After 9 Months

9 months and 9 days

That is how long I have been absent from this blog. Not that anyone would realize, but finally I feel guilty for not writing again. Not because I will write anything inspirational, because a travel log on my journey to Cambodia can hardly be called inspirational. Not because anyone blame me for not writing. But just because  this blog has recorded significant moments of my life - due to my discipline of writing - and I intend to keep it that way.

9 months and 9 days is what it took to make me realize that I have not been putting too much thought into what's going on around me. I have left my crayon untouched and left the world uncolored, and I intend to make it stop.

So, today is July 19th 2013 - the date where one streak of color is painted on the canvas.

First, let me blame someone for these 9 months
1. For eight months, my writing class had occupied my time and really deplete all the desire, that was very negligible to start with, to write.

2. I have been managing two other blogs. So in my defense, I was nothing like that sloth who was busy watching Masterchef (although that is a frequent occurrence), but just because I have so many blogs to juggle with. Ha, so give me a break.

3. The world was boring. Well, maybe not. Because during that 8 months window, Oklahoma was hit by tornado, a new pope was elected, and Obama won the election. But somehow all of those left me undisturbed. It was not until Travyon Martin trial started and the hateful responses following its verdict that left me disturbed. The world does not run out of problems, in fact it can't keep up with the problems.

So rest assure, I will write more often (let's not remember that I have made - with such an ease - a similar promise in this blog which I have broken as easily too). Granted nothing distracting will happen in the next couple of days, please anticipate my next blog on my trip to Vancouver and Seattle.

Update on Writing Class

Finally, after long deliberation and tons of excuses, I registered for the writing course that I have been planning to take since last year. There are many options available, but I think my heart finds its rest on the "Article That Sell" program from Christian Writers Guild, basically a six month writing course which goal is to produce 10 ready-to-publish articles by the end of the course.

So what do I exactly want to achieve from this course? Of course not to be the next John Grisham because taking one writing course does not even slightly close the one light year gap between his prowess and mine in fiction writing. I guess I have no definite and satisfactory answer to this question as well.

Part of it because  a bunch of friends have encouraged me to take one, maybe too naively thinking that I can really pull this off. Partly because I am still pretty much ambivalent about this, can't seem to put my foot down; I do enjoy writing to a certain degree, I feel I am able to express myself better in words, but it is nothing like a walk in the park, definitely nothing like spelling an ABC. I mean, c'mon, there are so many better writer out there; every time I read an intimidating column or article from Time, it always, without a fail, leave me with a sense of belittlement, think of an image of an overweight guy looking at the P90X workout guy.

And the last part, maybe I am still intrigued to find out how much I really want to do this, and how much writing capacity hidden down there I can excavate, is it a gold mine? or actually only a seasonal almost dried out well? Is this something that I need to take seriously in the end? I hope that the course can really push me out of my comfort zone, and give me the technical tools required to be a better writer - of which it has done a great job at, been scratching my head numerously to complete my first assignment, a deja-vu to my undergraduate experience.

So yeah, I have completed my first assignment, and I was about to celebrate it with a champagne when I realized there are 11 assignments to go, so as crestfallen as I was, I decided to postpone the celebration until a more significant time. The next assignment is due in two weeks, so I definitely have strong excuses to disregard the next assignment, don an invisibility cloak on the textbook, and update my blog with my recent travel to Cambodia and Indonesia. Finger-crossed!