I have always (secretly) took pride in my writing ability. I've always thought... believed... that I could write. I mean, really write and get published someday. But to date, I still haven't published anything yet. Except some poems way back in high school, when I was a managing editor and literary editor of our school paper, but nothing in any major or even small commercial publication. Unless you count that one time in Reader's Digest in their "You Said It" section back in 2002, when I submitted my opinion about cloning, that's it. I'm not even close to finishing a decent novel.
Anyway, here's a proof of that published opinion in Reader's Digest. What the heck? I might as well immortalize it here...
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| Reader's Digest August 2002 Issue |
Yes, I have been talking about... been telling myself that I am going to devote time to writing. To allot hours everyday to sit and put my thoughts and the plots in my head on paper, but I never seem to get around to actually doing it. I seem to always find an excuse. My day job, the stress, the timing... etc... etc... Even when I took a break from work and stayed at home for one whole year, I still found excuses. The dishes, the laundry, the bathroom, the cooking, etc... etc...
Now, I am on the second year of hiatus from work and I still have nothing to show. I still find the same excuses. In fact, there seems to be more excuses now that I live in a bigger house. More rooms and bathrooms to clean, plus a garden to tend. Not to mention that I kind of grew fond of cooking and baking to the point that I even came up with a silly brand name for myself, so to speak. I call myself The Clueless Kusinera, dreaming that I would open up some kind of food business in the future using that name. I am not sure if I really want that, or if it's just a distraction from my true dream of a writing career.
I still dream of writing and getting published someday. Yes, I do get side-tracked with other potentials and possibilities but finishing a novel or a collection of short stories and seeing them in print is still my biggest dream. So what is really stopping me from sitting down and pouring my thoughts out?
I gave it quite a lot of thought and I realized... I am scared. I am scared of the truth. But what truth is that?
Well, there are couple of truths that scare me. One, is that it may be revealed that I don't really have the talent in writing. True, there are a number of people who believe that I can write. They believe based on the few essays, short stories and poems that I have written eons ago.
Yes, eons ago. I started writing poems in high school. I have close to 500 poems, written on notebooks and others saved as word document when the computer age set in. The older I grew, the lesser time and even lesser desire I have for writing. I am not sure why. I guess things got busier and life got more complicated. Not just in the sense of hectic schedules, but also in the sense of truthfulness.
My life, my choices, my truths... they all have gotten complicated, which brings me to the other truth of which I am scared.
A long time ago, I was asked what would be the title of my book if I were to write one. My answer came out quick and without hesitation -- Elsbeth! Yep, my name would be the title of my book (a bit narcissistic, I know). It would be about my life, my adventures and misadventures. But I was still very young at the time. I didn't know then that my life would be quite far different from what I had imagined it would be. As I have said, my life, my choices and my truths have gotten complicated. It is no longer just black and white. It has become colorful, yes, but it has also created a lot of grey areas.
Now, there are things about myself that I am not so proud to tell and more so, to write. Bad choices, bad judgments. Truths of which I am not exactly ashamed, but definitely not proud, either. Truths that very few people know about me. Truths that may hurt people I love, should they go public. And I have heard and read from a lot of writers that one should write about the things they truly know about. Write about the truth you know, or the truth as you know it... Or something like that.
And this is the reason why I am scared to write.
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