On Being A Wannabe Writer

DIGITAL BOOK: www.teachersol.blog-city.com

"Storytelling is healing. As we reveal ourselves in story, we become aware of the continuing core of our lives under the fragmented surface of our experience. Most important, as we become aware of ourselves as storytellers, we realized that what we understand and imagine about ourselves is a story. And when we know all this, we can use our stories to heal and make ourselves whole."

~Susan Wittig Albert~

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It was only now that I realized that I could already publish an anthology of my life story with all the manuscripts I have about my life. I kept a journal and wrote poems since I was a sweet provincial girl until I was in college. I already have a collection of diaries and poems just waiting to reunite with me. I was expressing myself more in poetry. I also kept a journal eversince I learned that it would be easy for me to recall events in my life if I write them. I could put them all together like a jigsaw puzzle to finish my lifetime project of creating a book about my life.

I always knew I was a writer...

In preschool I was writing verses, it was just a requirement. I was writing about my first infatuation, I used to believe it was just a passing hobby. In grade school I won third place in a Milo short story writing contest, I do not remember anymore what it was about. I was a contributor in our school newspaper; I thought it did not have any weight. But still I was writing. I remember just locking myself up in my room writing, drafting, editing, revising my poems. Poems about my delight upon seeing someone I love, my sadness when my beloved grandfather passed away, my frustrations in life, my anger, my dreams…I had to transfer what I was going through onto the paper. I would not stop writing until I felt right again.

But I stopped writing…

I met someone whom I cannot write about because he was a writer. A potential excellent writer who thought I write cheesy stuff. I do not write fantasy stories like his because mine is reality based. His style is just not my cup of tea. I wrote a poem for him on our wedding day. And I said it would be the last.

Call it twist of fate, I was invited to join a writing workshop for a children’s TV show. Afterwards I was accepted as a script writer for the science educational TV show. I wrote several scripts (in audio-video format) which were accepted after so much panel deliberation, few were rejected but that was okay. I saw my stories aired on TV and excitedly searched for my name in the closing bill boards. Alas! Another writer took the credit for all my sleepless nights and anxiety during panel deliberations (even if I got paid for all those scripts, it was still unfair!).

The inspiration was everywhere but the courage left me.

But I had to write again…

When I was in the train one morning on my way to the Invitational Summer Institute, DC Area Writing Project at Howard University, I remembered my darkest times - those days when my husband and I had to struggle in order to live…in a third world country…with a negative bank account…with no support from parents or any body. His mother disowned him, and my family was too far away from me. We were all alone, struggling to get through the day. We would dream of eating good food every night. I was pregnant. We were starving but we were happy just being together. I guess the fates of most young couples who elope are like that. We were longing for the blessing of our families and the church. I had this urge of writing that chapter of my life.

I also had to write about our best times. That was when after we really worked hard, we surpassed our trials, we disappointed those people who wished for us to fail. We made it! On our own. After four years we were living in a big, 4-bedroom, single detached house, with a maid 24 hours on call, with a flourishing business, every night we would eat out in expensive fancy restaurants, shop all we want. We can pay the bills now.

Like the sea, life is a cycle of high tide and low tide. I had to write about this new chapter of my life, a new struggle in a foreign land. And I had to capture every moment of my life. So I have a story to tell my children. I want to pass this on as a legacy to them. I want my story to be an inspiration to my children…and my children’s children…forever.

My life story (according to me) is written in my DIGITAL BOOK. Have you read it?