Tag: writing

They never miss my heart.

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I’m beginning to forget things.

The feel of ice beneath my heel, the titles of songs which used to move me, the way it felt seeing the sky turn pink from the window seat of an airplane, the catharsis of writing, how I used to fall in love with strangers during my daily transit to campus. That lady with the crinkly smile in the yellow coat, the baby with that strange wisdom in its eyes.

Lately, I’ve been wrestling with ideas. These motions happen mostly in my head, because it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything. Terse arguments happen daily, most thoughts as overgrown as a bunch of neglected weeds. And yet, the paper remains blank. Should I try? Should I approach this idea? And on most days: should I say anything at all? Would it matter if I said anything at all?

The older I get, the more I am able to understand the beauty of writing without dread or anticipation of how things should be. Before learning structures, methods, formulas, character limits or the feeling of disillusionment sinking in.

There are days where I wonder if anybody still frequents this space, in hopes of finding something. Let me know if you do, because I’m in need of discovery too.

2017: A Reflection on Writing

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It’s been a long time since I’ve written for myself. So much so that whenever I get asked about my writing, I can’t help but to feel a tinge of guilt and embarrassment.

2017 has been a far bumpier ride than I hoped it’d be. After completing my Master’s in Creative Writing, I came home to Malaysia eager to get back into the workforce. I applied, and got hired, at a well-known advertising agency in the span of a few weeks. This was great news to me, because my degree came with its fair share of bills and I wanted to get right on to paying them.

My time at this agency was brief, but the ruthless highs and lows proved to be an eye-opener. It was here that I learned how to appreciate the art of brevity even more, which I guess was inevitable when my own words and ideas were constantly getting chopped up to pieces (the tagline needs to be punchier! And shorter!!). It was also here that I met all sorts of colourful characters – rough, irregularly-shaped and memorable.

Was the work satisfying? Well… yes, in some ways. Working in advertising gave me the opportunity to write and ideate for over 20 brands, an opportunity I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere else.

Advertising.

There’s a lot to write about, but it’s hard to begin.

A great deal of rejection happens. When you fail at being smart, funny, informative or direct, you know. Maybe it’s your manager that tells you. Or the clients. Or the suits. Worse still, another writer. Or, you know, that crippling self-doubt that takes over during the hellish hours of the night.

When you brainstorm, be prepared for awkward silences directed at your ideas. Be prepared to direct similar silences to others. But when things get desperate, suddenly every idea can turn salvageable. Be prepared to form a certain special kinship with other creatives over this type of shared struggle.

4pm meetings will start at 8. You’ll drive bleary-eyed past midnight and you’ll live in sweats and cotton shirts. You’ll soon realize that dressing as a creative means dressing as how you would, first thing out of bed. And that’s perfectly okay. Some days it’s nice to be surrounded by messy hair and the smell of cigarettes. Some days, not so much.

When acceptance over your ideas and your words happen, the elation you’ll feel, however short-lived, will fuel you. Seeing your words on billboards and ads around town will fuel you.

They say teamwork is key and that’s especially true in advertising. Without the suits, without a good designer or an art director or your creative head, all your words and your ideas are nothing. You’ll see that whatever good presentation skills you have will come a long way. You’ll learn that people get pissy over Oxford commas and missing out a hyphen by accident. Never miss out a hyphen by accident. There is no room for accidents.

And on some days, you’ll wonder if creativity must translate to not having a structure. You’ll notice that advertising requires you to mostly be angry, hungry, well-spent. This is because it needs all of your energy, which in turn you’ll give because your ego wouldn’t want to cower in the presence of other well-fed egos.

But I’ve done my time and I’ve moved on.

My current job is still in the area of copywriting, but on the client’s end this time. Without meaning to, I somehow managed to find myself in this line of work. In one way or another, I managed to sway my life decisions towards the direction of being a writer. Be it ad copy, press releases, speeches, or stories, I’ve somehow survived this far doing something I genuinely care about as my bread and butter. For this, I am grateful. To be fair, the term ‘writer’ still makes me heady. It makes me feel presumptuous to refer myself by that coveted title when there’s still a long way to go. But eh, I do feel proud about making it through thick and thin the way I have so far.

