Don’t surrender to negative thoughts ... give it your best shot

Imagine all the things you could achieve if you just started. It does not matter when. It does not matter where. What is important is that you do it.

It happened so randomly. I was at a seminar and was seated next to a young woman. We exchanged hellos and our business cards a few minutes later. She held my card for a while, before she looked up at me wide-eyed and asked if I was the same person as the columnist in The National. I smiled and said I was.

She gasped and said she had been reading my columns for a long time, adding that she could not believe she had finally met me so randomly. I was thrilled. It is always lovely to hear what people think about your work. She added that she too wanted to be a writer. I asked her why she did not become one. She replied that no one would publish her work.

When I started writing regularly in my teenage years, no newspaper or magazine would take my work, not because I was not good enough but because I did not try to get them published.

I wrote endlessly in my journals. The stacks of them on the upper shelf of my cupboard are a testimony to how I spent some of my summer days as a teenager. I then wrote on online forums and blogs. Anyone could write there. There were countless other youngsters like me who posted their literary work and daily reflections.

Soon I had a story in my mind that I wanted to share with the world. I posted a chapter every day on an online forum for three weeks, and when it was finished I went for a summer break with my family. When I came back, I visited the website and my story had been viewed by more than 20,000 readers. Years later, it has been viewed more than 100,000 times.

I was always a writer. While I did not write in a published magazine or a newspaper at the time, I still noted my thoughts. I started somewhere.

Then I went to college and wrote less and less. After graduating, I still had the writing itch and with more time on my hands I could finally write as much as I wanted.

I contacted magazines and asked if I could contribute my work. They asked for samples and I sent off my reflections. The editors loved my work and said I had the kind of voice they yearned to have in their pages. It was not long before I was published. I still remember holding my first published piece proudly in hand.

And then, someone new came into my life and read some of my published work in local magazines. He was an editor at The National and asked if I would be willing to contribute. I had two weeks to work on my first business feature. I submitted it nervously, but he said he loved it. I was thrilled and shocked to see that it was given half a page of space.

Thereafter, my mentor said that my work was professional-grade and that I should write a regular column, and charge a fee for it.

It was not long before my passion and hobby became a source of income.

I decided not to limit myself with geographical boundaries. I contributed to international magazines and online portals. I have been told that I would make a good scriptwriter and that I am a great storyteller, so I have decided to write my first novel.

Now, years later, looking back at what I have accomplished and the awards I have received for being an inspirational young person, I realise I have achieved all of this because I refused to limit myself to boundaries and refused to surrender to negative thoughts such as “No one will like my work,” or “I’m not good enough”.

I was not a writer, but I started writing. I was not a columnist, but I gave it a shot. I did not think that I could write a novel, but I am.

Imagine all the things that you could achieve if you just started. It does not matter when. It does not matter where. What is important is that you do it, and that you take that first step forward. It’s all downhill from there.

Manar Al Hinai is an award-winning Emirati writer based in Abu Dhabi. Follow her on Twitter: @manar_alhinai

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