My Love Affair With Poetry (and some steps to start up your own)

As I begin to enter my 20s, I think back to when I had first started writing and how it has shaped me into the person I am today. Back when I was about 12 or 13 (and an even bigger nerd than I am now :] lol) , I had this sudden impulse to put all my thoughts and feelings on paper. Writing is not simply a pastime or a hobby; it's a way of immersing your soul into words that create sentences that creates paragraphs that creates never ending stories for the rest of the world to see. It truly is a marriage and should be treated as such. Why I used the concept of marriage to describe my relationship with poetry is because I view my alone time with pen, paper and my imagination as a sacred & intimate process, like a husband and wife having alone time together after a hard day's work. Now, don't get me wrong; there have been some rough patches between writing and I (nights where I would toss in my bed, my brain buzzing like a queen honeybee with ideas and concepts to write about; piles of paper crumpled at my feet because I hated what was coming out when the lead touched the blank white spaces). Fast forward eight years, and now we have arrived here.

So, for all of you aspiring writers searching for your piece of poetic justice and freedom, there are a few steps to take towards the task of writing :

1) Find YOUR inspiration. (Before you dive into days of rubbed out pencil erasers and crumbled balls of paper piling high, figure out what exactly what YOU want to write about. Inspiration can be found in any area--from music to nature to politics to religion, even personal pain. Think about what you want to say , why you would like to say it and who you desire to say it to.)

2) Think outside of the box. (What exactly do I mean? Well, put it this way in your brain : a poem can be viewed as more than what it is. Think of it as a song with no background music or a prelude to the story that is your life. Take your imagination and paint a mental story in your audience's head. )

3) Whatever you do, DO NOT GIVE UP! (As I previously stated, writing can sometimes be a tedious task and you will get frustrated--it's inevitable. I actually started writing when I was about thirteen years old in pre-algebra class. I was going through a horrible time in my life -- puberty, to be exact, dealing with the lack of self love and on the verge of giving up my self respect. But when I had started to put my words on paper, I would get about halfway through and then just rip it up in anger, thinking that I was so stupid for even trying. After that, I had drifted back and forth to writing until I was about 17. It was in College English and we had to have these things called "commonplace books" , or journals, to write down our reactions toward any of the literature we read in and out of class time. Now, I have writing consistently for the last four years and I am more in love with it than ever before. Someday, I wish to write a book that is currently untitled (it was Scars of She, but now my blog has that name) which is a collection of both old and new pieces near and dear to me. Hopefully, I can get it published on that special someday.)

4) Be Passionate. (Don't try to become a writer if you are going to, for lack of a better word, half ass your work. Your audience can tell when you are being authentic of artificial, and believe me, being artificial is not the way to go. Whether it takes five minutes, five days, five months or five years to do it, find that passion and hold on to it tight!)

5) Be True to Yourself and Your Emotions. (I kind of touched on this in both step 2 and the previous step, but you must be a truthful writer. As stated earlier, your audience will sense your persona through your work and how it is presented. If you are uncomfortable and anxious, they will most likely be too. Your emotions are directly and indirectly broadcasted through your poems. A suggestion: try to write a piece matching your emotion at that moment. That way, it will better ensure the audience you desire to target. For example, here's an excerpt from one of my favorite poems that I've written:

But so have you. Yet, I don't seem to be holding any grudges against you, now do I? I really didn't think that a title or a number could really define a person's level of wisdom and truth. Guess you don't see it that way.You try to be so involved in my life, but don't bother to hear me out when I try to clue you in.

Now use your imagination to try and guess how I was feeling when I wrote this. If you guess confused or angry, you guessed right :])

Hopefully , I have helped out some of your aspiring writers out there!! :) if you choose to continue, keep up the good work. but if not, hopefully you can use my words to help out someone else.