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Tag: writing

  • Once I forgot the typewriter I forgot how to live…

    (This is a continuation of the previous post: How to make your kid an avid reader/writer)

    I still remember when I was little, no computer yet in my house (I got my first computer when I started University) but we used to have a typewriter (well, we still do, it´s there forgotten somewhere in a dark place of my house). I had read in the newspaper about a writing contest, sponsored by the government in my city, and I thought it was a hell of opportunity for me. I was no more than eight years old, and decided to enter this contest for ‘novel writers’. I´m convinced that it was just for adults but I didn´t pay attention to it. I just wrote with my typewriter a wonderful story (that shamefully I never kept a copy) of a fantasy world. Since typewriters didn´t allow you to make mistakes, my presentation was extremely awful. Being a kid, I wasn´t conscious yet about having to redo a whole page whenever I had a mistake on the typewriter, I would just use an eraser and type over the mistake.

    Image source: site.xavier.edu
    Image source: site.xavier.edu

    When I was done, I begged my Aunt Nancy, who used to live near the post office, to put the papers in an envelope and submit it to the P.O. box of the contest. Of course, I never won or anything and the writing must had been really embarrassing, but I was just eight years old! Nevertheless, having such a wonderful imagination (that I still have fortunately), the story in itself must had been a lot of fun.

    At that age, I felt there was no limit for me and no barriers to achieve whatever I wanted. What a shame, I was never encouraged to follow these dreams. I wrote short stories for my mom and some members of my family before I was 10. I have a couple of them stored in a box, and of course the writing is terrible but the stories, the creativity, the characters were great. But what I remember the most is that I always felt fulfilled whenever I wrote those stories.That sense of fulfilment shouldn´t be forgotten, we should live our lives with the intention of feeling always like that.

    However, I did forget it… and it was shameful because it led me to years and years of an unsatisfied and unhappy life….

    P.S. will continue…

  • Writing for a reason

    Writing is about unveiling yourself. It is about taking out all the layers that surround you. A true writer digs into his heart and exposes everything. He leaves himself vulnerable.

    The richness of words only come from honesty. Characters come from the most enchanted places and they are nurtured by the writer´s believes, hopes, and fears. When the writer writes, he submerges himself into a trance where ideas flow naturally, a small voice wakes in his mind telling him secrets of the story.

    I write because it heals my soul, because it makes me honest, because it lets me be myself. I write because I free myself and reach a mind state where everything is possible. I dive into a land of power, because writers do have power, a mighty power that can touch readers’ hearts, speak to them, and convince them of whispers, voices, and feelings. There is nothing more fulfilling than this: to let yourself be enveloped into a world where you let your heart speak and touch others on the way.

  • Sudden stop and readjustment

    Well, yesterday was one of the strangest days of my life. It was a regular Sunday with nothing to do, no many chores at home, not many responsibilities but it was different as well since I also had a Baby shower to attend to. I´m not very social so I usually don´t have many social appointments programmed for the weekends and I really get excited when I find that I have one (yeah, sounds kind of little pathetic right…). I guess this loner may need to shake up her life a little bit more…

    Friends are long gone, or at least I have lost contact with most of them. I only see them through Facebook and hear about their news, what they are up too, through the posts on Facebook. I guess this is the new era and I have to admit I have fall prisoner of this new way of making social contacts, really sad, right? jeffonesillustration com

    Image source: www.jeffoneillustration.com

    So what is that I want? I’m hugely focused in my dreams in projects, which are growing big each time more. But at the same time, I have left the “personal life” falter a little bit. On previous weekends I would have gotten very excited to do “my stuff on my own”. This Saturday I got my embarrassed-guilty-passion books: Insurgent and Allegiant (yeah I know is really embarrassing but I was desperate to receive them on the mail). I had new stories to process (read and write) for my fan fiction TV Series (I know I´m such a geek). But nothing worked for me weekend.

