Should I Become a Writer?

Am I Even Worth It?

I stare at the ceiling.

It’s white, painfully white, devoid of any ideas or emotions.

I lower my glance and stare at the screen.

It looks the same.

Then I run my eyes down on my notes scattered all over the table.

‘What a mess!’ I say to myself.

My table has always been like this since I was a kid. I used to call it ‘writer’s worktable’ to shush my Mom every time she threw a fit.

She would glare at me and yell, ‘How can you stay in this pigsty?’

Back then I would scowl at her, but now I nod my head in silence.

She was right.

My room’s always been a pigsty, but my table’s even worse.

I’ve got a half-empty mug of coffee I microwaved three times since morning, my supposed-to-be-warm water bottle is untouched, and I’ve got a cup of tea that’s getting cold. Apart from that, there’s heaps of papers I like calling notes.

I can see a disgustingly brown skin of banana peeping out of one of those notes, and I can smell oranges somewhere nearby. I hope I left the seeds on top of those peels though.

I want to become a writer, you know — A good one.

But now as I stare at the screen, I doubt my own dream.

I thought I was a healthy kid growing up.

How did I end up like this?

My eyes fall upon some topics I jotted down on one of those notes the other day.

I sigh and look the other way.

I remember how excited I was, thinking of all the stories I could write out of them, but now I’m not.

I used to think a writer’s adrenaline rush lasts till he finishes his story. But mine ends just after scribbling down a few fancy topics.

What a shame!

I’m just a scribbler you know- An unknown one.

I close my eyes and rub my temples.

Where did this madness start from?

Why did I want to become a writer in the first place?

I take a trip down memory lane, deep, deep into the past.

I see different versions of myself flashing in front of me.

There’s a young version of me in my bedroom with toys everywhere. But I’m not playing with them. I’ve got my big eyes glued to some flashy Power Ranger comics instead.

Then I see another version of me inside a Book Bus reading something.

‘Wait! Is that The Hardy Boys?’

Whoosh! Another version flashes in front of me.

This time I’m in a library taking out a novel by Agatha Christie from a book shelf. And, I’ve got another one in my hand with Stephen King written on it.

Suddenly, all the books disappear and all the walls dissolve.

Everything turns to white as I find myself inside a big white room with large white windows.

I’m sitting down on the white tiled floor in the middle of a circle of … white papers?

There are stories of love, desire, romance, friendship, pain, struggle, horror and every other human emotion I can imagine, all in my handwriting.

Now I’m kneeling down with my butt raised to the sky, writing a novel.

I’m on the fourty fourth page when I stand up, walk to a white table, open the bottom drawer and shove all those pages of writing into it.

It’s the third time I’ve done that. If you ask me where the other two are: they rest in peace beneath the one I just buried alive.

As I turn behind and walk away from the table, I notice I’m smiling.

There’s an unexplainable joy inside of me clearly visible in the absence of any wrinkle of stress on my face.

Whatever time I spent writing was a natural process for me- the expression of my natural flow of mind.

No one put a gun to my head and forced me to write.

I wrote just because… I enjoy?

Let me put it this way.

There’s someone inside me cooking a cauldron of the most aromatic soup I’ve ever smelt.

Every time he stirs it, steam comes up and tickles my brain cells. It is at that moment I feel the urge to write something.

As I write, I feel that steam gets released making me feel good.

Can I commercialise this feeling? Yes.

But should I feel bad if I don’t earn enough money out of writing? Hell No!

As long as I’m enjoying the process, why should I care about the output?

Even when Medium mockingly tosses a few pennies into my wallet, I hold my ground and continue writing.

I don’t need to be Agatha Christie or Stephen King.

I can just be Tim Denning and earn $11,000 every month as he says so in his article, ‘How I made $11,000 From Writing in 30 Days.’

Now as I open my eyes, I see the screen- the same white one I was staring at a while ago.

This time I don’t see the pain, but the joy, in the white.

The man inside me is stirring the contents of the cauldron, and the steam is slowly coming up.

I’m definitely going to write something today.

As I take a deep breath and inhale all those beautiful aromas, I come to a very big realisation.

It was never about who I become, but about what I do.

And, I like to write.

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