I’m finding the path back to my love of reading and writing. But I find it so hard and I’m almost at the verge of giving up.
I loved reading when I was a kid. I think it started when I saw my cousin reading an old tattered Nancy Drew book which she borrowed from our school library.
I didn’t know that those nearly moth-eaten pages of Nancy Drew books were my ticket to an entirely different universe.
I fell in love; the way my imagination ran free with every word that I read was a different kind of experience that I wouldn’t dare trade.
Apparently, for me, reading and writing went together, hand-in-hand. I started creating alternate endings and scenarios for the stories that I read. The stories that I created comforted me but I was too shy to actually breathe these stories into life and share them with others.
In time - with sufficient support from my friends and family - I became more confident with my stories. I started writing fanfiction during highschool. I wrote fanfics for Maximum Ride and Mortal Instruments. (They were all published in fanfic.net btw)
For what felt like a long time, I was really proud and content with my work. (This was around 2010-2014)
Came college (2014-2018) I didn’t have much time to write. But I did manage to squeeze some books to read here and there.
Then, real life responsibilities happened. I got busy. (2018- early 2020)
Too busy to the point that I forgot what it felt like to open a book, get lost in its world, and extend that world and make it my own.
Please do take note that at this point I have (by the looks of it) completely abandoned my love for reading and writing.
But there were attempts! I tried to read. But I could never get past even half of the book. When it came to reading, my attention span decided to short circuit.
Fast forward to 2020. It’s a known fact (based on my blog) that I slipped into the diamond life. I became a Carat (not a single regret can/ will be found).
I got into stan twitter and was exposed to a completely different culture. To be honest, it took me a while to adjust.
When I settled, I saw that there were accounts that created social media alternate universes (socmed aus) for their idols.
Long story short, I found myself enjoying the different stories that they wrote.
No other thought ran in my head except: I was reading again.
The format was different from what I was used to. But as long as I was happy, it didn’t matter. I welcomed it with open arms.
Moving on to a more recent timeline (late 2020), I unconsciously started creating my own socmed aus. Although, I never had enough guts to give physical birth to it. They remained vaulted in my thoughts for safe keeping.
Not until early this 2021. I woke up one day and decided to give my socmed au a try. I wrote and created conversations the way they were formatted in socmed aus.
I would be lying if I said that it was easy at first. To actually think that it’s been years since I last wrote and that I’d be writing in a different format.
There were days that I found it incredibly easy to type the words and make my story flow. But more than half of my socmed writing experience consisted of me procrastinating, plotting it all in my head and not actually write it down, and just staying mad and disappointed at myself for even trying to start something that I’m not even sure I could finish or even give justice to.
So here I am, running to tumblr to express my sentiments with the hope that I could find inspiration to actually write something and not have the urge to delete my socmed au.
I honestly don’t even know if what I just said made any sense but writing my thoughts kinda helped ‘cuz I’m feeling a lot better now.