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April 4th, 2020

My hands can’t stop shaking. It’s getting hard to even hold my phone and type right. With every tap on the touchscreen, my thumbs feel stiffer and stiffer… Is this the right choice? Should I just turn back, take another path? My heart aches, can I really take this?

I think back to why I am doing this. Is it for them? I remember how hard they fought. Their cries of fury, hate or passion echo through my mind, bringing back memories of many years ago. Each clash of swords and each word uttered resounds in my ears, as if the adventures we lived had come back to life…

My beating heart attempts to slow down its bewildering pace. But, is that the reason? Are they really the reason I’m here for? As much as I would love to, I can’t accept that and nobly say I’d take on the world for my characters. No, my reason to fight is… me?

Maybe that’s right. Yeah, that should be right. As I consider it, my cellphone wiggles between my hands. The metro’s lights, blinding as always, seem to chill even further its cold, busy atmosphere, sending shivers into my coat. Rubbing my arms for heat, I reconsider.

When all of this begun, did I really want to write? Oh, I would love to say yes. I would be such a natural-born genius if I did. But I never really wanted to write. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even like books. I wanted to be a robot scientist. Or a magician. It didn’t take much effort for my mom to convince the magic career was not for me…

But nothing could take me away from my goal of building a giant robot and taking over the galaxy. I had already seen robots out there. Yes, much smaller robots. Yes, much simpler robots. But I had the resolution to do it. I had the faith that I could do it. And nothing in the world could take my dream away from me.

Except the university’s fee.

March 16th, 2016

I still remember that instant. That gosh-darn painful instant. The instant where I realized that my dream would never become true. The day I threw away all of my ambitions, slammed the door at my future and… wrote about it.

I wrote a story about a boy who had tons of money and built robots. Weeks later, I watched a superhero show and wrote about a boy who had superpowers, and built robots with them. Months later, I studied for some important tests and wrote about a boy who used science to build robots.

Eventually… a wrote about a scientist. A man who did not build robots. He used his science to fight for justice, or to romance the women he liked, or to but the things he wanted. This was probably the moment in which I left my dream behind. Writing had become my heart’s window to the world: the only way for me to let out what I thought of the world, of what I had seen and felt and… what I had inside.

April 4th, 2020

My heart felt lighter. I could finally enter my name into the form. I hovered over the submission button, and gulped. I was still scared. I shook my head, turned off the screen and tried to cool myself off. But I couldn’t help being scared. After all, I was about to enter a whole new, cruel world…

I wouldn’t even be writing in my own language. My last name was living proof of this. I couldn’t help but shake, deep inside: what if they didn’t like my job? What if these thirty, forty, fifty minutes of my life all went to waste? What if all these clashing, whirling, bursting emotions were just tossed into the trash by some busy editor sitting down at a desk, claiming my story was not enough! Could I take that? Could I take such a blow? Being so young, so dumb, so innocent, could I take the blow?

I was about to break down when it hit me, and it hit me heard: the reason for which I had come so far. Venting my inner feelings wouldn’t matter when it came to prompted stories like the ones I’d be writing from now on. I wouldn’t be writing for the same characters either. The heroes and heroines I made would have to wait some more, until I was famous enough to bring them into white pages, and someday, get them to shine under my name in the biggest screens!

Ever since I came into this country, a myriad of doors opened for me. I always knew it, what was I wondering about? All I wanted was to put all those hours I spent writing stories to the service of my mother, my father, and me!

So I’m not turning back. I’m pressing every button, filling every form and sending every story I can think of. I’m not giving up. This will be my very first competition, the first story I’ll ever send into a contest, with the hope of helping my parents who gave me all I have! For our future! For fame, glory, money, I will give my everything!

I immediately chose a prompt from the website I had found. One about people doing something for the first time… Perfect! Ha, I just had to look back a few seconds and my story would have written itself for me. I mashed the keyboard like a maniac, checked out the text once or twice, and pushed down that SUBMIT button with all my might!

“Your submission has been sent” I was so, so happy. Even if I failed this first time, I wouldn’t give up. I would try again, and again, and again, never giving up! I stood up and began dancing in the metro’s steel floors, got photographed by a kid, laughed upon by some and looked strangely by the rest and… sat down, blushing in embarrassment, but smiling like I never had before.

April 04, 2020 23:37

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RBE | We made a writing app for you (photo) | 2023-02

We made a writing app for you

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