Non Standard Issue: I write therefore I am (a writer)

Gulp. I am waiting for lightning to strike me, followed by a voice roaring “LIAR!”

Five minutes passed.

No supernatural occurrence. (Sigh of relief) Either I am no Pinocchio or the Goddess-Who-Punishes-Fake-Writers is asleep right now.

Let me continue with this pseudo writing then.

If you are one of my close friends, you probably know I started joining writing contests and school publications when I was still in elementary.

Most likely, you are also aware that I am totally, absolutely in love with reading. The printed (and now digital) word has been my oxygen since I was three. Leave me with no food and water for a few days, just some good books, and I can survive reality. (Kidding on the last part, but hey, you get the idea).

Call me a bookworm and I will bow to you hands down. But, call me a writer and I will look around to see who you are talking to.

The difference is, reading has been a natural inclination for me, while writing is more of an “accidental” calling. As a baby, I crawled towards the comic books; as a pupil, it was my teachers who picked me to be part of our school paper. I read because it excites me, I wrote because I have deadlines to meet.

I guess writing did grow into me, because no one forced me to join the high school and college paper, and I still did.

Yet, the schools may be different and the topics heavier, but it was elementary all over – I submitted my articles because I had to. I treated them like school requirements. My not pursuing journalism is further proof of my detachment from something I have been doing since I was a child.

I was supposed to breeze through college with that exact same formula. Do good in school, write my articles, manage the paper. Graduate.

Until the volcano erupted.

The voices I have long stifled inside my head became louder. Thoughts and ideas hidden in dark recesses of my brain suddenly screamed to be poured in ink. They were so loud it scared me.

They say writing is a form of schizophrenia. I was sucked into that world between the real and the unreal, between fiction and non-fiction, where sanity is only achieved by allowing the words to freely tumble through your pen or the keyboard.

Because if you do not, you will be haunted forever by the ghosts of the unborn.

I felt helpless. The voices are asking me to be someone I am not.

A writer? Are you kidding me?

My fellow schoolpaper writers have been writing poems and stories since they were still a kid. Me, I barely have a literary portfolio to show for my efforts. Uhm, and I consider myself a writer when I can barely count the articles I have written all my life?

I cannot write news like this. I mean, I have only done school coverage. These guys are interviewing the big fishes. Can I?

How can I be a writer when my prose pales in comparison to that of J.K. Rowling’s clever writing? Or Dan Brown? Or Tom Clancy? Or <insert my favorite author here>?

My gosh, my columns are kid’s stuff when measured up to Patricia Evangelista and Conrado de Quiros’ columns! And I still want to be a journalist?

Mingled with the voices pushing me to write are these squeaky thoughts of insecurity and discouragement.

(Long period of silence and mourning...)

Then, it dawned on me. Why the need to compare myself with anyone when I have been given unique talents in line with my particular purpose?

I may not have created Hogwarts and I do not have a slew of my articles published in major dailies yet, but I do can write. That is one of the most important prerequisite of all, next to my willingness to use that gift to bless the world.

I should stop comparing and start writing.

Following my advice, everything should already fall into place. But, here comes the next stumbling block.

As a writer, you yearn to be read, and often, you adapt your writing to hook readers. That is understandable, especially in the digital world where blogs are a dime a dozen and people have shorter attention spans, you do want your blog to stand out.

To get more traffic, you will hear advice to shorten this, write about that, and pepper some SEO keywords in here. Many of these are sound and good advice (but please avoid SEO peppering – I hate it), especially if you are targeting a particular niche. Or you have a message to convey or a product to sell.

But, on a pure, non-commercial level, it can also dilute our art. The desire for fame and wide readership can actually divert us from our craft. We forget why we fell in love with writing in the first place.

I had that dilemma too. Until I read The Writer’s Manifesto by Jeff Goins. (It’s short, downloadable, and free.) The book (or poem to be exact) only takes a few minutes to read, but it liberated me from the obsession to check my shares, likes, and page views.

His advice? To start writing for the right reasons. To express and not to impress. To honor my talents and continue creating whether I will be adored or not.

It allowed me to explore the writer within me and gave me the courage to write 1000 words blog posts even if I knew many people are not really into reading long articles anymore.

But I don’t care, because my focus is to capture the thoughts bleeping crazily in my head. No one may read my articles except me, but the joy of seeing them published in my website is enough for me to slowly acknowledge the sentence below: