Author: Ninagracia

Hello there. Just in case you’re wondering how I got here, well, that makes the two of us. I’ve been trying to figure it out myself too, but all I can think of is that my deepest desire to write and share my experiences with everyone is what brought me here. It was a childhood dream, and I am still chasing it. I indulge myself in daydreaming immensely. Who doesn’t? I feel better hopping into my fantasy world and be the person I wished I was and be in a place where nobody had been before. It sounds crazy, but that’s where I derived my intense feeling of wanting or wishing for something. Most of the time, they are all stored away in the corner of my mind. I wrote my first poem when I was fifteen which I submitted to our school competition. It took second place and was later published. It was hard to describe the feeling of seeing my name in print, and I believed this was what inspired me to keep on writing. I did not read a lot of books when I started. I just went ahead and wrote endlessly. My writing is always inspired by decades of experience as a woman, a wife, a mother, and a friend. After years of simultaneously studying and working, I got married and had two children. Since then, I did a lot of catching up with my writing. I’m older now, but I haven’t stopped chasing my dream. I wrote my first romance novel in 2008 but hesitated to let anybody read my book. It wasn’t good enough, I thought. I was quite embarrassed to tell anybody about it. I hid my manuscript at the bottom of my drawer for so many years. I love a good romance, but I also love watching action-packed mysteries. It keeps me at the edge of my seat. I experimented with various forms of writing such as poetry, short story, and novel. I love collecting inspirational and motivational quotations too. I even wrote my own quotes. Don’t worry, I will let you read some of them. My latest work is writing for young children. I completed this book and is now ready for everyone to read. I write under the name Ninagracia. I am also proud of my involvement with my community as a volunteer tutor. Remember the novel that I kept in the bottom of my drawer? I don’t know what got me to do it, but I finally took it out, dusted it, and I am now ready to put my heart and soul into this project. No other job will make me happy except becoming a published author, writing nothing but novels and see my debut romance novel out there ready for everyone to read.

The Struggles of Being a New Author (The First Time is Never Easy)

by Ninagracia, posted in In the Margins, Writing

Read! Read! Read! Sounds familiar? I went through this at the early stage of my writing journey. It is good advice, especially for an emerging author like me.

I dread long readings. It makes me tired, sleepy and hungry. If there were ways, I would skip the “reading part” and go on writing. I have a long list of excuses not to read, but at the end of the day, I still need to open some books to read and learn. It is not mandatory or a requirement to become an author, but it would surely help us to be a good one.

And so, I read. I burnt both sides of the candle, as the saying goes, reading from early morning till the sun comes up. The books on my bed almost became my pillows, and trust me; it does hurt, you know. I flipped through the pages of some of the books written by those great and famous authors and read one or two pages to find out what made them stand out from the others. By morning, I still couldn’t make up my mind how to begin my story. I have a good story to tell. It was all there in my head but putting words to paper was a real challenge. All I want was to write and express my thoughts and put my imaginations into play, and then see what happens next.

Read! Read! Read! It was not so entertaining to hear this at the back of your head. It is good advice, but I couldn’t figure out where it fits into my writing dilemma. So, I reread more books. Occasionally, I made some excuses not to read. I borrowed at the library all kinds of books and read them all. As I said before, those books are not as good as my old pillows.

One thing though, writing became easy afterwards. I was moving forward fast and non-stop. Five hundred words glided smoothly, then came a thousand words. My first page was starting to fill up, even though I cheated a little bit by making my margins wider and double the line spacing. Then finally, I wrote my first two thousand words. Hurray! I thought it was a great accomplishment. The only downside to this was, I noticed that I write like them, and I began to sound like them too.

I hit a roadblock. I want to achieve all those required of me to write and produce an outstanding story. I doubted myself again. So, I read. I immersed myself reading and learning a little bit here, a few more there, and everything in between. I fleshed out every word and sentences I came across in the book. I dissected the whole story, chapter by chapter as if I was looking for something. It was a challenging mental activity. What I found was “nothing”, only a great story all written with pure intention straight from the heart of the author. They were well researched, and everything stamped mark with the author’s writing style, tone and voice.

