Why I Start Writing
“A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world” — Susan Sontag (American Writer)
I started the year 2020 with a target in mind: write down my list of ideas I once noted into stories in Medium as many as possible. Surprisingly, I’ve written 24 stories in 2020 alone. That’s 2 stories each month. So why do I love writing so much?
A little bit of backstory… I started writing in 2018. It began when a friend of mine asked me to contribute to his publication project named Remember This Before. It has been dead for a long time 😂 RIP
I agreed to contribute at that time because it can be a “supplementary” article to my project which is a laptop search engine. (see story below)
So I ended up writing Remember This Before Buying a Laptop. Cause when somebody asks me “what kind of laptop is suitable for me you think?”, I just need to point ’em to the story I made. Since then, writing has become one of my routines. In this story, I would like to share a story of mine about why I love writing.
Liberating
Indonesian has this word and that is “curhat” which means “heart pouring”. It’s an activity where one talk to their closest person about what’s bothering them at the moment. A “heart to heart” talk. Writing does a similar fashion to me. I had all these thoughts in my head and no one I can discuss them with. Don’t get me wrong… I do have friends 😂, but sometimes they don’t like to talk about this kind of stuff. By writing, I can get the ideas out of my head rather than stuck them up in my head forever. Plus, with this approach, I can reach a far wider audience 😀
Hell… My Job is Writing
I just realize this myself. My job is writing! I’m a software engineer which means I write code daily. It kinda makes sense now cause I knew I love programming from a long time ago. It also reflected on how I always strive for writing clean and readable codes.
Sharing Knowledge
I’ve been a tutor for the longest time when I’m in high school. My friends came to my house, asking me to explain a particular school material. It requires me to be able to explain something complicated to them with a simpler term or analogy, so they can understand. I love sharing knowledge and experience. It’s not for bragging… but what’s good of knowledge if you only keep it to yourself, right? That's why several of my stories are about explaining something using analogy and mostly about answering common questions in society, especially those that are related to computer science. I feel like I want to communicate with this format. I want other people to receive new information and enrich themselves. What better way to do it than writing, am I right?
I’m not gonna lie, I was scared at first. “What if I wrote something wrong?”, “Is the idea of the story good enough?”, “Is there anyone who gonna read it?”. At first, I always looked at the “numbers” — the stats. Slowly, I don’t give a f*ck anymore. I just wrote whatever I want (responsibly of course). Cause to me the important thing is the content itself, not the numbers.
So for my fellows who want to write, but still afraid… don’t be. Just tried it. Just make one story and pretend you’re the only one who's reading it after. You’re gonna be surprised at how addicting it is. Remember, even though your story seems not that interesting, there’s gotta be a bunch of people who make it to the end of your last full stop (.)
Cheers 🍻 — Ferzos
