I have never been this close with language when I was college. Like, for real. It was as though I could feel the brains of all my English instructors combined. Every day is a new day, so they say. And yes, a different instructor’s image pops up on my head and that’s who I am following for the day: His/her style, what could he/she be doing in a situation like this and that, how would she want to give this and that to students, the way they think, the way they speak, the way they do things.
There are only a few glimpse of “me”, of who I am, how I write, how I think, and how I do things. Why only a glimpse? Maybe I am still closed to the idea that I could be myself when writing technically. I see myself as the “creative writer” that I have never considered myself as a technical writer. Whew.
But yes, yes, I love the challenge. Just look how many days or weeks have passed and I haven’t written a single thing here, which means I am enjoying this to the extent that I am getting the hang of it, without seeking the keyboard for brain dumping on the blog.
Also, rereading my works is not my thing. But when I started working here, I have to read my work again and again to make sure nothing mind-boggling for grammar Nazis slips through my work. While rereading some of my works, I could pinpoint and highlight the phrases that come from my heart and mind combined. I could differentiate the things that were written out of pressure and out of sheer joy. Wow, that must be changing me in some ways.
Have you ever feel like you have a relationship with words? Like you don’t use certain words unless it is needed badly? Or you have those specific words that you often use in some kind of special way? Cause I feel so good every time I use some of my favourite words and it is pushing me to write more and more for the sake of writing. I guess this must be a feeling familiar only to linguists like Noam Chomsky and all the historical linguists and students of language. Do you agree? I must be in love with words right now to have finally joined NaNoWriMo.
Will I be serious with it this time? I honestly don’t know. Let’s see where this leads me to. I suggest you take the challenge too, if you’re an aspiring writer. You never know what technical writing could do to you.
