WRITING

If you are like me (back when I was 12 years old), your problem is not about how to convince yourself that writing is an important skill to possess.

Your biggest and only challenge is making yourself capable of putting ideas and thoughts down on the paper or computer screen in front of you.

For many years, when I had to write an essay for my English class as homework, I used to sit at my desk and stare at a blank piece of paper literally for hours on end. Much more often than not, I fail to get more than a few sentences on the white sheet in front of me.

It was a struggle to put anything on paper. There will be many interesting ideas swimming around in my head. Ideas that require linking words and warm up paragraphs.

Whatever managed to appear on the paper in front of me was stilted, and often lacking cohesiveness, in the form of jumping from thoughts to thoughts with little explanations and many weak links.

I could hardly put any logical sentences down on paper. All I could do was staring at the paper and sighing most of the time.

Essay writing for me was a struggle. Why was it so hard for me to put ideas and thoughts down on paper?

One reason is writing is a habit that requires much more self-discipline to cultivate than, dare I say it, not farting or not picking your nose in public.

And I didn't know how to apply positive reinforcement at the time.

And writing is such a solitary sport. With weigh reduction programs, at least one can have the benefit of seeing other overweight people exercising nearby and giving each other verbal encouragement and gaining the satisfaction of seeing one's reduced weight with the measure of a scale or measuring tape.

How could I measure writing well? By the amount of words that are now on the paper? Words that did not make much sense together because, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find that inner voice that could logically link ideas and thoughts on paper?

And I did not hear about thesaurus until I finished high (secondary) school.

Can you believe it? Very few books and English teachers emphasized the importance and usefulness of thesaurus as a tool of writing. Certainly none of my writing books and teachers did. Everybody was talking about the importance of dictionary.

And thesaurus was the tool that made the difference in me from a non-writer to a writer because the tool showed me I don't have to rack my brain looking for that perfect word to describe that illusive idea swimming around in my head.

Just flip the pages of a thesaurus and I can have more words than I need.

I swore to myself that when I found the secret to writing, I would do my best to keep this skill at all cost.

For many years, the goal of being able to put ideas down on paper became increasingly important as I grew up and struggled to find my self identity.

I knew I wanted to write. And I was sitting at my desk at regular hour of every day trying to write even though nothing much came out on to the paper. I was determined to find out what was stopping me.

Because I knew in my heart whatever was stopping me was a hurdle that I must cross in order to achieve higher self-esteem.