MYRIAD ∞ essays

entry 1: writing

Topic: Writing

     What really is writing and the rules that govern it?

     If one asks a general population of people about the subject; they'll usually dive into the thought of the boring days at school, writing down notes our professors had laid out for pointers, things of which we will never go back to after graduation and we have our whole lives ahead of us. No matter how much you value educational property; at the end of the day we all have those long forgotten boxes of elementary/high school notebooks sitting under our beds, never to see the light of day again, because we are just that non-sentimental. And it's not like all our days in high schopl were marvelous like hoe they portray it in the movies. Some of us went through a tough time at school, and others don't even want to remember it because of the trauma and the stress.

     What makes a writer's opinion about writing, however is different. We all see writing differently like any other thing, because we all have various opinions on things, and for fellow writers, this is also the case. We are not all crazed to place down two thousand plus words a day, and in some days we are surely not thick enough to not write at all. I don't know, it all changes each day depending on the mood.

     In my case, writer's block like latching onto me every now and then like leech, and I'm sure I'm not alone on this one but it still makes me hate myself when it has been a week, and the only thing I've written down on a fic are fifty words. Eventually I'll get the right amount of guilt to actually finish it, but as of right now I am suffering the same situation. Hell, the only reason I'm writing this essay is because I'm not brave enough to face the fact that school had been out for a week and I had barely touched Google docs to do what a responsible novelist does; write. At least that's what I consider myself to be, I don't know how other people or my readers see me though.

     Which is ironic now that I've thought about it. Writing to me is like breathing, as miserable as that statement is. I find myself always drifting in and out of reality everytime I'm not typing down one thousand five hundred words on a story each day. Yet, despite all the attachment and love I show it, I don't realize how much I take it for granted. It still guilts me to this day that I'm not productive and mentally stable enough to be a proper novelist. I always say that I enjoy writing and I do. I do enjoy it more than hanging out with the single friend I have in my life, and writing had become one of the reasons why I'm still sane in the first place, but lately I feel like I'm actually losing the spark, not that I ever had it in the first place.

     So in those dark times when I'm diving deep into the abyss of laziness and creativity block, I'll be ghosting around tumblr or Pinterest to find motivation or references that could get me starting, which is the unhealthiest way to cope, but I make use of what I have. And by scrolling through social media, I've seen this quote which properly states that writing doesn't have any sort of rules. It is what you make it to be.

     I shit you not, it's the best piece of advice I've ever seen next to "Show don't Tell" perhaps because I was guilty that I didn't follow the main rule, but it made me feel good about myself that I didn't have to try. Ever since I began my journey of officially becoming a novelist, I've always tried. I've always tried to make my stories long because that's how others were doing it, tried to make my writing as detailed as possible, tried to give my characters enough life to consider them real people. I've tried hard and with that much desperation, I came tumbling down the rabbit hole of hating myself because I can't try hard enough. Four years later since I abandoned the first story I've ever written, I'm still trying. But then again at the end of the day, you don't have to if you don't need to. Write the way you want to write, there are no rules.

     If you love writing and consider it as something you would do in a heartbeat of given the chance; that is enough. You don't have to try hard the way I did. You don't have to force down your sanity and mental health for the sake of other people, write for yourself. Think of yourself first, then maybe if  you've given yourself enough love, you'll be able to do it to other people. And this doesn't even only apply to writing. It applies everywhere. I know we grew up to the statement that we should consider other people first before ourselves, but we have come to the point of our lives where we need to give ourselves attention, for if we don't we tend to drift away from others as well.

     Maybe this essay is pointless. Maybe it answered none of the questions we had inside our heads and maybe I really do need to seek emotional support, but I know one thing, and that is we are good enough.  We are worthy enough to call ourselves writers if we live and breathe writing. There are no rules that govern it. It is what we make it to be because the words that came straight out of our fingers are our own.