WRITING is really taxing and troublesome for me, honestly. Yet, I have plenty of reasons why I keep on coming back to do it.
I think I have a satisfactory language facility, even in writing. But still, for me, it is cognitively demanding and quite draining.
It requires not just a competitive set of language skills, decent penmanship (not applicable in typed write-ups, though), or a topic. One also has to constantly monitor his/her language and grammar use.
One also has to know how to strategically, often creatively, present an idea and structure a piece well to hook readers, since you no longer write for your own pleasure in a publishing industry. You now write for the enjoyment of others.
Aside from that, you also have to have a sufficient set of metaphors, vocabulary; some wit, content knowledge, facts, a little humor, and other shindigs to make your write-ups readable and gratifying.
I actually have very little confidence in my writing skills, especially on the last element I mentioned above (Please don’t ask about my handwriting anymore!).
I also honestly have no idea how I got the columnist spot for this paper (Please ask the EIC why he retained me *chuckles*).
Writer’s blocks always easily prey on me. In the middle of my struggles to squeeze out what little I have, I often end up slamming my head against a metaphoric wall just to get the ideas together on paper.
My creative juices also often run dry most of the time, even if I have been trying to build a career out of writing for quite some time now.
Back in high school, I almost failed my third year English class just because I couldn’t submit my final requirement: a simple 500-word essay.
My topic was what I plan for the future. I already wrote five pages about the topic, but then, I realized that my writing was all over the place and that cohesion was nowhere to be found. In the end, I didn’t write the final draft and have forgotten to submit the requirement altogether.
In high school, I concluded to myself that I hate writing. I hated doing essays, articles, short stories, journals, or reaction papers.
Higher education didn’t help either. I graduated with a Journalism degree, yet I still tend to stare at a blank page for several minutes—even hours or days, at my worst—before I could start writing. I’m lucky if a pint of ice cream would sometimes help my struggle.
But most of the time, I have to do what I hate doing. It’s because there is a need to do so, and we sometimes need what we don’t like.
I need to tell people what they have to know.
My endeavors were more than needing to express or argue. It was to attend to the people’s need to be enlightened about human struggles, sufferings, educational system problems, illiteracy, threats, danger, discrimination, conspiracies, misconceptions, and poverty.
There are also stories of survival, inspiration, love, positivity, hope, and discoveries.
I cannot be physically present to help people, but at least, through a piece of paper, I hope to empathize with the afflicted and edify others about the former’s struggles.
With that in mind, my hands often enter a deep state of mind on their own and run words that were timely and needed.
With the little skill I have, I wish to contribute to a much larger cause.