Revival

This blog's title - left over from a previous era in my life - rings truer than ever. The full quote, courtesy of the perspicacious George Eliot - "It's never too late to be who you might have been". To that, I add the equally wise words of e.e. cummings - "It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are".

So, who am I? (Cue Jean Valjean's epic revelation - 2460-ONEEEE... lol) I have decided that I am a writer. I've toyed with this identity countless times in the past, made and broken promises like a fickle, faithless lover. But time and again when newer shiny pursuits lose their lustre - when distractions reveal themselves as dead ends - I circle back to one of my first loves - words.

Writing immortalises the plebeian sacredness in my life. A watchful eye that lavishes attention on mundane moments, like rain on thirsty plants, so they bloom. Writing is a form of therapy. It is a cool caress on a burning wound; fresh flowers on a grave. Yet I do not write for myself only - I would not be able to sustain it. I need an audience. To be published. To be read.

I have decided to hone my writing skills by doing poetic writing exercises and posting the results - along with any other by-poems - on this blog. This latest infusion of determination started with *drumroll* a rejection. I entered the Golden Point Award 2019 with five poems, three of which I actually thought were pretty good.  Not good enough, apparently. While I am occasionally skeptical about the Golden Point Award prize-winners (I've noticed certain trends), it also made me reflect on how I simply have not been writing enough. The last time I entered the GPA was in 2013 - and not having won anything, plus having cobbled together an entry in a rush, I swore that I would be well prepared for the next round. 2015 -  I had been sucked into the chaos of advertising and didn't enter. 2017 came and went, I had stopped writing for years by then.

Listening to Outliers this week by Malcolm Gladwell was terribly humbling. In Chapter 2, he makes a treatise for practice as a prime factor of success - with examples of phenomenal talents such as Mozart, Bill Gates, The Beatles all fulfilling the 10,000 hours rule before they made it big. Honestly, my heart froze as I heard this while running errands. I counted my own hours. I've hit the 10,000 hour mark for advertising. But for poetry - I generously estimate about 200 hours. This means I'm missing 9,800 hours. How vainglorious of me to imagine that I can waltz in after a five? seven? ten? year hiatus, start writing again and win the competition.

I also suffered a brief but intense bout of regret-itis.

I started writing when I was 13. Because I didn't get into CAP one year, I didn't try again. I wrote on-off through secondary school - generally relationship-centric rather crappy poems - and then went through a love-lorn intense writing phase in JC. My JC lit teacher Mr. P recently sent me four poems I had let him read in JC - they're actually very good for a 17/18 year old, I think. Yet somehow, I just didn't continue writing enough, even though I majored in Creative Writing at Brown with an honours thesis in poetry. Even there, I constantly disappointed myself by not putting enough time into poetry class assignments and my thesis. Part of me questioned whether I really enjoyed writing poetry - or just the idea of being a poet.

Counting back, I realised that if I had kept up writing when I started at 13, I would have hit my 10,000 hours by Senior year college. Failing that, if I had started taking writing seriously when I graduated (spurred on by a disappointing farewell note from my disappointed thesis advisor) I would have hit my 10,000 hours by now.

After disparaging the GPA judges, and languishing in the throes of what-could-have-been, time to embark on the pro poet (proet) journey! Yes I will probably be 43 by the time I hit my mark, but being precocious is overrated anyway. It's never too late to be who you might have been.