The Writing Life
(Pic from here.)
I never meant to write for a living. Or be a writer. But life works funny that way.
I transferred out from my college course of AB Creative Writing in first year because I thought there was no money to made in writing.
Ironically, a couple of years after I graduated from college, I made the decision to write for a living after a horrible year-long stint at SGV Consulting. Then, I had no idea what I was doing (feeling like a fancy gofer but with lousy pay) even though I was working the corporate life. Afterward, I figured that if I'm going to make something of my life, I better do it through what I do best. (Yes, I had a quarter life crisis then.)
In this case, I thought I could write a decent sentence so I went into media-- and then the Internet.
In the interim of trying to write for a living, I started to write stories. If I can write for money, I thought I should also write for fun. It's kinda like having a multiple personality disorder: there different levels in my head that I access to make it easy for me to write what I require-- but all coming from one source, which is my brain.
Unfortunately, it's hard to balance this. Nowadays my writing plate in terms of work is always so full. Currently I'm writing for my job (the Mega Trilogy: Megaking, Megabest and Megahelp), for CNET Asia, for POC's Metakritiko, and for Diwa-- plus whatever that comes my way. As much as possible, I never say no to a job offer.
The downside of this is that I don't have time to write for fun-- or I can't seem to find something good to write. Oh, I can still pump out a story idea or two for This is 15 Minutes. However, my political blog is dead in the water while I'm struggling to maintain this one. And I'm not even considering the stuff I have to maintain to keep my online publishing moving.
Mind, I'm not complaining. I'm just lamenting the fact that I cannot write as much as I want to-- even with the discipline I'm teaching myself. This is my decision, and this is the life I choose.
It's not even that I need to write in order to live. I can actually walk away from this (as evidenced one time when I... well, that's a long story there). But it's what I'm good at so I have to stick to this.
I write because it's what I do.
I never meant to write for a living. Or be a writer. But life works funny that way.
I transferred out from my college course of AB Creative Writing in first year because I thought there was no money to made in writing.
Ironically, a couple of years after I graduated from college, I made the decision to write for a living after a horrible year-long stint at SGV Consulting. Then, I had no idea what I was doing (feeling like a fancy gofer but with lousy pay) even though I was working the corporate life. Afterward, I figured that if I'm going to make something of my life, I better do it through what I do best. (Yes, I had a quarter life crisis then.)
In this case, I thought I could write a decent sentence so I went into media-- and then the Internet.
In the interim of trying to write for a living, I started to write stories. If I can write for money, I thought I should also write for fun. It's kinda like having a multiple personality disorder: there different levels in my head that I access to make it easy for me to write what I require-- but all coming from one source, which is my brain.
Unfortunately, it's hard to balance this. Nowadays my writing plate in terms of work is always so full. Currently I'm writing for my job (the Mega Trilogy: Megaking, Megabest and Megahelp), for CNET Asia, for POC's Metakritiko, and for Diwa-- plus whatever that comes my way. As much as possible, I never say no to a job offer.
The downside of this is that I don't have time to write for fun-- or I can't seem to find something good to write. Oh, I can still pump out a story idea or two for This is 15 Minutes. However, my political blog is dead in the water while I'm struggling to maintain this one. And I'm not even considering the stuff I have to maintain to keep my online publishing moving.
Mind, I'm not complaining. I'm just lamenting the fact that I cannot write as much as I want to-- even with the discipline I'm teaching myself. This is my decision, and this is the life I choose.
It's not even that I need to write in order to live. I can actually walk away from this (as evidenced one time when I... well, that's a long story there). But it's what I'm good at so I have to stick to this.
I write because it's what I do.
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