I figured out that those books I read should only serve me as guidelines and not a template. All the rest should come from me-my style of writing, tone and voice. I wouldn’t say that I have already perfected my craft, but the journey of learning new things is so rewarding. Of course, writing and reading more often is beneficial to our career. It sharpens our skills and imaginations. I am still learning, and I know that there are so much more I need to learn before I become a better author. I always peek through those books to guide me.

I believe that commitment and persistence would take me one day to where I want to be. When I started my journey, I have so many excuses not to do things. I doubted myself and my abilities that I can do anything. But, those books that I read, and those authors that I barely knew, gave me reasons to stay focus and “just keep on writing”.

What about you guys. What excuses have you made?

Why Do Writers Write

by Ninagracia, posted in In the Margins, Writing

The wait is over, and I am thrilled that my new website is finally here. Putting together a platform such as this is not an easy task. It may look simple, but there was so much time involved to come up to its completion. This site is my new address, and for the next coming weeks and months, I will welcome new friends and perhaps talk about our journey as an emerging writer. We could share our experiences, which could be helpful to other writers who might be going through the same struggles.

Why do we write? Some of us would probably shrug our shoulders as a quiet response to this question. It is not because we don’t have an answer to it, but merely we were caught off guard.  But the truth is, we all have something to say to one another. Whether it be an issue about a particular subject matter, or an event, a place, about an individual, even our personal experiences, prompt us to share it to everyone we know. Some people say it out loud, while others choose to write them down. No matter what it is about, we always have reasons why we write.

Regardless of what method of writing we use—a letter, poetry, an essay, or even a novel—some of us write to share information, while others write to educate us, to teach us, and others to tell stories. Whatever is behind our reason for writing, we are all storytellers in our way, and we write it in our method, style, and pacing.

To some people who don’t understand our passion, they say writing is not a job that will put food on the table, pay your mortgage, and your bills. We write to pass the time, according to them. It is a hobby to make ourselves useful instead of wasting our precious time. It’s not a job that makes you get up in the morning and work from nine to five. In other words, it is just a whim for a reason.

But for writers like us, it is not about the monetary rewards that we could gain from it. We are lucky if we get to that level in our career. It is not a money-making profession, especially for new authors. To us, it is merely our intense desire to write, to inspire our readers, and perhaps to pursue a dream.

The truth is, writing is a hard job, tedious, overwhelming and secluded. No matter what everybody says, it is something that is and will always be close to our hearts.

It is our way of communicating our intentions and expressing our feelings. It is our road map to reach other people from all four corners of the world. We tap into their imaginations, their deepest desire, and sometimes we strike tender emotional chords.

We are “Escape Artists”. We use our pen to whisk them away to where we want them to go. Our paper is their vehicle to take them to the other part of the world that only we have been before.

Our readers escape through our imaginations. They feel what we want them to explore, and they see what we saw. We planned and interfered with the events to make their adventure more exciting, reckless, and impulsive. Sometimes, we manipulate the landscape, even the weather. To make the journey more challenging, we choose the characters surrounding the events. We make them fall in love or despise each other. We allow our readers to live in awe. They laughed and cried with us, and they got outraged too.

Then, when we reached the “End”, with one flick of our fingers, we switch them back to the real world to let our readers know that their journey is over. We leave our readers amazed and sometimes captivated. And if we hear applause or a deep breath or a sigh, then, our job is done.

When we write, we leave an imprint to our readers the journey they took with us. It will forever reside in their memories how they connect to nature, when the cool breeze of the ocean touched their skin, the smell of the roses in the garden, and how deafening that thunder in the sky. Then, they would still hear our voice even after they put their book down.

I guess this is why I write.