I recently received an invite on LinkedIn pulse to contribute to a post. I do have a dedicated space here, on Tumblr, for the same.

But I do want to write for readers, so I started conversing with a good friend of mine, just to see if we can both contribute to some meaningful blogs, on topics that we both share mutual interests of conflicts. My feelings with the process are narrated below.

Writing my first blog has been nerve-racking. Although it is a personal space, my intention with it is not to maintain a journal of life events, but to become a better writer.

When I started architecture school ten years ago, my thinking was tuned towards visual communication, drawing and sketching. The past two years of being in grad school, particularly urban planning, has been extremely challenging to say the least. My professors in graduate school were nothing but appalled at my writing style, much similar to those of my fellow architect/design colleagues.

We all learnt to derive our communication in an informal and abstract form, given that architecture and design is supposed to aid creating new designs out of abstract thoughts and radical ideas. When trying to explain a design, we would draw. Our primary mode of communication soon had to shift gears when we started taking land use policy and planning law classes.

The program trains you to be precise, analytical and factual and succinct with words, especially when writing reports. It has also swapped part of my creative juices to skills that could give me a job, so I am not complaining.

But I was informed on multiple occasions during the course, that my writing was abstract and I was lost. I did muster the guts to get directions and discuss honestly about this particular deficit, but today, having skimmed through reports from agencies at my workplace, I realize the importance and the gap between formal and informal writing techniques.

Please bear in mind, this is a disclaimer, one that can aid my readers about why I crave to write. I am here, to express my views and make sense out of informal and formal life, and all that is funny about it. Cheers!