On How to Be a Writer

A couple weeks ago, I stumbled upon an article on Medium about “How to Be a Writer”. This article was inspired when a mother asked Ms Becker, the writer, what she should be doing to support her daughter to be a writer.

The first thing Becker says is to read and write a lot, but she thought those two suggestions are not enough, which then lead the article to get even more interesting. This sets me into a retrospective mood looking back and match few points that are mentioned on her list. Here are a few of her suggestions:

She says, let her be bored.

I used to have a long afternoon waiting for my mum to finish work when I was in elementary school. We lived in a very nice and quiet suburban area, an hour drive through the highway from the Central. Commuting back and forth to drop me off home and back to my mother's office seemed inefficient. Thus, I would wait for her at her office, which was in the Southern part of Jakarta where big houses are used as a working space for local businesses.

Inside the office, sometimes I would run around without my shoes on because the marble-tiled floor was very slippery and it was perfect for me to pretend I was an ice-skating goddess/princess on ice. Nobody mind, though, I was welcomed. But most of the times, I would sit quietly in front of one of the empty computers that used to seem magical and exciting even though the size of it was almost as big as boom box radio. Then, I'd write.

I wrote how the day at school went, how excited I was when there was a new girl at school named Mila whom I immediately befriended. It was probably one page long with massive font size, then I would print them off, again, still fascinated with the growing technology of warm black ink writing itself on a white blank page. On our way home, I would show it to mum with all the proudness shone through my toothpaste-commercial smile.

So, there I was indeed bored. With the empty hours I had, I started to develop the habit to write.

Secondly, she says let her make mistakes.

To begin with, mistakes are complex and so does this next part that I am about to write. It is not necessarily black, or white. But bear with me. 

I had the first unrequited love when I was fifteen. When the other girls were claiming love with boys our age, I fell in love with an older guy. He was twenty and I was just about to turn sixteen. Back then, I was trying so hard to be an adult, just to stand out in his eyes that I was mature and capable. Come to think of it, I may have missed the teenage rebellion phase because I was trying to be his age, when I was not. It was either that, or I basically have an old soul.

As much as I tried to be an adult, I was not. I let him slipped away, without saying anything and never for once stopped liking, or loving, him for a moment until I found a new love in high school. Because of this, I wrote my first English short novel based upon him – it was shit, but in there, I got to make things right. I had my happy ending.

There it is, I find salvation in writing. I did it. I made mistake by falling in love with the wrong person – if by wrong means not being loved in return. Looking back, what he did was right. If I were him, I would not approach me; I was far too young, far too naïve, to know what love is. I think, we simply just met in the wrong time.

Probably if he did love me back, or this did not happen, I would not have the force to write more. And probably, I would not love writing as much as I do now that I don’t want to give it up for the world.

So, if there is anything that you won’t trade for the world, I suggest you keep it.