At the start of the year, I had several goals. One says: “Write more…”. Another says: “Get published more!”
Well, I am writing this (ironically) to shamelessly tell you, dear reader, that these goals are far from accomplished. I barely wrote anything throughout the year. And no, it is not writer’s block.
All I wrote are pieces and scraps of what I intended to write. What I have are parts of the uncompleted whole, not the whole: like that essay that sheds light on my religious belief, the other poems I intend to include in my manuscript, the article I want to write about how we water down bad experiences, the poem I want to write about feeling isolated, the op-ed I wish to write about the chaos called twitter feminism. The list goes on.
The bits are there but, they are incoherent.
Amok.
Incongruous.
I hardly felt the need to settle down and write even though I made a writing plan: “work on a draft every Saturday and Wednesday, make a submission every Sunday”. I gave up after the first week. I only managed to scribble bursts of inspiration that came whenever they felt like it. I don’t even feel like putting them together.
The ideas are there, they are bubbling, trying to fight their way onto the word processor, but the zeal is absent. And I am not worried about it because I want to write for myself.
I will no longer write for validation.
I will no longer write to get accepted by a prestigious journal.
I will no longer write because there is nothing to do.
I will write because I want to, for my sake.
And I think that I haven’t written as much as I hoped because my focus shifted. This year, I read more, learnt more, ventured into new and promising fields. I found a purpose beyond writing for validation.
I stopped practising art and started appreciating it more. And I do not regret doing that. It is beautiful, somewhat exciting, somewhat bizarre.
My writing life is in shambles, and frankly, I do not care. I’ll piece it together one day. But for now, I have no worries.