A Fresh Start?

Blogging used to be my greatest addiction. I started blogging more than eight years ago and, back in the day, I used to update this blog regularly. My blogging was so regular that it even got to a point when I'd post more than one entry per day. And, my equally blog-addicted blogger friends were not far behind in the regularity of updates and posts! Aaah, those were the good times! The golden days of blogging. Needless to say, I miss those days. I miss blogging every so often and I miss blog-hopping. I miss getting lost in the blog-world and finding some blogs worthy of praise and acclaim, some that are written so well they bring tears to your eyes and make you want to just roll over and die... in a good way, that is! Hehehe:)

I want to bring those days back! I want to write more, I want to read more. I want to find treasures in the blog-world once more. I want to tread on grounds made sacred by writers of immaculate and divine words. I want to tread, too, on grounds damned by words of the profane and the blasphemous. I just want to take everything in like I used to. I want to be an active part of the blog-world again. I want to feel and be felt, I want to hear and be heard once more!

Blogging nowadays, for most people at least, has been reduced to picture-posting and article re-posting. I'm not saying this is wrong or anything, after all blogging isn't really equal to journal writing, but I'd just really like to READ more. I just want people to write more. It's the teacher in me, I guess. Really, I don't know. I just miss the good ol' days! :)



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I've actually been doing a lot more writing recently than I have in the past few years. I'm enrolled in a Creative Writing class this semester and, somehow, this has brought my hand back to my pen and paper. Writing has not really been a problem to me before, free-flow or random writing that is. It was never a problem to me not because I'm such a good writer (I wouldn't be so bold as to claim that!), but because I didn't really care. I mean, I was never really conscious about what I wrote or how I wrote for that matter. I just wrote. Period.

Formally learning about CW has made the process of writing a little more complicated to me than it ever was. There are actually a lot of things to consider, rules to follow, guides to stick to, etc. Writing, after all, is a discipline and one needs discipline indeed to master it and be a great writer. One needs to follow some rules. The ironic thing is that the more I learn about writing, the more difficult it becomes for me. I don't know if it's just me or it's really like that for everyone else. All of this has somehow made me doubt if I could actually write or not. Sigh.

Then again, our beautiful and inspiring teacher-- the Palanca laureate, Ms. Maria Elena Paulma told us at the beginning of the semester that we shouldn't let all the things we'd be learning about CW intimidate us nor discourage us from writing. If anything, all the learning should help us find our voice. The course should help us be the writers we want to be.

I do hope that the short story (fiction) I am submitting for our final workshop works. I am pretty anxious, but I'm very excited. It's been such a long time since I felt this excited about anything. Sure, I have written or attempted to write a few stories before, but this one's different. I feel it's different. It may start something for me. *Deep breath!*

I know that I'll be taking a punch here and there in the workshop, but I am ready. I am happily awaiting my turn or, rather, my story's turn. This is a "make or break moment" for me. So, let's see...

Bismillah!