I’ve recently hit 200 followers and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for following me, liking my posts and leaving your feedback in the comment section. I can’t tell you how much it means to me and even if you gave me a solitary glance I still appreciate that.
Before I started this blog I was in a very dark place. I wanted to write, I wanted to be heard. I had gone through the traditional route of trying to build up a stream of published work. But for whatever reason, I’ve had very little success in doing so and after a certain point, the rejections started building up. I got so frustrated that at a certain point I pretty much quit trying to submit my work elsewhere. I also, for a short time, gave up on my dream of ever being a writer. However, a couple of my close friends kept on encouraging me to keep on writing. They told me to write without thinking of being published. It was one of the best pieces of advice I have ever received. It freed me up to write for myself and unshackled me from the strictures of writing for a certain market or a genre. It sounds weird, I know, but I wanted to know who I am and what my voice is like.
Eventually, I wanted to see if I was actually any good. I knew that I didn’t want to keep sending my work off to other places hoping for someone to discover me. I wanted to build my own base. This drove me to make my own blog and stick it to anyone that ever said no. I have since then just wrote about being true to myself. Some of the work that I’ve posted here on this blog is rejected work, but I’ve admittedly made it truer to my original vision.
It was important to me, that I would be true to myself. I wanted to write without compromise. I wanted everyone to know that I was good enough to be read. Good enough to be heard.
That’s where all of you come in. Thank you for letting me speak and hearing my voice. I can’t honestly thank you enough for being here. Moving forward I’m going to try to post material more often and staying true to myself and you.
Cheers,
A.R. Minhas (2016)
