xxxThe following writer has been kind enough
to share his story with us.
xxxIf you would like
to contribute your story and photo to me, email them to:
xxxrob@easywaytowrite.com
xxxThank you.
xxxVela Menon
I liked dabbling in words and
stringing words together from a very early age. As I look
back on my life, I realise that writing has always had a
therapeutic effect on me. The completion of a piece of
writing invariably filled me with exhilaration. Later, as
a medical student, I found myself writing whenever I felt
overwhelmed by the disease, death and suffering I saw in
the hospital wards. It would restore my energy and make
me feel better.
Only a few of my written pieces have ever been published.
Each time, when something I wrote was rejected by
publishers, I would feel that my writing was not good
enough and I would pass through a phase where I stopped
writing. Much of what I wrote was never seen by others. I
guess I was simply too scared of rejection to send them
for publication.
The birth of my daughter evoked emotions that produced a
copious flow of words from my pen. Later, when she was
diagnosed with profound hearing loss, I worked through my
grief and pain with words on paper. These were written
for my eyes alone and I never ever considered showing it
to anyone. But I must say that I felt a great deal of
satisfaction when this daughter, many years later,
spotted these dusty writings in an old file and read
through them all.
The notion that I might be a writer came to me rather
late in life. It took Rob Parnell's newsletters to make
me understand that a writer practices the craft of
writing mainly because of an inner need to do so. Seeing
one's name in print and enjoying the admiration of others
are secondary to this primal instinct of a writer.
I became a writer when I realised, in the fifth decade of
my life, that I had this instinct.