I’d be lying to say that these jobs don’t give me writer’s fatigue and that they don’t affect my own writing. It’s much easier to write for brands than for myself. For brands, it’s not about what I like. Instead, there are given restrictions and guidelines to work around. But when I find myself facing my own blank page at the end of a workday, the possibilities can suddenly feel vast and foreign. What do I like? And how do I begin to separate my work voice with my own? Where does it end, where does it begin?

But I try, or at least want to. Maybe it’s just the part of getting older where things don’t have the same sense of wonderment to them or I just get tired a lot easier. On days when I feel jaded by my surroundings, I can’t help but wish that I have the same eager naivety I had years ago. Decisions just feel a lot more measured these days and time feels like a privilege that’s not always mine to own.

Observing questions, reading and readers.

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My father proposed an explanation the other day.  His rationale was that I grew up primarily sustained by a diet of books and thus consequently developed the mind of a reader in a nation of non-readers. This led to eventual difficulties in relating and emphatizing with not just my peers in school, but with essentially everybody around me. Nonetheless, like searching for Oz, I remained stubbornly invested in the idea that a more ideal environment still existed out there, maybe not in Malaysia but certainly somewhere. This conjecture of being better understood in distant lands led to leaving for America with bated breath and zealous idealism at the age of twenty, only to confront the reality that even in a land of supposed readers where made readily available were an abundance of libraries begging to be explored and all the books I’d ever wished for easily available via my 1-click Amazon Prime account, the real world would never be able to account for the concrete ideal I had designed in my head. It was exactly this vile mismatch between expectations and reality that I needed to be rooted back down to earth and leave the dank yet comfortable adolescent dreaminess which had so consumed me.

Not wanting to be subjugated so easily by this theory which stung in so many respects, my natural reaction was to immediately refute it. Yes, I can’t deny I’ve thought about this theory for numerous times afterwards, so whimsically thrown to me by a parent in the wee hours of a random morning, and considered the startling accuracy of some of the points. Even more so, it fascinated me not just from a personal navel-gazing perspective but in terms of how it brings to mind closer examination of the narrative of a reader. What do we subconsciously yearn for as we delve into a piece of text, into the land of books? Is there a verification that we yearn for to enable us as thinkers and as significant individuals amidst the privacy of hidden narratives and lands?

I watched a Youtube video today by a literature major who aptly described the beauty of literature as gaining permission to examine various psyches. There lies a profound loneliness and yet absence of loneliness which I find in the world of a reader and consequently, as a writer. Loneliness, because of exactly what was said above about being able to relate less to non-readers, about how even while being in conversation with non-readers there is a palpable sense of an almost emotional disconnect in some areas. How is it that we are reading the same passages in a book, yet you are unable to experience the same delights, the same stings, the same terrors? We share the same sky and yet we are so different, we have such different loves. Saying all this now at a later age, I understand how gratuitous it sounds, because it is so narcissistic to only want to be limited to people of the same supposed ilk. To want to idolize only a certain type of intellect or beauty seems so unjust and even unkind. And surely reading and writing is about humbling down to look at both differences and similarities in order to put it all to pen and paper to understand better? 

Yet there still is the problem — I tell people I am going to pursue Creative Writing only to elicit polite glances or condescending responses that hint at doubts as to why anybody would want to pursue such a line in the first place. I understand the assumptions and the doubts, about how our society has been conditioned and how perhaps to study language and writing is such an unwarranted luxury, have grown almost immune to the lack of conviction in its importance or success as a career path which even I admit is not as appealing in forecast as say, perhaps more practical options would be. How important can the study of language and its aesthetics be? I feel isolated when most of my loved ones don’t understand. Yes, this is all good, but to what effect then, my dear? Shouldn’t we agree to disagree that we are in pursuit of different things, even if we may be unable to regard them of possessing the same value?

There are many things of which I owe to reading which would always be accounted for. It was through reading that I, simply put, found the appetite and strength to live. Without it, I felt, and considerably might even still feel, powerless. Reading was an escape and I fell in love with the world of prose, with the beauty of understanding that others can convey how I feel towards this life in all its splendor. Even better, it shed light in unfound perspectives and nourished the beauty of meaning. This all still seems naive to profess now in a state where I still feel very much adrift with a lack of direction but I can’t think of anything more fulfilling than to inspire or prompt thoughts in others through the channel of language and fiction and prose. It might change your life — I know it did mine.