I Opened a New Page for Myself

Delving deeper into topics that I am interested in, doing readings, and taking courses nourishes me and makes me very happy.

Starting to Creative Writing Workshop was a surprising step even for me, who have almost enjoys education as a hobby, because my relationship with writing did not go beyond writing messages and emails.

My Expectations and The Reality

Encouraged by a friend of mine, who writes wonderful stories, my expectation on this journey was to build a foundation for the courses I plan to arrange and to develop a different perspective while evaluating educational content, rather than solely writing. Listening to esteemed figures like the late Mario Levi, Uğur Batı, Osman Balcıgil, and İnci Aral, who would be teaching us during the workshop, was going to be an enjoyable experience for me.

The training process was truly enjoyable and exceeded my expectations. Listening to our valuable instructors’ book and film analyses, making connections with myths and symbols, and gaining a completely different perspective on what I read and watched, opened a new path for me. It felt like entering to a different world. Sometimes, what I heard seemed to hang in the air without resonating with me. Other times, I was amazed at how superficially I had been seeing things; the new perspectives I discovered were incredibly exciting. The small writing assignments given throughout the training were quite challenging for me. While other participants wrote stories of three to five paragraphs in a given short time, I couldn’t get past a single paragraph. Noticing my progress in our sixteen-week course made me very happy, and more importantly, I started to enjoy writing.

Owning a Chapter in a Book

Towards the end of the course, our group was given a theme, and all participants were asked to write a story related to the theme. As the output of the training we received, a book containing our stories would be published. I tried to ease the pressure of writing a story worthy of being in the same book with such experienced and talented people by remembering Voltaire's saying, “Perfect is the enemy of good” and decided to give myself a chance. I am very happy that I showed this courage.

The preparation phase of our group's book, "Saçın Yüzüne Değse" (“If Your Hair Touches Your Face”) published by Destek Publishing, was a unique pleasure. Witnessing the creation of work, from choosing the book's name to designing the cover, from the launch event to displaying it in bookstores, was an unforgettable experience. It was filled with the same enthusiasm and excitement as a group of people whose hearts I saw through small story exercises for over four months. This experience was made possible by the support and guidance of our instructors in all processes.

The cover of our creative writing group's book which I mentioned above, published by Destek Publishing, “Saçın Yüzüne Değse”:

New Beginnings and Thrills

Our book, which has multiple writers, was not an end but a new beginning for me. Nowadays, I have started a different writing workshop. Writing is a process that brings a person closer to oneself, to one’s emotions, and to others. To write, one must first understand and connect. Since people can connect through what they see and experience, you set out to find familiarity within your topic from your own life. Therefore, writing is a bit like transcribing your experiences. While rewriting, you see what you haven’t seen before, notice misunderstandings, question concepts, and catch other meanings. From this point, a profound comprehension and empathy towards both you and others emerge.

I hope the journey I've shared sincerely inspires all my friends, igniting even a small spark of writing enthusiasm within you. Grab a pen for yourself and begin!

Çiğdem Bildircin

I have been in Borusan long enough it to be traced in my DNA. So far, I've worked in many different positions and received different titles, but the title I am most proud to had, was the one I got in Ostim: "Çiğdem Usta". (Usta is a Turkish word that we call people who have enough technical experience in field.)

If I was given a chance to make an addition to Orhan Hançerlioğlu's sentence "Learning is my happiness", it would be "Sharing what I have learned and being in contact with people".

I am a mother and a continuous student…