Writing 101
My Personal History with Regards to Writing
Learning How to Write in Turkish
As a child I wasn’t too much interested in school. To the point when I was attending first grade at the elementary school in Ankara Türkiye, halfway through the school year I was the only one in class who still wasn’t able to write. I suspect my school teacher thinking that I was retarded. At one point we had a long religious holiday weekend. Before the recess, the school teacher met with my mom and told her that I was the only one in class who could not read and write. For the holidays my family had plans to go Bursa to visit my uncle’s side of the family. It ended up being vacation time for everyone in the family except for me. My mom turned the Bursa trip into a writing labor camp so I can move out from my illiterate situation. Even to this day when I think of the actual trip, the only memory I have, is me sitting at the dinner table with my books, and learning how to write in Turkish. Once the holiday was over and it was time for us to go back to Ankara, I had learned how to read and write. In that sense the writing labor camp was a success. Even though, I had the worst time of my life during that actual holiday in Bursa, I am extremely thankful that my mom took the initiative and forced me to learn how to write in my native language.
Learning How to Write in French
A couple years later my family decided to move to the French speaking part of Switzerland. I was a third grader in Türkiye at that time. If you ask me, I was more of a dreamer, and a terrible student, still not very interested in school work, but somehow I was getting good grades and nobody was giving me trouble. Moving to Switzerland meant that in terms of reading and writing I had to start the entire learning process all over again. I had zero knowledge of French when we arrived to Switzerland. My first two years as an elementary school student in Switzerland made the Bursa writing labor camp look like peanuts. Although I arrived at a relatively young age to this new country, I really struggled in leaning French. It is a complex language that does not have much in common with Turkish. In French the grammar and spelling rules are complicated with tons of exceptions to make things even more complicated. I think of French as an exclusive language. As if it was designed so people outside of France will have the hardest time to learn it. The funny part is that French isn’t only difficult for newcomers. Throughout my life I’ve seen a lot of natives speakers who were struggling with writing, or were making grammatical mistakes as they were speaking.
Although learning French was a painful experience for me, I was able to overcome the obstacles one by one and at one point became fluent. Despite the fact that my first years as an elementary school student were a bit traumatic with regards to learning the basics of writing, the advantage was that at an early age I was able to speak two completely different languages at a native level with local native accents. In addition, and this is maybe the most important skill I got out of those initial school years; my brain was now formatted to learn more languages in the future.
During my childhood and teenage years, I always associated reading and writing with school and as something painful. I would mostly read comics and the books that were mandatory to read for school work.
Learning How to Write in American English
In 1999 I moved to the United States. Once again I had to learn a new language. This time around, although it wasn’t necessarily easy either, I was extremely motivated and I was truly enjoying learning American English. All my professors at the language school I was attending during my first months in the country, and later on in college were extremely supportive. It is in the United States that for the first time in my life, I started to see school and writing as something fun. I really enjoyed my college years and writing papers for class. Despite the fact that I liked it, it wasn’t a passion for me. Since I’ve spent about six years in college that gave me a plenty opportunity to write.
My First Journal
Beside the papers I was writing for school, from 2005 to 2011 I kept an analogue journal in Turkish. I had chosen Turkish over American English or French, so that if I ended up losing my journal the person finding it could not understand what I was writing about. (At that moment in time Google Translate wasn’t around). I did actually lose two of those journals. I think I left them in the trunk of my car when I sold it. If those journals still exist today, they are probably somewhere in Tijuana, because I learned later on that this is were my sold car ended up. By keeping a journal this was the first time I used writing as therapeutic tool. Back then it helped me a lot to go through hard times. I was using drawing sketchbooks with heavy, higher quality paper, and a Uniball Vision pen with blue ink. In my hand writing I only use capital unattached letters. With all these components put together, the journal had a certain aesthetic. I personally think that the Turkish alphabet has its own beauty and in my view contributed positively to the visual aspect of my analogue journal.
Learning How to Write in Spanish
Living in San Diego also gave me the opportunity to learn Spanish at one point. As with the American English language I was extremely motivated to learn it. Living in a place that was once Mexican territory, made me feel almost obliged to learn Spanish. While I was a student at San Diego City College, I had the opportunity to enroll in Spanish Classes. Later on, I’ve met a person named Caro who had her own private school for conversational Spanish named Pura Buena Onda. I ended up taking a bunch of classes with her. Her concept to make students become more fluent Spanish speakers was extremely efficient, innovative, and fun. In 2009 I was able use Spanish for my work. This gave me the opportunity to use what I had so far learned in a school setting in a real life situation.
Customer Service as a Writing Playground
Once I moved back to Switzerland in 2011, I started to work for a software company specialized in language learning. My first title was Customer Service Manager. The reality of the job was more oriented towards technical support with a lot of written communication through ticketing systems. Although the job was technical in nature, it turned out to be a great opportunity for me to write in all the languages I could communicate in. Back then, I did not perceived it as an opportunity for writing, but during the five years I stayed at the company, I had many opportunities to write, and not only for technical support. I was able to redact reports, put together technical and non technical documents, and of course as of many white collar workers, I was constantly communicating in writing through e-mail and IM.
Moving to South America, Writing Becoming a Substitute for the Lack of Musical Creative Outlet
In early 2017 I moved to Argentina. From the very early 90s to 2017 music had been my main creative outlet in life. I had brought my bass guitar with me to South America, but for the first six months I wasn’t able to figure out how to record and produce rock music that would actually sound like a full band on the go, in a nomadic lifestyle context. After a while, I started to get really frustrated not being able to make music and release digital albums. This is when I started keep a journal. I actually started to keep three journals. One being my personal one that no one besides me should read, the number two is the For A Better Monday journal, and the last one is the Black Sea Storm journal which is about my rock n roll journey. Writing started to act as a substitute for my need to make music.
