The first two paragraphs were taken from previous blog entries.
My aspiration is simple: I write, and I want to keep writing.
I've never hid the fact that I write from others. I don't think I was ever ashamed of it, even as a kid, probably because people thought I wrote well back then and I loved praise. I didn't care when I was the only one in class who actually liked English because we got to write compositions. I didn't care when I told people I spent my time writing things that I would never be able to submit for competitions, publish, or even show to anyone else reputable and had them look at me with weird faces and skewed smiles.
This is because writing is my identifier. Other writers might have other things to identify themselves by, like A* student, or artist, or lit geek, or drama person, or lawyer, but for me that's pretty much the only thing. I don't have anything to cover this up with, at least, not anything I consider worthy enough to do so. I define myself by it, even when I don't do much of it.
I think in terms of writing. I read books and I imagine how the writer wrote them, how they sat at their desk and decided which word sounded the most right in front of another. I read newspaper articles and I marvel at how phrasings and sometimes the inclusion of single words can bend a reader’s perception to the writer’s will. I read, learn about how other people write, and apply it to my own writing.
Perhaps it’s this idea of taking the world and writing it down that fascinates me so immensely. I look at the world around me and gauge my own reactions. I try and capture my feelings and emotions in the moment, holding them up before me like a wriggling specimen in forceps, trying to understand them and put them into words. I try to find the best way to write it so that it translates as accurately as possible from feeling to word to feeling again. It’s a long, sometimes exhausting process, but an exhilarating one as well. I suppose one could say I’ve become obsessed with it, this mission to word things as originally and yet as organically as possible. It’s what makes me want to continue writing in the future, and perhaps for the rest of my life.
My quest now, though, has been to figure out where this passion fits in with the rest of my life, both practically and emotionally.
Practically, I’m not yet sure where I want to go. Ideally, I want to incorporate writing into my full-time job, whether this manifests in journalism, education, the arts or something in the publishing business. This, however, is not the most practical choice; my parents, for example, are firmly in favour of me pursuing a law degree and writing on the side like an oft-cited Adrian Pang.
I’ve done a lot to ascertain my stance on the matter. I’ve researched universities, degrees and how these degrees translate to employment. I’ve gone for law attachments (most recently the SAL-JCLP) to see whether I could possibly join the profession, I’ve searched for the best writing universities and the best law schools, and I think I’ve found my most likely path, at least at the college level. I plan to go to a liberal arts university in the USA with English or Literary Arts (Brown) as my major, and, when I have my mind made up, I’ll either pursue an MFA in Creative Writing or go back to Singapore for a graduate law degree, or perhaps something else altogether. I realise I’ll need to do a lot more soul-searching to really decide what I’m going to do as a career, so in the meantime I’m going down a path that will leave me with the most options as to what to do next.
Emotionally, things have been harder to figure out. What I’ve realised after years of reading and writing is that writers always have something they want to write about. Some popular fiction writers write what they think will sell. Some write what they find interesting. Some writers write their dreams. However, what tends to separate the “best” writers (commonly defined as literary) from the rest is that they write about things that need to be written about. Life. Feelings. Society. They rip out the hearts of themselves, other people, society and sometimes the whole of humanity, and leaving it to bleed out on the page.
For a long while, I thirsted to write something more than what I had before. I remember telling someone earlier this year that I wanted to write so “deep and insightful that it will blow the minds of everyone who reads it”, but it wasn’t not as simple as all that – besides a passion for writing, I wanted a passion to write for. I’ve spent years looking for that passion. I’ve joined clubs and societies of all kinds, taken part in community involvement programmes, exposed myself to as many things as possible to find things I truly care about besides myself. However, I've just now realised I don't need to expect myself to write deep, socially relevant, incredibly complex, heartfelt and mature things right now. I'm still young and sheltered, really. I think even if I tried, it would just be fake and contrived.
So I'm letting myself grow. In the meantime, I've been writing even more. I went for the Creative Arts Programme in Sec 2, then again in Year 5, the mentorship programme both times. I’ve done NaNoWriMo (a 50000-words-in-a-month-challenge) four times. I’ve participated in various online collaborative writing programmes since Primary Five. I’ve learnt so many things from so many amazing people, more than I could have ever asked for.
Hopefully it’ll prepare me for the moment I find my inspiration.