on writing

What makes a good writer?

This is a fairly good question to start with since this blog was born out of my desire to sharpen my writing skills and spare myself from the hustle and bustle of social networks, at least for a while.

I have always considered myself as a writer. When I was a kid, I used to craft short stories and essays (I still didn't know they were called essays back then) about random things that caught my eye on my way home. The stories I came up with were occasionally serious, revealing sudden bursts of philosophical thought even, but really, most of them were either sappy or silly or as something which my older self will probably say, something you could easily call trash.

Despite this, the important thing is that I wrote things back then. Often.

Then entered the years of adolescence. Requirements, hell weeks and complicated things stormed my peaceful and uncomplicated life, and things were never the same again. I'd wake up in the morning, cram stuff, go to class, cram again, eat lunch, go home, then cram some more. I barely had time to relax, let alone write stuff. Needless to say, I never touched a pen the same way again. Or even if I did, it was merely because of a writing requirement in school.

Yes, I still considered myself as a writer, albeit a blocked and greatly unprolific one this time. This, I could largely attribute to my lack of free time, academic priorities, and my it's-so-long-it'll-never-end to-do list. That's about it. And maybe, just maybe, alright, outright perfectionism.

In my room lies a collection of half-filled notebooks containing notes in the first few pages, revealing my several unsuccessful attempts to keep a journal and stick to that one thing without getting bored and starting anew with another notebook. I still do try to write, but these attempts cause no more than frustration in my part every time the words fail to flow the way I want, or I find a minor loophole in a story I'm writing.

These past few months, my progress in my journey towards growth as a writer has almost been non-existent. Odds and bits of notepad files in my laptop containing snippets of my writing flood my desktop, but that's about it. More often than not, I find myself writing on the walls of my Facebook friends and surfing through my Tumblr dashboard, two activities that, though greatly entertaining, fare almost zero when it comes to total utility.

This is why I created this blog. For me, it's a conscious attempt to break my vicious cycle of doing practically useless things, getting guilty after, and doing the exactly same useless thing again. I want to change, and I want to cultivate my inner artist once again. I'll no longer try to keep things absolutely perfect because I know I'll never manage to do so. Occasional imprecise words, artistically-lopsided sentences, these are things that define my writing personality, and although it may not seem like them, stepping-stones towards growth.

It is really nice (in fact, almost magical) to relish my not-so-distant past, when silly and sappy were not necessarily trash, and when doing what I enjoyed-- writing-- was all that ever mattered. Many events have shaped me through the years, both for better and for worse, but I guess, all I really want is to become that same naive child again.