STORYTELLING IS AN unrelenting pursuit. Faced with looming deadlines and stories demanding to be told, one often feels compelled to write—even when the words seem elusive.
Lately, sleepless nights have become the norm. I often find myself staying up until 2:00 in the morning, working on an article that has been sitting in my drafts for weeks. While I am partly to blame for setting aside these commitments, balancing them alongside academic priorities is an entirely different challenge.
“We write, not because we want to, but because the truth compels us to speak.”
To make matters worse, I am not a night owl. I neither experience bursts of energy nor find enough inspiration to write instantaneously and continuously during these hours. Yet, despite these misgivings, there persists the compulsion to write with every fiber of my being.
As campus journalists, we are taught early on the importance of crafting timely stories, a sort of responsibility we willingly signed up for after reading the figurative primers. Accordingly, there lies the stern commitment to crafting something out of nothing in the shortest period of time to catch up to the publication date.
One might say it’s mentally tasking—excruciatingly frustrating even—to which I reply, “true.” For all the physical exertion we must put up through everyday presswork, writing without the necessary drive to do so leaves us scrambling to find our next “Eureka!” moment.
Regardless, it’s not entirely in vain. After many failed attempts at making coherent paragraphs, endless revisions, and battling through writer’s block, there is that sense of fulfillment in seeing our stories make the cut.
Still, it doesn’t make it any easier. There are times where I question why I even bother doing all of this in the first place, why I stay up late sacrificing my sleep just to meet deadlines. After all, it’s not exactly the dream job of many to be cuddled up in their workplace, desperately trying to find the right words to describe what happened and why it happened.
But then, I am reminded that stories do not wait for themselves. They are there for us to amplify, much like how the voice of the afflicted deserves to be echoed in the face of injustices.
After all, at the core of journalism is the obsession with finding the truth, a burden we will carry forward even when the circumstances prevent us from doing so. We write, not because we want to, but because the truth compels us to speak.
It comes at the expense of our own undoing, but there is no greater calling than carrying the weight of the narratives that shape our society.
Hence, we move forward. Write, rewrite, and let us sink ourselves into this endless, monotonous cycle until failure. Because for every sleepless night and fleeting moments of despair, the next big story is out there, desperately waiting to be discovered.
Email me at thebedan_associateeditor@sanbeda.edu.ph