• Finding Words: Starting My Writing Journey

How did you start writing? Do you get this question a lot?

Well, I do. I guess people expect to hear something exciting. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case.

I’ve always been a lazy writer, and I hated writing compositions or essays. I didn’t like strict forms of writing, so don’t look at me for your resume, application letter, or anything like that.

Even now, I still struggle with haikus and some other poetic forms.

So how did I start writing? I assure you it’s nothing mind-blowing.

Just a classical case of heartbreak from my high school crush. I liked him, but he liked another girl. I was heartbroken, as you’d expect, so I picked up my diary to pour out my miseries.

Thinking about those heartbreak “poems” now makes me cringe. I can imagine how they sounded; I mean, I was 13 at the time, so you get my meaning.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t healing properly and I was also dealing with issues common to teens, such as identity crises, withdrawal, paranoia and so on.

Back then, my closest friend was my diary. She was the only person who listened, anyway. So I was always writing; my “poems” were bitter, filled with dark emotions.

Later on, I felt like my poems portrayed me as a weakling, and I did not like that one bit. So one day, I woke up in the morning, picked up my poem diary, and burnt it.

I never wrote again until 6 or 7 years later when a friend of mine introduced me to a writing app, now known as Miraquill.

She had seen some of my writings things, and she thought they were good.

So I downloaded the app. You can check out my page on Miraquill here.

After writing a few poems there, my heart wasn’t really in writing anymore, so I stopped.

Until something happened. I’ll call it life-changing because it changed my opinion of my writing and made me value my work.

In 2019, I wrote a poem called Sands of Time. My friend (the one I mentioned earlier) posted it on her WhatsApp status and someone sent her this message.

I used to think that my words had no use, that writing was just a hobby. I know some people even mocked my poems because it would not earn me money. But when I saw this, I was deeply affected.

On that day, I decided that even if I stop writing for myself, I will continue for others who might need it more than me.

It’s essential to know your writing intent before you write because it will affect the overall result.

I’ll tell you about it in another post under this series, Finding words.

Finding words is a new series I’m working on, and my writing journey inspired it. Although I still have a long road ahead of me, I recently realized that I had come a long way, hence the reason for this series.

If you’d like to know more about how I have been finding words as a writer, please follow and subscribe to be the first to know when the next post is up, and you can share it with others too.

If you have been writing too, please tell us, How did you start writing? And where are you on your writing journey? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments section.

Until next time, Au revoir.

Geenha

Originally published at https://geenha.com on August 18, 2021.