A Writer's Admission

First, I am no writer. I was not born with a talent other than to stay awake for insanely long hours(even that I can feel symptoms of physiologic decline); and even during elementary and high school I was not especially blessed with a blue thumb(the rough equivalent of a green thumb, see Oxford's compilation of new idioms, if you can find it). Sure there were attempts of poetry as an outlet for juvenile romantic emotions, which eventually I learned were just hormones raging trying to find the right biological titer, but writing was just a hobby and I intend to let it stay that way. In this country where everybody is a nurse and writing a novel is the new sentence they give for inmates on death row, being a writer is not really practical, much more economical since you do it with electricity-hungry computers now rather than the trusty, rusty old typewriters of old our lolas use, with all that carbon papers and Touch-and-Go magic editors. Besides, there's the intricacies of verb-subject agreement and all that trivial, meaningless points on correct punctuation --- I can't remember all that. I'm just a wanna-be physician.

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However just a couple of years ago, I found out that I can write, that I can string words and phrases and produce poems, short stories and essays. It felt like I discovered a new planet, or a new dimension, or perhaps, a new mole at the back of my neck hiding there since I was a baby(not that exciting, I know, I just ran out of similes). At first, it was only a trickle: one work a month, twice at most. But just recently, after not writing for 2 months, I developed this weird sickness of words popping in and out of my head, floating around waiting to be picked. I'm also having these weird flashes of thought whenever I see something that strikes me, from the most mundane to the most extraordinary of things, and from there I seem to be able to develop tales or poems at my whim. So much so that I have written 4( I really can't remember) short stories this month, 2 poems and 2 essays and several others still floating inside my head--- all unedited and as fresh as they come. It my be a small amount compared to what professional writers put out but this is way above the quota for me. Weird.

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One principle though that applies: Quantity over quality or vice versa but can never be both. My works I see are derivatives of my influences: Hemingway, James, O. Henry, Yeats, Poe, Whitman and several other great artists. Perhaps that is why writers become great--- they find their own self. My mind has become an open faucet of ideas; either the water was distilled, or just plain tap water is definitely inconclusive.

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I don't care. Anyway I just write for writing's sake. Writing feel's like therapy for me--- a buffer from all this mind-numbing parade of medical charts and technicalties of my chosen vocation. Words proved to be cheaper than seeing a psychiatrist, or taking anxiolytics to calm my nerves--- and less weirder than watching hamsters play in their cage all day. They say words have a way of fixing the soul. If so, then I must have a need for some major carpentry.