The Fire
Long before stepping into college, I had this belief that I can write. Not just putting down words into paper, but to actually handle perfect combinations of words and weave them into a wonderful tale.
I believed I could survive just by writing. In the span of 4 years, I produced more than 20 notebooks volumes of stories, with a vocabulary evolving from a schoolgirl, to what I believed a professional’s level.
If there was a walking calculator, I was the walking dictionary then. I would be asked meaning of words, and I could immediately reply with the approximate meaning.
My friends loved my stories, schoolmates admired them, and teachers appreciated them.
I believed.
But then I started college. With all the sudden pour of studies and culture shock, I wasn’t able to continue writing. I tried continuing one story, hoping I could finish it, but I never got around doing it.
Months passed, then years. When I tried to get back to it, it felt tedious and exhaustive. Just lifting the pen or typing out the words seem like a chore. The stories were there, but they couldn’t get out.
It seems, the fire burnt out.
Later on, as I concentrated on coding and programming, my vocabulary and sentence constructions have regressed back to the basics. As long as people understood me, I went ahead. But I could no longer weave the stories from my head into beautiful tapestries. I could only narrate them now it seems. And my vocabulary– I could no longer rely on my own memory. I have to refer to the dictionary for the simplest of words.
I want to try to go back and try reliving that passion to write. To bring back that fire to use words and weild them. But there is somewhat a nagging fear of failing.
This is one of the reasons I want to try NaNoWriMo again this year. To rewrite and rebuild the story that has been in my head for so long and to actually start and finish a short novel with 50,000 words in a span of 30 days.
Maybe succeeding that, regardless of grammatical errors, unweildy words and basic language, I will be able to bring the fire back.
That, and to finally use that Moleskine I bought months ago.
