I've had several jobs in my life and all of them involved writing, though in varying degrees. I have been given many titles and positions throughout my career but still, I consider myself basically a writer.
I did not call myself that right away, however. Realistically, I am not a perfect writer. Read through this blog and you'll find numerous grammar lapses and countless rule-breaking sentences. This very blog entry about me being a writer, ironically, will have typo and sentence construction errors. I know that. That is why growing up, even though I wrote a lot (I've been writing since I was six), I have accepted that the 'writer' tag is something one earns.
I started calling myself a writer when I started seeing my name in print for pieces that I got paid to write. That was in college. I am proud to say that I survived those four years partly through the money I received in exchange for the words I typed and sent. I wrote everything from children's literature, magazine features, religious reflections, news and lifestyle features to TV quiz show questions. And with the money I received, I even got myself my first ever gadget - a Sony Cassette Walkman. In a way, I was a working student. It wasn't hard for me though, cause I loved what I was doing and to a writer, nothing surpasses the thrill of seeing your work with your name in print.
And hundreds of printed articles later, I still get that same thrill, whenever I'm published by a newspaper, a magazine or a website.
But lately, I find myself having a little difficulty doing the kind of writing I used to love. This alarms me more than anything. But one of my mentors, a great writer herself said, once a writer, always a writer. When you feel like you're losing it, it's not the writing that's disappearing but the discipline.
And so that's what I should do. If I want to keep writing, I just need to keep writing. I need to write something or anything everyday. I should do this until it becomes a natural part of me once again, the way it felt when I was six, writing my first comic strips.
I should write more.
3 comments:
How did you get your pieces to be published? I've always wanted that :)
Oh I just never stopped writing and sending to publications who would be possibly interested in them :)
elvinelvinelvin: i always have this episode that i am not confident with my writing anymore-since it's no longer what i'm doing. i always feel like a novice everytime i face an empty screen. but like you, i keep on writing. it's something na hinahanap-hanap ko.
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