How it all started – It was high school, and my English teacher had just given us all a challenge to read 100,000 words within a week or so to pass the class (read and pass the test for the books you chose to read.) I chose four books: The Great Gastby, Ready Player One, Legend & Prodigy. One, everyone considers is a classic, another a sci-fi novel and the last two are dystopian young adult novels.
I read the books, found them beautiful and thought: Could I write something like this?
So I began to write what would be my first novel, the only thing on my mind at the time. I wrote whenever I could. In the morning before getting ready for school, in the library before my first class, before bed, during lunch time, I wrote and was obsessed with it. I got the chance to finish my first novel (unpublished at the moment because I believe it’s shite) before I went to college. When I got to college, I began another story of mine and other projects. But I wrote. And wrote – till I stopped.
2. The seed in my heart was watered in high school, yet in college began to fade away within my 2nd-3rd year. Where and when in college did it all fall apart for me? And how can I make sure my future me(s) are not disappointed in me?
Diving into the past, I see it all came from distractions. I wrote as much as I could during my first year in college. I listened to the voice that told me to go to the library as soon as it opened. During my second year, I gained more friends that would tell me things and I believe that was when I found twitter. The best thing a man can ask for in life. I followed a lot of gurus and these gurus told me what to do and shouldn’t do. One of the things I could do was write on Twitter and build up an audience. At one point, a guru told me to keep a swipe files of tweet so I could use the tweets to help me write better. It was a way for me to have ideas flowing. I wrote and I got the likes, the retweets and was invited into a lot of groups (accountabilty groups, retweet groups, and more). My writing was gone, Tweets remained. Tweets swallowed me whole. I thankfully lost interest in the tweet game later on (was this the right thing?) and my distraction was gone. Or was it?
In college, I learned something that Twitter was preaching. I learned that to be a specialist is KING. Why be an everything writer when you can be a romance or a historical writer or a tweet digital writer. CHOOSE ONE. Not only was this preached on the altars of Twitter. It was preached in my classes as well. I can still hear one of my professor uttering the words: “You could choose not to label yourself as a romance writer or historical writer. But you’d be missing out on a lot of money!”
FUCK! Money is involved too. And I love me some moneys. Without my moneys, the books I love so much would not be in my book shelf at the moment. MONEYS. So another distraction began. Went back on Twitter – yes I did! It never left my mind.
I speacilized in what we call self help writing or so. Fuck I hated it. This distraction was so short because of my hatred for it. I was writing self help when I couldn’t help myself. I went back on twitter again as a stoic writer. Left. Then went back again. Left. This cycle repeated itself for a while.
I went back on twitter one last time, this time following my likings. I followed football profiles, authors (not how to write writers), philosophy profiles, and I enjoyed it so I stayed for a bit but my days were spent on the twitters rather than writing. I soon left because of this.
I started buying more books. At one point, chose to work for Barnes and Noble during Christmas so I could save some money on my books. I did. Then I realized how much I’ve missed my writings. My stories, my essays, my poems, my projects.
I was distracted for years till I started working at B&N, surrounding my books I loved and love. Why did I get distracted so much?
I listened to voices everywhere instead of the watering the seed planted in my heart. So I began writing again, completing my novels and a novella3 and more. And more seeds were planted in my heart – one of them to start a bookstore someday so I never forget and to be surrounded by books.
And now I write a lot more and I am thankful to B&N for resuming the love that was in my heart.
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