string together odd sentences as a 6 through 8-year-old and didn’t really start [writing] until eighth grade,” Lincoln said.

Once Lincoln started writing, however, he was all in. He wrote short stories and reviews and he even started a blog. 

A lot of authors had him captivated by their writing styles when he was younger, urging him to start writing stories of his own. One author was Lois Lowry, the author of The Giver which was one of the first books he read. The Giver is a dystopian fiction that Lincoln feels is, despite technically being a younger kids book, is a very well written novel and was one of the first books he read that showed him that reading could be fun.

“The Giver less directly influenced my writing than it did introduce me to suspense and overall the types of stories that could be told,” Lincoln said.

Jon Krakauer, who wrote Into The Wild, was another author who inspired Lincoln and got him into writing. Into The Wild is a unique story which taught him many lessons. 

“There are stories everywhere, you just have to look for them,” Lincoln said.”[Into the Wild] was just sort of a story of wonder that also got me interested in nonfiction a little bit.”

The author Lincoln holds closest to his heart, however, is the popular horror writer Stephen King. Lincoln explains that during middle school, he took a break from reading, as he didn’t read for fun as much when he was younger. The summer going into eighth grade, he read Misery at his family cabin and was immediately hooked. Misery started his passion for King’s books and writing after he had taken a long break from reading. King reinspired his creativity.

“Stephen King is a unique author, his books are well written but simplistic, not overly complicated,” Lincoln said.

From that point, Lincoln decided he wanted to explore writing for real. 

Lincoln’s grandmother, Glenda Wheeler, has watched her grandson grow up and take hold of his writing skills. Glenda described her grandson’s interest in writing as starting at a young age. According to her, he has always been an avid reader and excellent student, which is easy to tell from his writing. Glenda explained that she and Lincoln have discussions about a variety of topics and loves to see his thought process at many different points. She also explained that he comes from a family that loves to read so he was always surrounded by writing. 

“I am constantly amazed at his perceptive, sensitive, inquisitive nature. He is a critical thinker, asks questions and finds answers,” Glenda said.

Central Catholic freshman Alexander Soles has been a great friend of Lincoln since first grade and has read many of Lincoln’s pieces. Alexander is also greatly interesting in Stephen King’s books and he and Lincoln have a lot of fun talking and bonding over their shared interests. 

Soles described Lincoln as a talented writer and a hard worker. 

“I would say that Lincoln is inspired just by reading the stories, when he sees something that he wants, or when he sees an opportunity he works hard to get there, that’s what makes him great,” Soles said.

Soles also said when he and Lincoln were younger, Lincoln would show him his stories and they had lots of fun reading them and discussing. 

“He just recently showed me a part of his new story and he is talented, the way he adds detail, he makes the story seem so real,” Soles said. “When he wants to do something, or has a goal in his mind, he works hard to get it.” 

Lincoln has always had an interest in reading and writing and is adding to his skills with journalism. He has had many supporters along his writing journey, like his grandmother and best friend who have acknowledged his passion and pushed him to work harder. But it’s easy to say that without Stephen King, Lincoln wouldn’t be where he is today.