The Best and Worst of a Writer: Guest post by Cinta García de la Rosa

Cinta García de la Rosa goes by the Twitter handle @Austenite78. Her delightful blog, Cinta's Corner is a compendium of observations, reviews, guest posts and wonderfully absurdist stories.


I asked Cinta to swap blog posts; for her part, I asked her to continue my series "what are the best and the worst things you've ever done as a writer?"

My best and my worst—as a writer

Normally, I don't think of myself as a writer, or, at least, I didn't use to think of myself as a writer. So imagine my surprise when I logged into my Twitter account and found a message from Scott Bury, asking me if I wanted to swap blog posts with him. After a few minutes of staring at my laptop screen with my mouth wide open, I agreed to write for his blog about the best and the worst things I have done as a writer. As I said, I didn't think of myself as a writer before, but now I think differently.

Now, I say to myself every day that I am a writer. When your mind is crowded with words, ideas, plots, stories, and characters that fight to come out; when you feel the need to sit down and write at least a few lines whenever you find a little free time; when you feel completely happy after finishing a story, and utterly miserable when words don’t flow; when you feel all that, you are a writer.

So the best thing I have ever done as a writer is writing; it’s as simple as that. I am not a published author, and I haven't even written a whole book yet, but I feel happy when I write things for my blog and I see that people read them.

I write because I need to write. I write because it makes me happy. I write because my inner voice is far more eloquent than my spoken voice. I write because I can create little universes to make people feel better or just to make them feel. I know it sounds pretentious, and I know that not everybody will like my writing. But for those who choose to read some of my writing, I just want to do it as well as possible.

What about the worst thing I have ever done as a writer? Well, I think the worst thing has been not to be more confident about my writing. I have never received any encouragement to become a writer before, so I was convinced that I wasn't a good writer.

So it is fear. The worst thing you can do is to be afraid—afraid of failing, afraid of being laughed at, afraid of making a fool of yourself. I still feel that fear most of the time, but my readers, the people who read my blog, make me feel stronger every day.

When I got Scott's invitation to write about this topic I thought, “But, what am I going to say? I am not a professional or published writer. How can I know what is the best and the worst I have done as a writer?” Then I had a little chat with my talented friend Rob Guthrie, and suddenly I knew what I could talk about.

Definitely, even if you are not a published or professional writer, if you write... congratulations! You are a writer, and then it is for sure that you are doing both bad and good things for your writing.

Thanks, Scott, for inviting me to share these little thoughts with your readers. It was a great honour and I feel most humbled for having had this opportunity of writing in your blog.