Many people wondered how I become a writer. I myself at first was also at loss. I have always been in-love with books, fascinated with people, places, cultures and events. I have encountered words, big words as I go along unending essays at school. But never in my remotest dreams that one-day I’ll be a writer.
Romancing words was beyond my notice. I learned the figures of speech but they didn’t move me, left no impressions. I was brought up to be practical, surrounded by cousins involved in math and sciences, and family friends who are very much into business.
Exposures to art were limited to museums. My high school teachers did their job though; taught me literature. However, I have always been lazy when it comes to writing. I’m my friends’ despair when it comes to letter writing because of this attitude.
Nevertheless, my grade school teacher’s whispers to my parents that I have the gift of writing and it show in my works persisted, reverberated all throughout my school years.
One day my guidance councilor asked me what my plans for college were. I told her I’d obey whatever my parents want. She shook her head and said, “Haven’t you thought of something else?”
Taken aback, I groped for answers. Suddenly, my adviser’s voice echoed inside my head, she pointed out my style; choice of words and figures of speech I used. That among her students, my work in literature exams, particularly essays, always had an identifiable mark--my own mark.
My adviser and guidance councilors were adamant for me to follow my own path. Unfortunately, being the eldest child, I was groomed to be practical. For my parents, writing was short of begging in the streets. Having lost the battle I went to college, buried my dream and forget about it.
But equations, problems, formulas and t-accounts never truly captured my imagination. Instead, I found myself writing whenever boredom struck in the middle of discussing Newton or Boyle’s law, Empirical formula of saturated fats, Celsius to dehydrate potatoes for French fries. Identifying microorganisms and counting colonies.
I was already resolved in my struggles to remain faithful to my science; when a friend begged me to accompany her for a college journal exam. Before I knew it, I passed the exam and she didn’t. A year later I became literary editor.
My spirit sang, rejoiced but fear overcame me, I hid it from my parents. They had other plans for me. So I kept writing in the dark.
Ironically, I never practiced my degree professionally. Instead, I found myself deep at work with rewriting memos, contracts, and project proposals for my boss. Six months later, I was editing and proofreading the bureau’s press releases, publications for the information office.
When a situation at work caused my moral integrity to be questioned, I neglected writing.
However, when I was about to fall into a pit of depression, a friend told me, “Think back what you used to dream about. Start living for yourself. Stop achieving somebody else’s dreams. What do you really want to do? Ask yourself, ask your heart. If writing makes you happy, draws you out, so be it. Do anything for it!”
First batch of my work was published. But I encountered worst depression on the road. I was mad with my rejected works, hard with myself that I tore everything I wrote. When reality came back, it hurt so much. I might have given up, but I kept hearing my friend’s voice, “Why give up so easily?”
Resolved to do anything in the name of writing, I attended workshops; read books; mingled with people. It was a humbling experience and I realized writing was not a mere capriciousness.
If I made writing in its early stage my bread and butter, I would have definitely gone hungry. Contentedness came, even if money seemed to drain so fast from my pockets. Not because I have plenty of it to spend, but I know it will never make me happy.
Writing provided me so much unlike traveling, reading books, time with people. The outlet of my thoughts, in it, I was able to bare my soul, let my spirit soar to the skies, drift to another dimension. Create places still haven’t imagine; breathe to characters people have yet to meet; that was my passion.
As time went on, I learned to see different perspectives. Writing turned into vocation. Not only to document. But more on to delve in people’s thoughts, dreams and hearts, reflect their hurts, triumphs; what they usually ignore.
One of the qualities of being a writer is learn to step back; quite different from ordinary mortals who just go along whenever life takes them. So it becomes a duty to make their lives meaningful. I became a writer after that long journey. Perhaps, I already came full circle to where I have started … *****
