Just Keep Writing
Life punched you in the face? Write it down.
Since the first time I connected to this magical place called the ‘internet’, I have always seen it as a place to express myself, to let my personality be a part of it, even if just a microscopic part. I fiddled with Neopets, tinkered on Friendster, and I even plurked. But then I caught the blogging fever during a prolonged staycation after I graduated high school.
I gave birth to several blogs, big and small. I tried Blogger first, naturally, and maintained for a relatively long time. I branched into another Blogger blog and opened my Tumblr, too. I started a WordPress blog, and a blog on The Jakarta Post’s platform. Short story: they fizzled for undisclosed reasons. Point your finger at me, and accuse me of neglect — it is what I am doing to myself, anyway.
But that’s not the point here.
I love writing. I am not a coffee-drinking, rain-staring, heart-pouring writer, but I surely know that I love writing. For one, writing helps me become a part of the worldwide web. I have places on the internet that is mine. Two, I am a firm believer in the power of words to influence people. All kinds of writing can affect people: make them support a cause, teach them new knowledge, elicit feelings, and help them achieve goals. Three, writing is fun. Sometimes I write simply for the sake of writing. The result can be incoherent, surprising, or disorientating; nevertheless, I enjoy playing around with the building blocks we call ‘words’ and assembling them together.
I can think of more reasons, but I’ll stop at three — a very sensible number.
I feel blessed to have encountered an amazing English course teacher, who, like other amazing teachers, taught more than her subject. Her teaching style is quite classic, nowhere near the fancy jargonful courses we see today. More than a decade ago, we started with the basics. I remember her teaching me to make objects plural by adding an ‘s’ or ‘es’. We drilled through irregular verbs, and crunched tenses. And then she told me to have a notebook reserved for writing assignments.
That’s it. My English had become functional enough and I was forced to write. Parts of speech, sentence diagramming, punctuations, composition — virtually all topics I learned after that flowed into improving my writing. One day, she dropped the bomb.
If you want to improve your English, read a lot and write even more. Push yourself. Don’t wait for the ‘right mood’ or the ‘brightest idea’. Read and write and keep on doing them.
The course is set and I have been writing (in its widest definition) ever since. That advice, dear friends, is one of the best I have ever gotten outside famous quotation websites. It has assisted me in high school English writing, thesis writing, research papers, and more — blogging included.
A part of the advice forces writing, regardless of situation, and many will question it. After all, how can we expect a great writing to emerge from a dull mood or blocked brain?
The answer is to not expect a great, mind-blowing results every time we write. Sloppy, tangential writings is nothing to be afraid of (unless, you write for a living, that is.) I have produced scores of them and I feel glad for each one. I learned so much from them on what to pursue and what to avoid, and I am still learning. On a more practical side, it is an exercise to ensure that I can assemble a decent writing in all kinds of situations, like exams that you cannot cancel due to lack of writing ideas.
It is a sad fact that Indonesian education is almost writing-free. I do not remember having to write something actually thoughtful and meaningful, not just a pile of facts, from elementary to high school. My peers who have absolutely wonderful ideas have stumbled in packaging those ideas and conveying the message, let alone triggering favorable response. I can only hope that whoever is in charge of our education will finally realize the multiplied benefits of more writing.
To end this, I would like to quote a respected Indonesian author, Pramoedya Ananta Toer.
“Orang boleh pandai setinggi langit, tapi selama ia tidak menulis, ia akan hilang di dalam masyarakat dan dari sejarah. Menulis adalah bekerja untuk keabadian”
“One may possess the brightest mind on Earth, but he will be forgotten by Mankind and swept away by Time — unless he writes. To write is to strive for eternity.”
