On a gem hunt in a sea of nonsense

I have been dragged to a “writing” platform by a colleague who recently uncovered one of my quirks: I write stuff. The platform also catered for another quirk: I read stuff. And boy were there stories to read on it.

Here’s an excerpt:

10 Things I Wish I knew Before Starting my Writing Journey
7 Habits That Will Make Your Writing Better
3 Writing Tricks for Viral Stories

That’s half of the stock. The other half is made of rants on Better-Writing-to-Make-Bucks stories and berating members who write on such topics.

A couple of days into the adventure had me convinced I would not be missing out on much if I left at that point. Then, I happened to come by an article which did not belong. An orphan whose parents were neither prophets of the New and Enlightened Writing Order nor reactionaries of the Ancient and Accepted Ritual of Writing.

It was a relatively short poem about the Tonga eruption. Words and rhymes in-between homage and praise, through sadness and hope. It was moving to say the least, and it sent me on a gem hunt, since gems seemed to exist on this platform after all. I would find many of them, written by wonderful people…

A poet who likes things that shine
An author who writes short random thoughts and stories
A retired long-haul trucker who exchanged his rig for pen, paper, and keyboard
A guy who writes to silence them voices in his head
An avid beekeeper

… As they would put it. And many more master gem cutters, too many to list in this story without it becoming a list.

So, dear lapidaries, if you happen to be reading this story and recognize yourselves, let me know if I can link back to your stories. I know you are not the safe and coffer types. Your colorful gems must be shared.

As for you dear reader, if I may, try to look for real gems in this sea of advice on squeezing bucks out of your creativity. Only the gems can feed our imagination and help us write better stories. Marketing fad cannot yield beauty, only promises of elusive followers and the quick buck. Or the lack thereof.

Let the board sound

Rabih

The original version of this story can be found here.