Bridge

I now have slightly over two years of weekly writing experience with this blog, and another year and a half of monthly writing experience. I had intentions of going daily a few weeks ago, writing reviews on every one of the passages recommended by Dr. Eliot from the Harvard Library, but I think that might be overkill. Instead, I’m going to continue publishing a passage a week, but will enforce a couple of changes.

The original intention of keeping this blog was manifold: primarily however, it would force me to write, which is inherently good for organizing my thoughts, but also good for becoming better at writing itself. The goal of a thousand words a week is attainable with a bit of discipline and a lot of time spent away from the internet. To that end, I’ve missed a couple of weeks in the first year of blogging, but not a single one in the past year. Consequently, there have also been a few uninspired posts, but their banality is a small price to pay for habit forming and training.

The first of these changes is then to be able to stand firmly and proudly behind each piece of writing that I produce. This past summer, I met a lot of new people and reconnected with a few others. When sharing hobbies, they would sometimes ask to see my blog. But I’d find myself frequently saying that the current week’s post wasn’t representative of my writing, that it wasn’t particularly good, and they should read a specific post. Of course, some posts will always be better than others, and there will always be specific posts that are more apropos, but I want to be more mindful of the writing that I publish. The habits have been formed, and requisite volume reached. I just need to make more out of each word I put out is more impactful.

My eventual goal is to write fiction. My pipe dream is to write the next Great American Novel. But I have not written any fiction at all this year, not even for the CBC short story contest that I normally participate in. So, in addition to being able to stand firmly behind everything that I write, I also will try to write at least one fictional piece per every three posts. I haven’t charted out how I plan on writing short fiction on a schedule, but I imagine they’ll be any sort of stories: standalone short stories, episodes of a web novel, story openings based on writing prompts, or even fan fiction. Who knows, I might even be able to churn out more than one out of three. I’ve established the habit of writing. I need to start writing fiction.

Lastly, I also resolve to write more. This year, not only have I not written any nonfiction, but I also haven’t written outside of my blog. It’s been effective as therapy and as a way to organize half-baked ideas, but I feel like the writing improvement piece has stagnated. Increasingly, I churn out pieces stuck in middle seats on planes, hunched over an ten-inch laptop screen, relieved to have finished with the week’s homework. I need to write more ­outside of my blog. I have query letters I need to write, an industry newsletter I want to start, and eventually a novel I need to publish. I’ve stopped considering my growth as a writer, mindlessly pounding away about how I replaced my phone while seated in 43B. I need to write mindfully.

In a preface to one of Murakami’s novels, he encloses an essay he wrote about how he got started writing. Within, he discusses how the moment of inspiration struck him while he was watching two local baseball teams play each other. When I went to Tokyo a month ago, I made a small pilgrimage over to the Jingu Stadium, where the lightning bolt struck Murakami. Nothing. But earlier this month, I had my Yakult Swallows moment when I was at the Scotiabank Arena attending a concert. It was for The 1975, a band that I wasn’t well acquainted with (though in fairness, I’m not well acquainted with any bands), and I was accompanying my girlfriend. I couldn’t make out a word that the English pop-rock group was singing for the entirety of the performance, but there was one point where there audience had to chose a song, and settled on Paris. I still couldn’t make out the majority of the lyrics, but the chorus is some variant of “I’d love to go to Paris, again, again, again, and again.”

In the past, I’ve written about the impact my semester in Paris had on me, but more so than that, I think it was its combination with Before Sunset, and Midnight in Paris that made it especially formative for my desire to write. Sure, Pere Goriot, L’Auberge Espagnole, and Moulin Rouge inspired a great deal of romanticism about Paris, exchange, and bohemianism, but it was really the kunstleroman of Before Sunset and Midnight in Paris that made want to become a writer. I don’t know why I want to become a writer anymore. I think to start, I wanted to impress women and in the middle phase, I wanted to join the Asian American Renaissance, to tell my story to everyone. But now in the end, I think I just want to write for the sake of writing. Is it a bit egotistical to think that my thoughts are interesting enough that the whole world needs to hear them? Perhaps, but aren’t all the greatest writers?

Murakami’s revelation was that he could write a novel. Mine was that I could make it as a writer. Just like Murakami, the thought came out of the blue. Of course, I’m not saying that I could be half the writer that Murakami is, though I hope that I can be twice the writer. It’s more than the capitalistic necessity to be able to sustain my livelihood from my writing, it’s the ability to identify as a writer. Money attached to my writing helps because it’s how our society shows appreciation and defers value, but more than that, I’d like to tell people that I’m a writer.

When I introduce myself to people, I’ve begun slowly mentioning the writing, but even then it’s a hobby, hidden behind reading, traveling, gaming, and filmgoing: I sneak it in, and I only share my blog if they ask enough questions. I want to tell people, loudly and proudly, that I am a writer. And that is what I’ll be working towards.