I had moved to Argentina because I wasn’t very happy with my life in Switzerland. Although being in a more relaxed and sunny environment, initially lifted up my mood, I was soon confronted with new problems. Starting to write and keep three separate journals allowed me to see my life from three different angles. As soon I got into the ritual like routine of writing everyday, my life started to get back on track. I was able to get rid of the distracting mental noise inside my head, and was able to focus on things that truly mattered to me and come up with strategies to move forward with my life.
Going Public with My Writing
I later on decided to put some of my writing online. This is when I decided to launch the For A Better Monday blog and turn the already existing Black Sea Storm website into a blog. All of a sudden my attempt for a healthier living, and musical projects as experiences could be shared with others. This is when I started to realize how powerful writing could be even for someone like me who doesn’t consider himself a writer. By sharing my experience on those two projects in my own words, I was able make the adventure aspect of the projects come out. All of a sudden the projects that matter to me the most in life were able to exist in a different form and in a way become more legitimate adventures. Now I am in a place where both adventures are feeding my writing, and me writing about the adventures motivates me even more to pursue For A Better Monday and Black Sea Storm projects.
How am I able to write on a regular basis.
I started to keep my more recent personal journals around April 2017, but it’s in August 2017 that I decided to be more dedicated towards writing, and split my daily writing into three separate journals. Since August 2017 I have managed to write something pretty much everyday. I usually do my morning Yoga in the morning, and soon after I start writing. It is crucial for me to not go online while I am writing, except for research purposes. The most important rule that I impose to myself is not check my e-mail until I have done at least two things that are really important to me. Those two activities are usually writing and making music. The amount of time I will allow for both activities will depend on what I have to do on that day for actual work. On days when I don’t have commitments, I can go all day writing and producing music. Those are my favorite types of days. Each time I can score a day like this, I feel privileged and a blessed.
Since I’ve turned writing into a habit in August 2017, I was able to produce over 200,000 words all journals combined as of March 2018. For everything that is published on my blogs, besides writing I’ve been spending time editing as well. (As a note: editing my writing takes way more time than the initial writing process to get the ideas out of my head). If we consider that American English is my third learned language, and that I don’t consider myself being a writer at this point of my life, the result is pretty impressive to me. What impresses me the most, is that I am able to produce all this writing effortlessly. This is because it does me good the same way breathing air or eating food do. It does not feel like work, and since my well being benefits from it, I go back to writing everyday naturally. I am mostly writing about my own experiences with those two different projects that I am strongly passionate about. This means that as long as I keep moving with the actual projects there’s always something worth to be written about. In that sense I don’t need ideas, or to get inspired. Life creates and I write.
The Positive Side Effects of Writing in American English
I would also like to mention that using the American English language for writing has an uplifting effect on my morale. I have three hypothesizes on why this may be happening.
- The decade I’ve spent in the US was just fabulous, and everything that makes me think of this period of my life puts me in a good mood.
- Since I am not a native American English speaker, writing in my third learned language is somehow more stimulating for my brain than writing in French or Turkish.
- The American English language has more uplifting frequencies. When I have the opportunity to speak in English for a long period of time, I can feel my muscles under my cheekbones getting tired after a while. As if speaking this beautiful languages forces me to smile in order to be able to produce the sounds that make up the language.
All this to say that writing in a language other than our native one can have some added value to the routine of writing everyday. I am not sure how writing as a starting point for change can work for you. I think that each person embracing writing as a seed for change (starting point) would need to adapt it in way that makes the most sense to her reality and supports the main motivation in her life.
Keeping a Journal
If you decide to go on an adventure like For A Better Monday, I would strongly recommend to keep a journal dedicated to this adventure. Not only you’ll get all the benefits I’ve mentioned in the above lines, but you will also be able to keep track of your progress in your journey towards a healthier life. Regularly I go back and read my previous journal entries, and very often it sheds light on where I should to go next. Since I usually describe my current diet, activities, and how I feel, reading the journal entries later on, helps me to see the trajectory my progress is taking, what is working, and what is not working. In that regard, a journal about the journey for change is probably one of the most important tools one can rely on.
My First Conclusion For Now
Writing on a regular basis is something relatively new for me. The reason why I see it as a starting point for change is because it has been supporting my personal transformation in great ways. I also think that if I was able to get into the habit of writing regularly and publish my writing online, anyone else could also easily do it. At the end of the day what matters to me the most is not if the writing is good or not good, but rather the benefits I get from it for my health and well-being. Going through the process of writing editing and self-publishing makes me feel amazing.
My Second Conclusion For Now
If you had read my other starting point posts, you’ve probably have noticed that this one on writing is mostly about my personal background with regards to writing. The reason why I wanted to share my personal experience in that area in great detail with you, is to show that there was nothing about me that predestined me to write. Somehow at one point in my life, I was able to turn writing into a daily habit. I believe that this habit of writing everyday affects different areas of my life in a very positive way. This is why I believe that any of us can write on a regular basis, and get tremendous benefits from it. I encourage you to write everyday.
I AM NOT A HEALTH PROFESSIONAL. I would like to make it very clear that I am only sharing my own experience on this website, and have no intention to give any specific advice on health. Please read the disclaimer section for more information.
