The Longer Ones

Monday, September 5, 2016

Motivations

I was sitting on the grass today with my friend Sarah. We were having a casual conversation when journaling came up in our conversation. Ecstatic I whipped out my laptop and showed her this blog. I read her the ants story (which is a pretty sexy story by the way and I'd encourage you to read that too or ask me about it if you haven't already) and she really liked it. As our conversation continued, we eventually arrived at the question of why? Why am I doing this? And quite frankly I wasn't really sure. 


Writing was not something I always wanted to do. In all honesty there's times when I'm writing and I'm really hoping my ideas would just stop so I can go to bed. My relationship with writing has been like a dysfunctional relationship between a cat and a mouse. Like Tom and Jerry but it's shorter. I didn't start writing well (and by well I mean it actually has decent ideas and I wrote with my own free will rather than because of an assignment) until about freshman year when I realized one of my friends kept a journal and she told me it helped her declutter her head. From that point I decided to try it out and after a few laughs at sacrament meeting, I realized there is some merit in writing. I had a physical journal with me for most of freshman and sophomore year but immediately after I moved to California I stopped and it wasn't until a month after my graduation that I started a blog, which contains my journal entries.

My writing process is a bit sporadic. Meeting me in real life, most people would never peg me as someone with a blog, never mind a journal. And that's okay because personally I don't see myself as being a writer at all. However whenever I do write, I do my best to make it about something I love or am passionate about. Mostly because if I'm not passionate about it, then why am I doing this? When I write, I start off with a topic already in mind and I just keep on writing. Keep on ranting and hope that it works out. Lately though I can't get the right ideas or don't have enough focus, so typically at around midnight, people will see a small Asian fellow walking around with a phone or climbing a tree and then just typing up there.

One of my favorite songs in the world is "Yellow" by Coldplay and whenever I look at the stars, it fills my head with possibilities of what can be or what should be or what can happen. Maybe it's not realistic or true but the fact that anything is possible gives me ideas on where to go next in my writing. I'm not really sure what kind of a writer am I but if I had to guess it would somewhere in between a storywriter and a journalist because I like to speak my mind in a theatrical sense.

WOW I DIGRESSED. My main motivation in writing is for myself. I know it sounds selfish but it's for me. It brings calmness in my life where I can speak my mind and I know it'll be all right. Because whenever I do write, as long as it's not for homework, I don’t do it for the gratification or acceptance of others, it's a space for me to clear my head. And I suppose that's probably one of my goals. I write so I can be more efficient in bringing sanity and calm in my strange but fun world.

And then after I had this thought I started singing songs from musicals with Sarah, because first off Hamilton is awesome and a stranger walked passed me earlier with a shirt from Legally Blonde the musical. And it reminded me of some really fun times.

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