    The Baby shower felt really dull. I didn´t enjoy at all, people just seemed dulled for some reason. I´ve been to plenty of social gatherings were I don´t know people may folks around but I always find the way to cope it and I could be very good at small chit-chatting. But yesterday just felt odd, I felt like a fish out of water.  And to top it when I arrived home, I found the latest episode “Game of Thrones” so boring that I didn´t know what to do after. I didn´t feel like surfing the net, reading or watching TV, nothing, I just switched off the lights and went to sleep. I woke up really early this morning. So what is going on then? note sideideas com

    Image source: www.notesideideas.com

    Do I need a complete makeover of my life? Why? I like everything that I´m doing, the job, the projects but the social environment is killing me. Unfortunately, in this little town there is no way to meet people, you may not believe me, but it is true. So do I need a change of cities, countries? I don´t know. Should I go out of my house and live alone? I have considered that, but it´s kind of dull when you think it very objectively, my salary is not high enough for me to pay a rent and live comfortably, should I sacrifice “comfortability and the possibility of traveling” for the sake of living on my own? I don´t know and you have to consider that the house is legally owned by my mom and me, so it sounds weird, but I shouldn´t be looking to suffer for rent when I own 50% of the house right? , I know it is selfish but pretty rational from my point of view.  My Aunt inherited me the 50% of her share, so maybe I´m now trapped, in a good way. So if I ever move, it would have to be out of the city, definitely.

    So all this mumble jumble, it is just to remind me that. No matter what your priorities, goals, projects are. From time to time, there has to be a sudden pause in your life and RE-EVALUATE. It keeps you fresh. Perhaps, I need to give it more importance to the social aspect of my life, well I´ll do it now. This loner may need to come out of her shell a little bit more. Not only on the “online world” but on the real world! Friends are already gone, so maybe I need to find a way to find other ones; another crazy travel should be planned? I don´t know…. Could be… should I join some team/course? Well maybe!

    Anyway, I´m glad yesterday was yesterday. And that all the happenings (actually the fact that nothing happened) made me realize all those things. I´m glad that I´m a writer that never faces a “blank page”. I´m glad that I question the direction of my life every day. I´m glad that I´m self-aware and I know how I am and where I want to head to. I´m so grateful for that and for the chance that there is still room for improvement, if not life would be pretty damn boring right? washingtonpost com

    Image source: www.washingtonpost.com

      Finally, I´m glad that I wrote this post because it makes me who I am. The writer inside me. The person that needs to write to make it to the next level. And I hope that I have managed to motivate somebody out there to look for their paths and struggle for it. To re-adjust their lives and to look for more growing. Life is a constant battle and I believe that there is never a top achievement at the end of the road. It´s the “fight in between” that makes our lives, and we must try to make of this fight the most exciting and fulfilling we can, even if we have to re-adjust it hundreds of times. So pause and readjustment?

  • How many are out there that write? I thought almost everybody did it!!!

    So I ended up taking a course in “Literature and photography”. I love reading and writing, therefore, the literature part, but the photography part came with the idea that I consider myself a very visual person. That´s why I love Pinterest!

    I had been to a previous class, and it was interesting enough, with me making a list of books that I should read most than anything. The 90% of the public that attends those courses in my city, are usually people who are studying either literature or journalism, so classes are at a very high level, and I feel myself a little bit intimidated by the knowledge that simply “flows” in these courses. The lecturer would usually say: “well of course you have read X and know that….” and I would feel embarrassed for not having a clue about X and would write it down in my notebook without anybody noticing… well I want to pretend I have read X as well!!! 😀 . The public would assent to the obvious question about reading X, mocking with their expressions those who have not read X. Well you see my point right? But at the end, I didn´t care that much´. I would just add them to my list and remember the things that I know as Industrial Engineer and as a Technical writer in a software development company they wouldn´t even know about. What! they don´t know the basics of SQL Server instances? 😀

    Anyway, being surrounded by this highly intellectual group made me assume that most of them were into “producing” like the lecturer asked yesterday: “How many of you produce? paint, photography, writing?”. Of a bunch of 50 people, 5 rose their hands, I did of course. She added “How many of you write? anything diaries, stories, books, blogs?”. I was the only one.

    I felt special. These people were very knowledgeable of the great writers and philosophers of the world, they could quote them without problems but none of them wrote?. If there was any doubt of what the hell I was doing in those courses, now there wasn´t, I was in the right place. As a result, the lecturer took the opportunity to address many of the topics to me. Many of the questions she raised would be finished with something like “this could be very helpful when you write, ask yourself the same question, it will help you” and I would feel proud.

    Writing for me is a necessity, even If I don´t do it very well, even if I still struggle with English, since it is not my native language. It is something that I feel obliged to spend time with.

    For some reason,  I thought that there were many people out there with the same necessity, maybe they are, but they just avoid it or don´t pay too much attention to it. Gladly I don´t and feel very proud of saying that “I produce”.