Another Writing Theme

Hello, I am a medical student and I can't stop thinking about writing. I've been into writing for as long as I can remember.



The oldest specimen found supporting this claim is a short poem about a child watching her parents' shadows as they work because she was "board" (or so I recall), written by four or five year old hands (that couldn't quite spell or even write the letters correctly) on a tiny piece of paper, which is currently missing. Later specimens, spanning elementary to post-college, consist of several illustrated short stories on cut pieces of oslo, bond, or onion skin paper stapled to resemble a book, character sketches, novel attempts, and journal entries on the leftover leaves of school notebooks and used bluebooks, some poem notebooks, a myriad of essays, mostly school requirements printed on paper or stored digitally, and a few blogs. One of those poems was even published in a project of a writers' organization in my university. The latest addition to these specimens is correspondence with friends via e-mail, though a number of letters had already been distributed almost yearly, before college.

Since elementary, the practice translated into high grades and compliments from teachers and classmates in writing classes. College was a four-year training in articulating ideas, and refining concepts, while post-college enrollment was exposure to the multitude of subjects to write about. Come to think of it, most of my education hasn't been about my one great dream, medicine; it has always been about writing.

So after last year's writing ambition rant, modesty issues finally give way to confidence. The fact is I can write, I want to, so I will. And that might include publishing, if my best ever becomes worth it.

While reading the college paper in the LRT, I considered this: maybe I should join the college paper. However, the topics they write about and the way they write it is too mundane for my taste. I mean, I don't want to write about the best places to study, nor the success of the cross-dressing beauty pageant fund-raising event, nor on how I can't think of anything to write. The literary page is promising, though, but... not yet.

For some time, the dilemma has been whether to continue updating this space or not, because I'm sick of blogging about myself, as that has been the trend since this account's birth in 2005. Besides, that's what a journal is for. Yet, journal writing has been an entirely different experience; I don't want to keep writing for only my eyes.

What to write about? Hopefully not mostly about myself. Perhaps I'd publish my own medical textbook someday, as the quality of those available is unsatisfying. Or that children's book I still hope to write. Maybe I'd enter some writing contest, as I'm starting to realize my need for money. Or get into editing, volunteer to read and comment on someone else's work, for it's almost like writing. But those aren't really topics to write about; they're possible writing avenues. For now, it's this place.