November 6, 2014

The other day, I was watching “The Forbidden Concert: Annebisyosa”, and I was like, “If Anne, who doesn’t have any effin talent for singing, sings, then I most certainly can, too!” Yeah, I know. She’s an actress, and she can do whatever she wants and get away with it. But the thing is I really admire her confidence. She knows she’s a lousy singer, but she still belts songs and she doesn’t give a shit about what others say, because she sings for fun.

So what exactly is my point with all of this? It’s like this. Some of us, like yours truly, have been dreaming of writing a story and have others read it. But most of them, including myself, lack the confidence to do so. Probably one of the reasons is because we are afraid to face criticism. Another thing is we are not confident enough that we can pull a story off. And even though some really has the talent to write, they are frightened at the possibility of facing rejection and low reads.

Remember, having minimal number of reads do not reflect the quality of the story you have written. As a matter of fact, having a humongous number of votes and reads do not necessarily states that a story is awesome in the most superlative way, if you know what I mean. Me, I like to read a lot. I am obsessed with reading to the point that when I was in high school, I would borrow a minimum of two books in our library to take home with me then proceed to the elementary library to read some of the books there. I know I am such a nerd. It doesn’t matter what story you will present me. As long as it’s a book, I’m going to read it.

Do not be afraid to write. Do not be afraid to share it to the world. As long as what you have written made sense and not just random gibberish, share it. One of us readers will be bound to find it and give it a try.

If you lack the confidence, then that must mean you are uncertain if your story is good enough to be shared. Then what you can do is read more books, learn and do research. I am not really a good writer; I was not accepted when I tried for our school paper. And I guess I lost my confidence along the way. That was why I never wrote anything for a long time. But during my abstinence in writing, I read a lot of books. And it turns out, reading books helped me improved my writing skills. Maybe not that much, but it’s a start.

At first, I was not really confident in publishing my story in wattpad. I wrote it in English and I was scared of the grammar Nazis that would stumble upon my story. So what I did, I read more books. I searched for articles about grammars and punctuation marks. I even consult my best friend Urbandictionary and Mr. Google just to make sure my spellings and idioms were correct. Until now, I am undergoing a never ending editing of my first story. You can hone your skills and be confident. Confidence can be build. It can be shaped.

I love readers. And I most especially love young and newbie writers. That’s because I see my self in you. I don’t want you to lose that confidence and dream like what had happened to me before.

So write! Share it to the world! If you are not sure if it’s good enough to be shared, then read some more and learn. Do research. Ask for help. Do not give up. Because writing is fun. 

Pinkangel. Over and Out.