Culturally Preconditioned

Taking a six month hiatus from my regular computing job last year was truly a blessing in disguise. If I didn’t have the courage to leave my job when I realised there was not an iota of inspiration and satisfaction, I probably never would’ve seen my name in writing. Well, actually that is a blatant lie cause I already have had my name published in writing prior to my short stint with the publication company as an editorial executive.

I have always loved writing. It may sound cliched but it’s true. When I was in Darjah Satu and Miss Mynah, my class teacher, was filling in the “Cita-Cita” fields in our individual forms. Mine was clearly stated : 3.Guru 2.Saintis 1.Penulis. I was in Standard One, mind you, and it’s a known fact that kids say all kinds of crap, so nobody was really surprised by that list.

I won my first essay writing competition in Standard Five. I wrote about “Kisah Telaga Tujuh”, something I vaguely remember now, except that I think I mentioned something about fairy princesses “mandi berkemban” or something to that extent. LMAO. What a perv. Anyway, I got second place, and that really boosted my confidence in writing.

The next ‘big break’ come in Form Five when my friend Rina and I were called out by a teacher during one of those dreaded morning assemblies. That’s not usually a good thing, but it was. It appeared that our articles that we sent in to The Star were published. My name in print! That was one of the best moments ever, to see my own name in print. It was printed in one of the BrATs! sections (the BrATs! were fairly new that time and they didn’t have any workshops then like they do now). My article was about life in a boarding school.

My story also included some urban legends like langsuirs and pontianaks roaming around the school, and how every night we became ghostbusters - only to be chased by THE head langsuir itself. Messy hair, red eyes, foul breath and all, we sped off in different directions as our warden yelled at us telling us to stay in bed. And believe it or not, I actually received one ‘fan mail’ from a student in Perak who had some good comments on my article. Oh my. Kembang bontot sekejap.

In the same year, myself, Rina and Shahrizal wrote a script for an inter-class scriptwriting competition, and we won first place. That was really good feeling too. The drama was entitled “Memoirs of an Old Silhouette”unds profound, right? As if. I still don’t know how we got away with such an out there title when all the script was about was of an old lady in an elderly home reminiscing her younger times. Since we were in Form Five, the script was given to the students in Form Four to act out in the Regional Drama Competition. Our school won first place for the drama, but we lost out to MRSM Kuantan for best script (”Search For The Lost Spirit”). But I felt good all the same.

I had a short stint in the editorial team in our yearbook when I was doing my International Baccalaureate, but the yearbook never surfaced because of financial reasons. Which is just too pathetic.

Fast forward to my university days. I didn’t think I did much writing back then, but I had a poem (”Threads of Derangement”) in the British anthology “Expressions of the Heart”. Anyway, initially I just sent it in as an entry to a competition, but the publisher compiled everything in the anthology and sent us a free copy. Even though there’s no royalties, seeing my name in print, in an actual bounded volume, is so much better. And on top of that, I didn’t even have to purchase the damn thing.

Then real life greeted me. I was stuck in a dead end computing job. It has its own kicks, of course, but somehow I was itching to write again. At around this time, I discovered themestream.com - a site for writers and authors to post their articles online - and you can actually earn cash from there. I realised then that that was a place where I can write stuff and get immediate feedback from readers. I wrote about the current affairs.. in other words, I did Survivor commentaries. LOL.

At that time Survivor: Outback was showing on television. My favourite (and most read) article was called “Will The Real Outback Villain Please Stand Up”. No, the article wasn;t about Jerri. It was about Tina. I published that article some time around the merge episode, and I had pegged right there and then, that Tina was going to be the winner. The feedback that I received was awesome. I received more than a thousand unique readers. Unfortunately, because of the dot com crash, themestream closed it’s door soon after the Survivor: Outback season ended.

Then in 2002, The Star’s InTech published an article about blogging. Curious me just had to log on to cyberspace and find out what the hype was all about (check out my very first blog entry in the archive!). I thought this would be an incredible way for people to write, write, write! (I can’t remember why I stopped soon after, but my blogging resurgance came right around Malaysian Idol was about to start)

Last year, I was demotivated and feeling down in the dumps, work wise, so I took a break from my regular computing job. I didn’t have a proper job at that time, so I wondered if that was the right time for me to start fresh. Start doing something that I would really honestly enjoy. At that time, I was open to anything. The hotel industry, a food catering business, the tourism board maybe. My options were limitless. But one day, I got a call from the magazine.

I later got the job as an editorial executive with the magazine. I was surprised that I even got that job because I have no formal experience in that field at all. So I had to attend movie press conferences, previews, screenings and launches (those are four different things), and something getting all papparazzi-like taking pictures of Yusry and Era (Yuck. The things I do for work). But the best thing was.. no, not getting free movie tickets, popcorns and drinks.. but the best thing was, I was finally doing something I really love - which was writing. You’re getting paid for something that you like to do? It’s a dream job. They say you stop working when you love your work, and it’s true! The brainstorming, the themes, the magazine deadlines. I love it!

But there was a disadvantage. The salary is not as much as that of my previous computing job. And let’s face it - I already have liabilities. Car installments, house rentals, credit cards. Those damn credit cards. It’s a dream job, except for the pay. I had to make one of the hardest decisions ever. I had to leave the editorial work and go back to my roots. But miraculously, the editors were willing to engage me as a freelancer for the magazine. Joy to the world! All is not lost after all! So I have been doing some freelance work for them ever since. And I had a total of seven cover articles for the past year, not bad eh?

At the same time, I have also had a short story “The Unlikely Angel” published in the North American compilation called “Angel In Disguise”. If you have an Amazon.com account, you can actually read my published story from Amazon.com (search in book : “Kuala Lumpur”.. my story starts from page 142 to page 149). I got to know Barb, the editor from an online forum and she has been a great tutor and confidant for the past year. She has been MY writing angel, and now, it’s my turn to give her a challenge.

I just sent her an email asking her if she was up for the NaNoWriMo challange. What’s NaNoWriMo? It’s actually short for the National Novel Writing Month. The objective of NaNoWriMo is to write at least 50,000 words in 30 days. What do you get if you pass the challenge? Nothing except self satisfaction - and if you are a writer, you know that is the best reward that anyone can possibly offer. Some may think that this is sadistic, to put yourself through hell for the next 30 days.. I mean, what the fuck, right? Well, to quote them, “NaNoWriMo is all about the magical power of deadlines. Give someone a goal and a goal-minded community and miracles are bound to happen.” The power of deadlines. I have always succumbed to procrastination - my biggest enemy, and I believe that is my greatest weakness. Besides, they are targetting 40,000 participants this year, and if this really will be hell, well.. misery loves company, right? I’m seting up another blog for my ‘novel in progress’ - Daud In Distress. Good title, no? Anyway, are you game for this challenge too? Let the author in you come alive!

Daud In Distress - coming to a blog near you. November 1st 2004

ps. win or lose the challenge, it’ll at least get you started on the novel that you know you have it in you. By the way, less than 500 people finished the challenge out of the 20,000 participants last year, so don’t feel compelled that you NEED to finish this.