by Rosario Buenaflor

Created on: May 25, 2009   Last Updated: October 30, 2010

Writing, for me, is a labor of love that serves me firstly and secondly the reader - but one cannot exist without the other. It is a rare opportunity to be read when people everywhere ignore each other. Readers are people who have decided to give you their time and trust even if it's only for that moment. The thought that someone appreciates and relates to what I have written gives me real sense of accomplishment. Even if I get a negative criticism - as they say - bad publicity is good publicity. That's so true. What's a show without an audience? Readers make my brave move to put my thoughts on paper, worth it. It makes me feel like I have something to share, to give. It's nice to be acknowledged for something that you also derive pleasure from just by doing it.

Writing is a free flowing energy that forces the writer to go into the inner reaches of her own psyche. It takes a sharp mind with a hearty pioneering spirit to write. To declare your ideas and place them in a bound, unchangeable medium of writing is a display of courage. I call it the audacity to be yourself. Every piece of writing, may it be a news bulletin, a poem, a will or a book, is written by someone with a sincere desire to be read; to be listened to, to be appreciated.

Writing engages me totally that I get lost into whatever it is that I'm writing. It's like knowing your destination but not knowing how to get there. It is a journey filled with words I have encountered before and have now resurfaced into usefulness. The unexpected arrivals of thoughts and ideas flood my mind like people stampeding to get into a bus. Each thought comes just in the right time and bids farewell when it senses a proceeding foreboding trend. The reader attentively catches every movement of my thoughts like a sports commentator. Every scene is a fusion of minds - mine and the reader's. Writing is a relationship with the reader; a warm familiarity with someone who knows you. It's a give and take relationship that makes use of each other's ideas and melds them into something that can surprise them both.

When I'm there writing and lost for words, looking for the most suitable phrase or term, it makes me appreciate the many wonderful articles, poems and books I have read before; those elegantly stringed words that turn into prose; those few simple words that sing glorious melodies. How can those past writings move me like no other medium? They didn't even cost anything to produce but what an indelible impact it has made on me. In my own small way, I write to reciprocate and to give back to writers whose work the world cannot do without. I write to send a message to anyone who reads this, "this is for you".

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