Photo: Per Loov
Where do your writing ideas come from?
Neil Gaiman says that he simply makes them up, and it’s the easiest part of the creative process. Alfred Hitchcock, on the other hand, reckons that ideas come from everything.
I myself am beginning to think that our entire being is made up of ideas (more on that in a bit), and tapping into that resource is simply a matter of changing our perspective.
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Photo: Museums Victoria
Let me take you back to when I was eight, where for some reason, my schoolteacher decided that a bunch of Primary Two students needed to learn about the meaning of time.
“It’ll pass by in the blink of an eye,” she said. “Oh stop laughing! You don’t believe me? One day you’ll see.”
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Photo: Alexander Andrews
There are so many hobbies you can get good at in this world, with some of these things being outright outlandish.
Like, who even sets out to become the best ventriloquist in the world? How about dedicating your life to rock climbing? Even becoming a gaming superstar is a thing now.
No matter what niche you look at, there’ll be people who’ve already reached the pinnacle of their craft. People like Jeff Dunham, Alex Honnold, and Lee Sang-hyeok, to name a few.
The thing is though, is that before you become a Jane Austen, or a Tony Hawk, you’ll inevitably face resistance from the people around you. People who cannot comprehend your goals as well as you do.
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Photo: David Klein
First things first, I never actually knew I could write for a living, so why not start with that.
I grew up in a developing nation, pre-internet, so that meant you either went to university to get a job, or you sucked it up and applied for any vacancy you could that paid more than USD 300 per month.
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Photo: Ben White
“Maybe your writing sits better with westerners than with Asians,” Nick said, comparing my blog posts (read: more than five readers) to the Facebook shares (my sister being the sole reader) I occasionally put out.
I nodded with reluctance. It wasn’t as if Malaysia lacked a thriving reading community, but there was also no denying it: I get more traffic and engagement from the USA than anywhere else, all things considered.
As much as I’d like to believe that hard work and talent trumps all, it’s becoming real apparent to me that getting your work seen by the appropriate audience seems to be a more effective way of approaching things than just blindly churning out content week after week.
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Your Friendly Malaysian Writer 