My flirting with writing got its initial boost when I was in my fifth grade. I wrote a story (don’t really recall what about) and my father and siblings told me that it was very good. Maybe their opinions were biased but it did give me the encouragement to write more…which I did.
The next time someone appreciated my writing was when I was in Class 9. My English teacher liked an essay that I’d written and asked me to read it aloud in class — that was my first attempt at public-speaking! Some of my classmates told me later that what I’d written was genuinely nice.
A couple of years after that, I published my first article — a poem in a national newspaper. The day it appeared, I was transported to cloud nine! I was famous! I felt then like I was God’s great gift to the writing world. And, during the following months, I became a voracious writer. I wrote anything — stories, poems, even songs (I had by then picked up a few chords on the guitar)! In my dreams, I imagined being as popular as Stephen King or the next John Lennon! Unfortunately, that initial publication remained, well, the only publication for the subsequent few years. Getting published, I discovered, was even more difficult than making a cow jump over the moon. I continued writing but nothing that was considered fit for public consumption.
The next push came much later when this paper accepted an article of mine and printed it as a middle. Everyone said they loved it and I was again transported to heaven! A flurry of writing followed and more and more of my articles were published in newspapers and magazines.
That’s when I decided to write a novel — one that, in my mind at least, would be as good if not better than The Lord of the Rings. It took me nigh to two years to finish it and I loved it of course; it was my precious. But sadly, publishers didn’t see it that way. Rejection followed rejection, leading me to question my very writing skills. Was I living in a world where I was the only one who thought I had a future as an author? Once again, my writing stalled and almost died.
Thankfully, that wasn’t the end. After a rather long hiatus, I recently started writing again and have even managed to get a few articles published, albeit infrequently. My dream of being a world-renown novelist still burns in my heart but the light does burn lower with every passing day. Still, I don’t let it die down altogether for what is man without a dream to pursue?
Closing note. In case any publisher reading this has liked what has been written, please... please, do reach out to me. There are plenty of great books floating around in this mind of mine just waiting to see the light of day!