An Origin Story

"The Wings of My Words."

The name is old, from a previous writing blog I'd started in 2013 and maintained (inconsistently) through 2018.  The familiar title kept rolling around in my head for a couple days prior to launching this blog.

I'd been on a writing hiatus since 2018 to finish up my college degree and establish my career.  But ultimately, the ghoulish events of 2020 spurred me back into my cathartic addiction.  And naturally, not long after I started capturing my ideas again, I wanted to start sharing my ideas again.

"There's a need for this!"

I think most artists have shared that thought at some point, if they're not straight-up told it.

Truthfully, though, I'm a bit scared.

Who cares about me?  I'm the middle of four kids.  I'm Asian.  I'm female.  So I get lost in the pack.  In this world of instant and bite-sized information, who will even bother to keep up with some nondescript writing blog?  Every artist has self-doubt, but some are better equipped to overcome it.  If I don't say it, someone else will.

"I'll keep this to myself."

But the deal is that I get itchy.  I'm the most impatient person I know.  And I'm unbearably sincere.  At this point in my life, I've learned to embrace that as a strength, even if I still wince that the best I can do is ask permission before I blast people with my roaring opinion.

"Just write."

I've frequently been given that advice from experienced authors.  The funny thing to me is that I'm not sure I could ever stop writing.  Even in busy seasons, I jot down little strings of words on the corners of agendas.  During bathroom breaks between back-to-back meetings, I'll type up quick notes on my phone so I don't lose them.  At the worst of times, I write in my head before falling asleep, storing the ideas in a loose, wrinkly dream-form for later.

I just love how fluid and forgiving writing is.  You can delete and edit and delete and edit and add to and move sections around in it until you've got everything clear and persuasive.  Despite being a pugnacious little brat, I struggle with stammering and shaking.  My blood rushes in my ears in the moments when I try to share out-loud something that's close to my heart and full of my own life-force.  Basically, writing has a higher win-rate for me than speaking does.

So I'll stick with writing.

But when I thought about this blog, what connects the dots between everything I write?  I mean, good night - I write all sorts of things.  Hand-drawn poems with little flowers in notebooks, long-winded orations on the back of sticky notes...  I've written extensive fantasy stories, short children's books, questionable adult thrillers, and I've probably at least tried my hand at everything in between.  I write love letters to my husband in his lunchbox every day.  I write a journal like I'm still in middle school.  I write blogs for my day job now too.

I just kept thinking that everything I write, I write it because I can't say it.  Because it's too sincere, because it's going to make too much of a ruckus.  Because if I tried to say it out-loud, I would trip over my words again since my passion so easily strangles my throat.  What I write is always kind of... scandalous.

I like clever.  I like quirky.  I like putting things in a way that makes you smile.  But I like the wittiness covering up the war.  I want my readers to smile and then to change.  To think.  To opt into ingesting a perspective that they might not have taken, had it come from someone's lips.  I like riveting material that compels.

I pray to God that the values I represent here are always driven by Christ's glory.  I pray that my flight, though erratic, is evoked by His truth, rather than by human-centered and evanescent influences.  By His grace, this blog will be for Him completely.

And yet as I'm certainly no pastor, you must unfortunately expect to read primarily about the ongoings of fictional humans here.  (Pure theology, while likely to be present to some degree thematically in my writing, fails acutely in the "clever" and "quirky" categories which I demand.  I know; this is very disappointing.  I'm sure each and every one of you absolutely cannot get enough of dry biblical commentaries.  Alas, the strange and iniquitous things that people do and have done will have to suffice.  Second-rate snippets of dialogue.  Twisted plots and expansive worlds: a true let-down.  I apologize sincerely and hope you're good at picking up on sarcasm.)

Historically, I would say that my writing has been a source of exposure.  Like a tabloid that turns out to be true, but for all of humanity.

For this blog, I chose to go by the pen name Clove.  If you know me personally, I'm not at all trying to hide my real name.  I just want search engines to keep my writing hobby and day job separate.  (I'm sure you can imagine the awkwardness of Googling "Clark Kent" and getting results for "Superman", if I may be so bold as to compare myself to the Man of Steel.  ;))  So the pen name Clove is my workaround.

Lastly, as a goal-driven maniac, I would be remiss to not mention that I do hope, secondarily to the above, to reach a greater and greater audience with my writing.  If you find anything on this blog to be helpful or provoking, the greatest honor I could receive is a share or a mention.

Even for your time reading this page, thank you so much!  Despite these grandiose aspirations of mine, I believe I'll always remember that I started out as a little kid, just writing to make sense of her confusing and ginormous world.  Your presence here, in light of that, is precious to me.

As always, I hope to see you again soon!