The Writing Process

I grew up with books. 

I’m grateful I did. My mum took me to school fairs and church bazaars, where, we would pick out second hand books for fifty cents or perhaps a dollar (for the hard covered ones) and if I were lucky I’d be blessed with a brand new book from a book store in town.

I started writing during my time in high school when I was 14 and I stopped when I turned 21, which were a few months after my mother’s passing. 

During English classes, after dinner, or on lazy Sundays, I would find a pen, open my scrap book and write to my heart’s content. I would then rip it out of the scrap book and clip it in a file which I had picked at a seven-eleven nearby in our neighbourhood.

It was a multi-colored file. The different sized pages and ripped paper with markings and untidy hand writing was a justification of mere inspiration from simple observations like, when the day began, a song I heard on the radio or a scene I would have sketched in my mind. I kept that file in my bag and took it to school and when I finished high school, I took that file when I flew overseas for the very first time. 

I brought the file back with me upon my return and this time with new stories and worthy of note moments during my overseas stay.And what I would write about, you might ask. Well, of many things - poetry, stories, of rubber bands, trees, caterpillars and death. I wrote whatever came into my mind. You see, words are very powerful and at that particular time in my life, I loved bringing those words to life.

By August 2001, I tucked it away in a cupboard among other odds and ends only after I realised I could not write anymore. I could not get myself to pick up the pen and even if I did I would stare at the page and it would stare back at me.

I moved on and my life moved on from that file.  My thoughts never mentioned it to me. Not until, seven years after, when I found it in a pile of text books and random reading material.

How odd?

Bizarre even. I swear I would have lost the file after all those years. I read through it, several times and smiled to myself whilst reading the words which I conjured into paragraphs and then into pages. I didn't realise how bitter, angry and distraught I had become at that point in time of my life.

After reading, the file went back into its place, away from the world. It was only until March 2010 and after when I picked up the file (yet again tucked away but this time I had intended to put it some where perceptible) and read the contents.This time, I decided that I would complete what I had started.

Not everyone is able to leave money, jewelry or land as an inheritance for their children. Everyone though, can leave the most precious commodity of all – memories in the form of words.