I am painfully aware that my writing as a 16-year-old (about the time I first started daily blogging) was more effective and engaging than my writing today. All these years of research papers and journalism has tucked and trimmed my writing into a stoic stance.

Back in the day, with only intermediate creative writing lessons, my writing was not confined to any rules. It was just me, my observations and my writing. I took pride that my blog was not about every detail of what I did and in the words of a writer friend, I didn’t write what colour underwear I had on or how frequently I visited the bathroom. Instead, I wrote about the one thing I noticed while in the lingerie department and all the other things that mushroomed in my head like a brainstorming map. Sometimes the exposition would go so far off the lingerie department, but it was good. People were reading, commenting and coming back for more.

I drew flamers to my blog. And someone once said that you know you’re on top of your game when people are jealous of you.

I wasn’t affected by flamers. Not one bit. I thoroughly enjoyed writing and was so good at expounding upon every observation that I wasn’t really thinking about who was reading the blog.

And you know what, all those writing guides advising us to think about our readers when we write, they are wrong. At least when it comes to blogging and writing columns.

Write for myself first, because what I am interested in, there is going to be more than a handful of others interested in it. What I write today is something I want to be able to look back 10, 20, 30 years from now, and while my interest would have changed, to smile at what an interesting young lady I was, and have my grandchildren interested in the topics I could go on and on about.

A person’s personality can only shine through their writing when they are not trying too hard to fit into a mould of a writing guide, and I think this is what journalism takes away from a writer. I had a lot of fun writing columns and my heart received a good shining each time a reader would write to the editor telling him how my column touched his/her heart and is worth another read.

It is an amazing feeling to know that my little column, a tiny reflection of my life, is reaching out to someone across the world. And those columns made an impact, only because they were from the heart. Written for myself, readers are able to relate and feel like this could have been their column.

Truly, some of the greatest columns I have read gave me the feeling, “I had the exact same thoughts! Now if only I could have written it so beautifully and gotten it published before this columnist did!”

I’m struggling to refine and re-find the writing style I had, and I apologize if I have come across indifferent, because stoic is the last thing I am.