Let's Talk: Writing

Good Morning (or night or afternoon, wherever you are, whenever you read this)! This post / email is for those who want something fun to read. Hope you stick until the end!

I believe it’s obvious that I enjoy writing. I write things here for all of you to read. I write a lot, and it might as well have been my life up to a while ago. I’ve gone through a couple of phases in my life, and writing is probably the thing I have enjoyed the most.

It started out with the end of my older phase: consuming more media than healthy. This included watching anime, reading manga, and, well, that’s basically what I was consuming. Every time, I would imagine what it would be like to place my own character in their world, and, naively, I thought I could write better than they did, with characters that are much more epic than theirs. Looking back, most of those stories were masterpieces with their own uniqueness, though some were too childish to be taken seriously now. For example, I don’t believe—now that I’ve become more mature and have had my hands at writing—that I could ever achieve a mastery nor detail-oriented story such as One Piece. Though One Piece may seem like a childish thing to watch for most adults, it is, admittedly, a masterpiece and rightfully one of the most popular anime and manga. I could not tell you how much brain cells it must have taken to make such an amusing and amazing plot line every arc. I have a hard time knowing one character, much less a few hundred (which is what the author of One Piece does, apparently), and I could ramble on and on how amazing and detailed One Piece is. But, to put in point, that was how I started to write on a paper with a pencil.

The point of using the pencil and paper is now a mystery to me, however, I believe it was because I believed I had tons of paper, I didn’t have a phone capable of such tasks, and I wanted to be torturing my hand for some odd reason. So, the second logical thing I did was make the most badass character…with a lot of trauma (I never got through two pages of writing the first story). Here’s the main thing about all my characters in that phase: they all had a ton of trauma. Like I was competing to make the character with the most traumatic past, ever. So dark, I know. It may have had something to do with my train of thoughts that thought about the darkest things, and what it would feel like to have the worst life because mine wasn’t worse enough for me, but it was really dark. This is also probably why I have this twisted common sense of what a ‘bad’ life looks like. You could tell me your parents fought a lot, and I would not understand how bad that is. This might also have something to do with my alexithymia, and how I can only realize how you’re feeling if you tell me in words I can understand, which is probably also why I enjoyed writing as much as I did.

That was when I was 13, and if I were to look back on the writings of those days, I would probably cringe a total of a hundred times before deciding not to do anything about it because editing has forever been on my procrastination list. Fast forward a few years, I got a phone, which opened up the world to writing digitally. Again, I will cringe a hundred and one times before deciding not to do anything about it. I must admit, that was very useful for helping my typing speed go up on my phone, though my dyslexia might get in the way. Those were the days I was really obsessed with writing, it was unhealthy, yet fun. You could say that one of the things I love most in life is writing.

It wasn’t all fluff and writing. I usually went into a temporary phase every once in a while where I just binged the most random things instead of writing. I believe this is called writer’s block, though it was more something to do with my motivation to keep going. As I reflect on this, I believe it was necessary in keeping me going, as well as keeping me on earth. It was inspiring, and at the same time, extremely eye-opening as to what others were doing, how I could improve my own writings. Or I would just read my works again for the nth time and decide that I should edit it, only to not edit it (I should really learn how to edit my works). I loved writing (and still do), but sometimes, you need a break. I also had, like, a few dozens of work that I never finished (I should learn how to end stories), and I would never end the stories but, instead, would start a new one because my mind would come up with “what if…” statements that intrigued me to a fault, I had to write about it.

So, as a writer, I believe all of this was necessary and, seeing how I could do this for more than a few years, I believe I did find one of my passions in life. However, with confidence, I can say that I sacrificed my school work for this. I did not mind, as I wasn’t failing, and I had fun while in the classes when I understood the material, however, I do believe writing was one of the reasons why I was okay with living under a rock and not developing healthy study habits and why I had commitment issues with the exception of writing. Which is why I believe my other phase after my writing phase helped balance things out (more about that in the future, promise).

I was probably a complete mystery to my parents. I was holed up in my room every time I didn’t have to eat or go to school, and I believe it made them think I was into social media. Or addicted to some form of social media. To be fair, my family is a bit on the odd side, so it would be easy to assume that I was the more normal one in the family, but seeing how I lacked the most common common sense, I would throw that theory out the window. I don’t have much of a connection with my parents, but social media is not one of the reasons. Me and my relationship with social media is very unique. I find it a waste of time, except if the content of the media is useful and educational, and I don’t label myself as a social media addict. To prove it, I don’t have TikTok, and I don’t know how to use half the platforms I do have. I might as well be at the level of a boomer in terms of using social media. And I don’t care. My one addiction was, and will most likely continue to be (at a healthy level, hopefully) writing.

You will most likely never see the stories I have written. However, if someone does want to read some of the stories I have written, go ahead and shoot me an email. Though it would probably have to be more in the future when I have a good sense of how to write good stories, not just having a good idea of what the context should be, I think it would be fun to entertain the idea, and I would love your opinion on the snip bits of ideas I spew out 😄 .

Most recently (one of the wisest things I have ever done), I made this folder dedicated to short stories. Though these are as long as an actual story (as I don’t know how to write short stories), I believe this is one of the best things I could have done for several reasons. I can practice trying (but not really trying) to condense ideas into a story, I can practice ending a story (though most of them don’t have an ending), and I can dump all my ideas into that. It’s such a genius invention to the point, I need to applaud whomever came up with short stories. These are also probably the best written material for experimenting what I like best, and taking that and writing a whole story out of it. Again, probably never going to get around to that, but I like hoping.

Let’s talk about writing. Writing is a hobby for me—-one that eats up a lot of time. I love writing, even though sometimes it’s only a jumble of words that come out of my mind and onto some form of permanent device, unfiltered and unedited in all forms. I love writing, and I continuously pray that it continues to stick with me until the day I die. Writing will continue to fascinate me, and I hope that I can improve each day so I can have more fun with it. Writing has helped me express my creativity (in ways my drawings could not 😅 ), and is a media that has helped me dump a part of my mind and imprint it into the world. Writing is the easiest form of art in my arsenal that has helped me in my life to have some fun in school when it otherwise would have been a bore. I love writing, and even if people were to tell me that I’m not good at it, I will probably continue using it as my easiest escape from reality.

As a final word, I would like to say something that defines art—including writing and reading—that has been with me for a long time (and I need it out in the world). I believe art is the window to someone’s mind. If you’ve ever wanted a peek at what someone has been thinking of, taking in someone’s form of art is probably the thing you could ever come close to doing so. However one decides to express themselves through their choice of art, I believe it is the closest thing that one could get to understanding the artist, and I love the analogy. In my case, writing is my main form of art, and I love it.

Thanks for sticking this long, and I hope you have a great week! 😁 

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