A piece of me

One’s ability to write comes out naturally as he starts to hold a pen and a piece of paper.  But for this to be honed, one needs to write and write some more.

I remember a professor in college telling our class that a good writer doesn’t have to be “in the mood” to be able to write at least a good piece.  Indeed, if we have to wait until we are in the mood, it may take us longer before our first draft. 

My experience in news and feature writing started 6 years ago.  I didn’t start early, unlike others who had been involved in the production of their school papers.  I didn’t write when I was young because I always believed that I would become a professional dancer and choreographer someday and writing wasn’t my cup of tea. 

In college, I took up a communication course, anyway.  I didn’t get very good grades and I really didn’t understand much of what we were taught back then.  I started to write seriously when I got my job.  I wrote simple personal essays, like the ones that are being done by elementary or high school students.  But I continued anyway.  I was starting to enjoy it.  Because of job requirement, I had to keep writing – from speeches to progress reports, from photo captions to full feature stories.  I realized I was really writing already. 

But the first few steps were not easy at all. I struggled to  consciously and strictly follow “the rules” and most of the time, I failed. And if I followed them, I didn’t like the final product.  Maybe I was just too conscious about those rules. 

I wanted to write “freely”, as If I was just writing a letter to a friend.  I wanted my writing to be conversational and practical.  I didn’t have to use a lot of difficult, complicated, and intelligent-sounding words simply because I wasn’t comfortable with them.

I’m a simple-minded person.  That said, I want my writing to be uncomplicated, yet strikingly elegant and outrageously sensible and attractive.  The words themselves will not be the ones to attract my reader, I told myself.  The way those words will be composed will be the one that will bring out the flavor, my own style.

Being myself as I continued to write was truly a liberating experience.  I practiced and practiced some more.  I read and I read some more.  That way,  I learned how other writers write and how my style differs from theirs.

Later in my job, I was lucky to be given the chance to train a pool of junior writers.  I was hesitant at first but I guess it was my calling then.  I pressured myself to seriously learn more about writing and grammar and how I could hone my skills so I can share something with the staff.  But even before I started to work with them, I was already experimenting on my writing, just as how I would experiment on food and food ingredients.  It came out naturally and most of the time, I think the results were good. 

 And so I wanted the young writers to write freely, while still keeping in mind the basic rules.  Looking beyond how well they managed to observe the rules, I have seen each of them develop his/her own style.  Somehow, it gave me a sense of pride.  But I was humbled too.  Young as they are, they can already write sensibly, unlike when I was their age.  My pieces could have been easily buried in the editor’s desk.

Writing isn’t easy to teach and one way to do this is to carefully explain every detail.  If I would edit one’s work, I try my best to explain the ‘whys’ or just give a comment on a specific area that needs improvement.  I never really had a mentor who patiently edited my drafts and explained the details to me.  Everybody was busy, at least during the time when I was new in the job.

One of my reasons for putting up this blog site is for me to exercise that “writing muscle” while sharing my stories, experience, and knowledge with the rest of the world.  I want to share tips with young writers out there and to those who think they couldn’t write but ought to.  I hope in future posts in this blog site, I’ll be able to upload practical writing guides and useful tips.

For now, let me share with you some writing resources I was able to find in the Internet.  Follow these links and see how you can benefit from them:

• Online grammar guide by Jack Lynch
• The grammar guide
• A dozen online tips
• How to write a good feature
• Common errors in English
• The blue book of grammar and punctuation
• Need a writing idea?
• Tips on writing about workshops and seminars