On Reading, Writing, and Storytelling

Here's one of my first posts in HeBlogs-SheBlogs. And I think it's quite appropriate to re-post this first because it would explain a lot about me and my reason for living, err...I mean blogging :D

On Reading, Writing, and Storytelling

26 February 2012

12.03

I recently joined this online community for readers called “Goodreads”. It lets you rate books you have already read and mark books that you want to read.  It also counts the number of books you have read/rated. Mine only reached 129. Well that’s, at least, among the books that I was able to remember and find in their site.  For non-avid readers, 129 books is a lot. For bookworms, it’s very few.  And it saddens me because I consider myself a bookworm and then I find out that I’ve only read 129 books???  I’m a poser. :(

Reading is something I love doing ever since I was a child.  I would finish all stories in our grade school textbooks within the first week that they were given to me. I love stories. I love reading, re-telling, and writing my own stories. Re-telling stories, yes, I do that every single day. But reading and writing? Not really much…not lately…not as much as I wanted to. :(

There are a lot of things that need to be done every day. There’s the job – the paying one – which of course, I have to do to feed myself. There are the household chores staring me in the face and silently beckoning me to do them. And then the million distractions around me. There is just no end to the reasons and excuses in putting off writing.

Reading is easy. Once I open a page, boom! I’m hooked.  Reading is like drinking, sipping from a glass of fine wine (assuming, of course, you are reading a good book).  It’s like savoring the taste bit by bit, enjoying the experience by the drop, without rushing yourself to finish the drink. Until you become immersed in the story, become one of the characters, or a silent observer inside the story. You relish in that state of languor and forget your own life and the rest of the world…if only for a while.  

Writing is more difficult.  It takes a lot of energy and concentration to do it. And in my case, I seem to need a lot of preparations or ceremonies before I actually put myself into “writing mode”.  No particular activities, but I always find myself doing something… anything… before I settle my fingers on the keyboard,  lock my eyes on the monitor and start typing away. Sometimes I think it is my own fear that hinders me from writing.  It’s embarrassing to admit but yes, I’m afraid.  I’m afraid to find out that I really can’t write.  That I don’t really have a talent for it.  Like on reading, that I just pose myself as a bookworm but I’m really not. Not even close. 129 books? Bah!

There are a few people who believe in me. I don’t know why, but I think, and they tell me, they sincerely do.  Yes, I do have a few ideas and plots in mind.  But very few made it to paper, or to the computer.  They’re just here inside my mind. They’re lurking… hanging like unfinished cobwebs created by a tiny spider that seems to doubt the strength of its own weaving and therefore leaves its house incomplete. The spider settles in a corner, where it doesn’t belong but is comfortable enough…safe enough to live in.  If there is such a spider, I’m like that spider.  My heart aches to pour forth its desires and failings, its wishes and frustrations, its joys and pains. But the mind is afraid of what might come off it, so it does other things instead and tells itself it’s too busy to write. Or that there are other things more important than writing. I once read somewhere, “Don’t write because you want to. Write because you cannot live without writing”.

I know I want to write. I know I want to be a writer. I want to write stories and novels and do that for the rest of my life.  I have started a few chapters, but still that doesn’t make me a writer.  And I don’t know for sure if I can, or can’t, live without writing. Maybe I’m just being realistic and practical. Playing it safe.  But even in the hustle and bustle of my mechanical work life, I still find myself scribbling a poem or some musings like this one from time to time. So yeah, maybe I can’t live without writing.

I can’t find the confidence to call myself a writer but I know I’m a good storyteller.  People I have told stories to tell me that I move them with my way of telling the story.  They find themselves wanting to watch a movie, or read a book, after I have related it to them.  They say I excited them and incited interest in them.  Also, when I was in grade school, I participated in this group reading contest. Our group won second place and the judge said it was the compelling reading of the storyteller who brought victory to their group. Guess who the storyteller was.  I am.

So I think it’s safe to claim that I’m a good storyteller.  That accounts for something, right?  On that note, I resolve to call myself a Storyteller, if not a writer.    

I know that by now you’re wondering what is this musing and rambling all about. Where and what does it lead to?  Truth be told, I don’t know exactly.  Maybe, I’m making an excuse for not being a good writer, or for not being a writer at all. Maybe I’m asking for understanding, that you may read my work with kind criticism if you don’t find it to your liking.  But in any case, I would be glad that you read me at all.  :)