How I Became a Writer
To be honest, it’s a long and boring story of how, at sixteen, I watched a TV show, and thought that I could write a story myself. It was dumb and innocent, and I’m glad there’s no trace to that story, because it was bad.
But back then I wasn’t really planning on choosing that as my career. Even though at school all my tests directed me towards a career in the arts or English. But like I said, I was naive, and even though life had already been tough, I wasn’t dying to tell my story.
I thought that I’d have a “normal life,” whatever that means. Getting married and having kids, a regular job. But clearly things didn’t work out the way I thought they would. I had moved to the States, and once I graduated high school, I realized that as an immigrant, I couldn’t afford college and I would have to do the impossible to get there or give up.
And well, depression happened.
To be honest, I could say depression was exactly what led me in this path.
At a time when I didn’t have many options, I started writing again. Not to become a writer, but because I needed to let the demons out.
I had some stories, all of them unimportant and simple. None of them saw the light of day. I was just trying to distract myself from my miserable life and knowing that I probably had to work as a cashier or nanny for the rest of my life.
As a reader, I would consume stories with happy endings and girls who found the love of their life on a trip, while knowing that would never happened to me. And that as much as I love reading as a way to escape my mundane life, I would never see myself in one of these stories.
One day, my brother mentioned something. He said that maybe I could write the story I needed to read, something I could relate to.
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And somehow that’s how Keep Breathing came out to be.
My first novel.
It took me years to work on the characters, bring them to life and create a story that would honor them. It took me even longer to write the first draft, and edit it. At some point, I thought I was crazy and that this story was pointless. But it gave me something to look forward.
Every day, after coming home from work, hating my life because it was so far from all my dreams, I’d sit down and work on my book. And it gave me a purpose.
It saved my life.
I did try to query some years ago, and it got rejected by every agent. At that point, I was about to quit. I thought there was no point in trying. Even getting someone to beta read it all the way to end proved almost impossible, so how was I supposed to make this my career?
But by then I had also started writing fanfiction. It gave me an audience, people who were interested in my stories, though I know it had to do more with the characters. It also gave me a lot of practice. The more I wrote, the better I got, the more ideas I got.
In that time, I rewrote my novel, I’m still doing edits, even though most of the time it feels pointless. I’ve reached out to more people to beta read it, only to get the same results. Everyone who promises they will be different than the rest, that they will actually read it, either comes up with an excuse to not even start it, or just stops reading. So maybe that’s how it is, maybe it’s just me, I don’t know.
Sometimes I consider posting it online. I’m still debating it.
The point is — I have so many stories to tell. And I hope I get to tell them soon. I guess that makes me a writer.
So, if you want to join me in this journey — which can get a little lonely sometimes — I’d appreciate it.
