The Reason Why I Write

  I recently entered a writing contest that only required me to answer one question: “Why did you start a blog?” At first I thought “Too easy.” but as I started typing I realized how much of an effect something like starting a blog has had on me. Since this essay had to be under 700 words I narrowed it down and made some cuts, but my whole process to starting a blog is too complex for 700 words.
        My very first blog, LovelyAsia, was strictly for me to write movie and music reviews. I was stuck in a shitty job in Chicago at the time, but my whole reason for moving to Chicago in the first place was to go to school and earn my degree in journalism. By this time I had dropped out of school because I could no longer afford it which led me to take that shitty job in the first place. When I started that blog it was my way of trying to start something that had once made me happy and to get some practice as I sent my resume to local papers and magazines in hopes that I would finally get the career I really wanted.
        When the Avengers happened I threw professionalism to the wind and reblogged any and everything that had to do with Tom Hiddleston. At that point in time Tumblr became a place for me to find friendships in people who obsessed over the same things I did. It was good and bad. It was good because I was finding people who were just like me, but bad because I would just kind of zone out and continually hit the reblog button and no actual writing was being done.
         In an attempt to get back to writing I started another blog, SparklingGlove, that was dedicated to a small fanfic I wrote after Michael Jackson died. I tried to keep up with it, but by then I was starting to become unhappy with my writing. I wanted to write a new chapter each week, then a week became a month, then a month became whenever I had an idea, then that became never. It’s still an active blog and perhaps one day I’ll get back to it and add more because I feel like there’s always something I could say in that fanfic, but as for now I kind of feel like most chapters are repeating themselves so I’ll get back to it when I feel confident enough in my writing to know that I’m saying something original.
        My second blog was going dry and even still it was a blog for a fanfic. I wanted to be a novelist, travel writer, poet, and entertainment journalist. I couldn’t grasp a career in those fields if I was putting that type of work to the side and focusing on a fanfic. Then comes my blog, AsiaWrites. I’ve dabbled in my poetry, stories, and essays on this blog. It started out rough. I’m very much the perfectionist and I have a strict way of doing things. When my brain betrays me and goes off course it causes me to shut down. See, I started this blog in hopes to get me motivated on the books I have in mind. I got overwhelmed and just kind of gave up when I should’ve started out with the posts you see on my blog today. Everything moved kind of slow, but I’m becoming more confident in my writing like how I was before I hit a major snag in my life. Being able to share my work and my thoughts were sort of therapeutic while also leaving me feeling a bit empty at the same time. Now, I am a writer. I’m not really good at drawing and anytime I do sit down to draw my style is very abstract (same as my writing style). Posting my work on Tumblr left me a bit empty because it seems as though all other art forms are celebrated. Poetry is not shared or acknowledged the way fanfics and fan art are. Whenever I see someone post something they worked really hard on I try to reblog or at least like to let that person know that I see their passion. As for me and other writer’s no one seems to do the same. It’s a little daunting. That leads me to my latest blog.
        A little hurt that my work wasn’t being appreciated on Tumblr I sought out other blogging sites to set up shop for my work and my work only. That’s where Inside My Creative Mind comes in. AsiaWrites is where I test my work and the finished product ends up on here. I also share more of myself here. I go into my journey about transitioning to natural hair and I’ve touched a little on my journey with weight loss. In recent months I’ve gotten a little more acknowledgement and my work has been seen by more people than Tumblr has yet to do even after several years. Blogger has given me a platform to share my inner thoughts and hopefully, in the future, I can look back on my thoughts and use it to develop my characters for my books, since at least one character in each book is loosely based on myself. I have hopes that this is going to help me get back on track with my writing so that I can be where I want to be in life. So four blogs later I feel like I’m starting to find my niche. I won’t stop until I become a writer and not just any writer. I feel like I have a lot to say that hasn’t been told from a certain perspective. I have a voice that I think people can relate to. I can only hope that through my words and my experiences that I offer some guidance to people. All I ever want is to help people and make them not feel alone like I do. The only way I’m able to do that is with my words. That’s my biggest contribution to this world. THIS is why I started my blog. I started it to find a passion I’d lost and now I’m using it to find my voice and to hopefully help others find theirs as well.

-Asia Aneka Anderson 2015©

No comments:

Post a Comment