What is this? A second post in a week?!
My first three entries into this so called “blog” arrived at a pace of one per year, and each time I truly believed I had cracked the code—that this would be the moment I magically leveled into a consistent writer. Of course, that never happened, but the desire to try again never went away. In fact, I’ve been returning to writing for far longer than these posts give me credit for.
So why do I keep returning, even after repeatedly proving how difficult consistency is for me?
Thinking about that question, I remembered a class I took in middle school—my 7th grade Spanish class. Shout out to Ms. Santiago and La Libre, my school in Puerto Rico. In that class, we had an assignment where we had to create a book: a short story, poems, or any original written work we wanted. The point of the assignment wasn’t just writing, but understanding the publishing and editorial process by writing an author bio, thinking about the role of a publishing house, designing a cover, and more.
I had completely forgotten about the assignment until two weeks before it was due. My cousin, who was in the same class and had the same assignment, reminded me by casually asking how it was going. I immediately felt panic. We had been given two months to work on it, and I hadn’t done anything. Now I had to cram everything into two weeks. I worked hard, got a lot of help from my mom and her best friend, and somehow managed to turn something in.
Of course, I had to title it, “Two weeks ago, when I remembered this assignment was due, an author was born!” I was trying to be funny, to make light of a stressful situation, but I didn’t realize then how true that would turn out to be. I learned so much in that class. No, I don’t remember a single thing about anything we read, but it’s the class that made me fall in love with reading and writing. Without it, I don’t think I would’ve ever felt the desire to pick up a book or write anything beyond school work—or at the very least, it would’ve taken me much longer to find my way there.
So if I love writing so much, why don’t I do it more often? And what is consistency, anyway? What makes someone a writer?
I’ve been beating myself over these questions for years. Ever since that assignment, I’ve thought of myself as a writer—but can a clock that doesn’t work still claim to tell the time? It might look like a clock, but it doesn’t behave like one. Is being a clock an identity or a function? And can I really be a writer with long stretches of zero writing?
I once had dreams of writing novels, children’s books, poetry, and I believed that these were the things—producing finished work, publishing consistently—that truly made someone a writer. Writing was a function, a kind of factory line: churn out words, then churn out more. Over time, I had to accept that I couldn’t fit the version of a writer I had invented for myself. I couldn’t write as consistently as I wanted to, and I started to wonder if maybe I wasn’t a writer after all.
But still I keep returning. I keep creating. Whether it’s music, literature, or photography, I’m drawn back to the act of expression. Music lets me reach feelings that language can’t touch. Photography opens a portal to moments in time that words would only blur. Writing sits between the abstract and the concrete, forcing me to slow down, to organize, to make sense of ideas I don’t fully understand yet.
After this realization, the question quickly shifted from “Am I consistent enough to be a writer?” and became “Why do I keep coming back?” And that question was much easier to answer because the answer was quite simple: writers write—but more importantly, they return to writing. Even after long gaps. Even without an audience. Even without proof that it will stick this time.
A broken clock may not keep perfect time, but it’s still the first place you check.
It’s taken me a long time to get to this point, and I still might not write as consistently as I’d like. But that’s exactly why I keep returning. Because at the heart of it all, I love writing. Because this is who I am and this is what I do.
I am a writer.
