No, I didn’t meet with Shonda. I mean, who am I? No big personality in the world of writing has ever talked to me. Not yet.
I watched Oprah’s interview with Shonda Rhimes on Super Soul Sunday last night on YouTube. It’s about a month old, one which I haven’t watched yet. Watching it just rekindled the fire I had for writing. There were a lot of revelations in that video that pushed me to write now.
If you have no idea who Shonda Rhimes is, wait…what? Where’ve you been? Shonda Lynn Rhimes is the creator of all these wonderful television shows that you’ve probably binge-watched. Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, and many others.
It’s been a while since I wrote in this space and I missed it. I had this blog, this space for quite some time, and many times I’ve wanted to delete this, but I just didn’t have the heart and strength to do so. Many bloggers I know have evolved into what they’re currently doing now, e-commerce or, have transitioned into coaching. They deleted their blogs or just totally abandoned them because they don’t resonate with it anymore. It sort of somewhat symbolized their transformation or the shedding of their old self.
I could not do the same.
This space has always been my sacred, safe space. I’ve been through a lot of transformations, and that was mostly recorded in this blog. I think it is one of the reasons why I can’t forget about this, it is an actual record of events in my life.
In this space, I don’t write just for the sake of writing. I wrote things that were very personal to me. I wrote about my heartbreaks, my battle with depression, and my happiness. This isn’t just a blog. This is a testimony of my life.
Here, I am not afraid of being judged. This is one space where I can vent my heart out, put my thoughts on something “tangible” or on a medium where I can read them. My thoughts can race as fast as a speeding horse and I can’t keep track of them sometimes. And this space, this blog, is one of the spaces where I can somehow grasp some of the thoughts that run inside my brain.
Recently, I developed envy for others who have the gift or words or wisdom. I always am in awe of the clients that I worked with. I’ve worked with different kinds of coaches, copywriters, transformational coaches, financial and personal development coaches and they all seemed to be very good at conveying their message through writing. They all have the gift of gab (colloquially speaking) and they easily can find the words to write down what their soul wanted to say.
I wanted so much to be like them. I love it more when they can convert their wisdom into a program or a course where they can pass on that knowledge. I have tried it so much that I just ended up being frustrated.
But then I realized maybe that isn’t for me. I know I can write better than I can speak. And this space, this blog is where I put on all the wisdom that I have gained throughout all the experiences I had in my 44 years of existence.
There are contents here that I am astonished. Rereading them, I felt like I wasn’t the one who wrote it. Does it make any sense to you? It was as if somebody else had written it because I could not remember the time I wrote it. I know it was me, I just don’t remember the exact moments when I did.
Maybe I was in a trance when I wrote it or under some spell? Or maybe I was just so filled with this inspiration to write that I became so oblivious to what was happening at that moment. Maybe that explained why I can’t remember a lot.
In the interview, I remember how Shonda described what she felt or how it was when she was writing. To paraphrase, she said that it was almost like doing spiritual practice. When she puts on her headphones, it meant that she would be in that sacred space of writing and sometimes she could just write something and forget time.
I get that. It’s something else to be in that writing and creative space where time just flew by and poof, you’re done. And it’s something that I want to be able to do again. To just get lost in my thoughts and write away.
I miss the adrenalin rush, the racing of my pulse every time I hit publish on a blog post I wrote. I don’t even know if anybody reads my blog but I don’t care. There is always this feeling of elation and success and satisfaction of being able to hit publish on every blog post I write in my blog.
This is not to say that I have stopped writing. I still write content for clients but it’s different than writing something you want to. Writing for clients has these guidelines you need to follow, keywords, number of words, tone, etc.
But it’s not me. I am writing in my client’s voice. I don’t have that freedom of expression. I know I write pretty damn good but it just isn’t me. I can’t put my voice to things that I write for my clients and sometimes it can get exhausting. Don’t get me wrong, I do love my job, but if you’re a content writer, you’d understand where I am coming from.
Creating content for others for money is somewhat starting to take a toll on me. And that’s why I am thankful I was able to watch that interview with Oprah because it somehow showed me the beauty of writing again. Writing in a way that is not confined to certain specific requirements is total freedom.
So how did Shonda Rhimes made me want to write again?
It’s the passion she has for writing, for creating this content that’s a product of her imagination. She can express what she can’t do in real life in the characters that she created. And she’s not afraid of being criticized for what she wrote.
Heck, she even had Mc Dreamy’s character die in Grey’s Anatomy even though people were still in love with the character. When Oprah asked her why she killed that character, she said there was no other way to do it for the story to become as real as it can be. Real love can only have that feeling of forever when one of the couples dies.
In reality, it can never be truer than that!
So, do I have an agenda to write now?
None.
I just wanted to do something that I have been neglecting for a long time. I am a master procrastinator at doing something personal, like writing for my blog.
I want to start writing again for my development. I still want to improve my writing skills. I know there is a lot of room for improvement for me in that field. So, because of what Shonda inspired me to do, starting today, I will make it a habit of writing one blog post a week.
So please help me be held accountable for this, follow my blog, and remind me if I slack.