Notes on writing 

When I first discovered the love affair between imagination and words, tucked in the yellowing pages of a library book I borrowed as a child, I knew I wanted to wield its power.

“If you want to write,” I remember my teacher saying, “then one day you could become a writer.”

For something so simple, so painfully obvious to state, that was plenty enough to set my soul on fire. I simply must desire, mustn’t I, and the rest will follow? Write I did. I scribbled new words in the corners of my mathematics notebooks, wrote lines I thought to be groundbreaking, and filled my writing pad papers with the “novel” I would “publish” growing up. It was about young adventurers, I recall, off to wander and enjoy their little lives.

The label “writer” consumed my entire formative years. It bled into my teenage life, where my scribbling turned into journaling, and my journaling turned into actual campus journalism. I ventured into poetry. Stories. Essays. Scripts. Editorials. Until words came flowing naturally from my head to my chosen writing instrument.

And so, I became a writer—a label that took years to craft, transform, and earn.

Often, people assume that writing simply means knowing the right words to string. When to use hifalutin words to decorate sentences and make it seem like you know more than what you’re saying. Being witty, funny, and relatable. Writing long paragraphs that make you catch your breath as if you’re learning to hold your breath underwater far longer than your current capacity. Or short sentences.

Quite frankly, knowing the when, how, and why of writing—and learning how to brandish it—can indeed make one’s writing good. Technical competence helps you weave and sew your arguments and ideas into intricate pictures that depict just about anything you set your heart’s desire to. But to truly write, you need to be able to learn how to dig deeper.

There’s one lesson that has been ingrained in my skin it’s now part of my DNA, like pencil lead embedding itself into your skin’s surface, forever there. Being a writer means learning to get down and dirty. Eventually, the mystique wears off. The attractiveness and prestige that comes with the craft sloughs, and you come face-to-face with writing’s true form—commitment, which sometimes borders on repulsion. In these moments, you realize that your outputs aren’t a badge of honor or praise.

Writing entails a commitment to telling the truth, guided by the same principles that have guided humanity throughout its evolution. The longer you commit, the harder it becomes. The more it demands. With something so delicately deliberate, you also realize that writing entails coveting stewardship. You’re granted the ability to turn circumstances into words many starve to see, although they may not know it.

Anne Frank, only 15, found purchase in writing while in hiding. She told the story of World War II through innocent eyes, trapped in an attic with only a bookcase and vows of silence keeping them alive. Her diary’s yellowing pages become indispensable pieces of history, etched as evidence of harrowing human tendencies. But her words also reflected hope and dreams and the promises of tomorrow, as Anne wanted to be a journalist. Writing meant more to her than we’ll ever know.

I suppose that’s also why the brave Gazan journalists, with more advanced tools like mobile phones and cameras, chose to stay behind in lines and flashes of detonation and rubbles of death. They needed to record the truth. And we see it in the images and footage they share, in the captions and stories they publish. In this truth, we see history repeating itself.

I suppose that’s what makes writing something akin to a revolution. You hold the key to humanity’s survival, no matter how seemingly insignificant the detail you hope to capture. Whatever your words permeate permits life to remain.

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I remain a writer today. I feel it in every fiber of my being. It forces me to be vulnerable. It forces me to see the world in varying hues, even in colors that probably don’t exist yet. It forces me to think. To think like a predator. To think like a prey. It leads me to venture into unfortunate truths that many face but will not talk about. It exposes me to the ugliest but allows me the bravery to move forward with my head high.

And after dancing with fires, tempests, and other calamities, you give back. You return the favor by finding the words to make sure everyone else knows. That they understand. And that, the most powerful of it all, they act with purpose.

In its essence, writing flows and follows. It reflects collective realities, convictions, and memories. And that is how I know: to write is to make immortal.

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Nicole Tengco, 27, is a writer from Manila.