Born A Writer?

On this date exactly ten years ago, Abah and I sat in a banquet hall in the building of Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) in Kuala Lumpur. I was invited to a prize-giving ceremony for a competition that I joined the year before: Sayembara Menulis Cerpen Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka 2008. 

I have a knack for writing since I was eight or nine. I remember turning my brown notebooks that were supposed to be used for my school subjects into a place to pour out my fictional imagination into words. I cannot remember the number of books I have turned into anthology of short stories. Little did I realise my obsession with writing is a thing, until one day when I was in Year 4, Ummi showed me an advertisement in the magazine Dewan Pelajar (if I am not mistaken) about the advert on the short story writing competition. I had never even thought that my passion caught Ummi's attention!

So it went that I managed to send two manuscripts to DBP for the competition. I basically chose two of the many short stories I have written before and improved it, 'transferred' my writing from the notebooks into the computer, and Ummi even had it checked by her friend who's a Bahasa Melayu teacher. Fyi, any manuscripts that seem to be too 'perfect' to be written by a primary school student will also have the possibility of being disqualified, so we needed to make sure that Ummi's friend was only checking on my grammar so that the originality of my writing was still retained.

Alhamdulillah, even though my short stories didn't win the top three prizes, nor even did it manage to get any of the three consolation prizes, one of my manuscripts (out of all 55 submissions for the category) was chosen to be published in the book that contains 12 best short stories for my category - Kategori Sekolah Rendah Tahap Dua. I was happy enough given the fact that I had to compete with the Year 5 and Year 6 students whom in my opinion were much better than me. So that's the reason I was invited to the ceremony - to witness the launching of the book in which my short story is published in.

At the age of eleven, I had to read a thick document of the publishing agreement and contract, while trying to understand the concept of a royalty; a sum paid to an author for each copy of a book sold. Since there were twelve authors altogether that benefit from the sale of the book our writings are published in, we were not really gaining much. Nonetheless, the whole experience - of writing, submitting manuscripts, witnessing my own book launching event, meeting the Tok Penghulu for document signing, going through royalties - the whole experience itself was priceless, and can never be traded for money, and was actually much more valuable than the amount of profit we gained from the sale of the anthology.

I tried completing manuscripts for the next competition when I was in Year 5, but I was too busy preparing for UPSR that I didn't even have the time to finish one. Since then, any short stories or novel that I started writing had never got themselves a proper ending - well, to be honest they had never even hit the climax hahaha. I remember fighting over my debate notebook with Radhi when I was in Form 4 because I was being too protective over my notebook - as if it's more important than my own life. (If it's just my debate notes, I don't think I would mind anybody flipping through the pages anyway. But the truth is, I had written a chapter - an introduction - of a novel at the back pages of the notebook and of course, in my defense, no one is supposed to have their eyes on it eheh)

Though I kinda had less time to spare for writing in high school, I had never wiped out the dream to become a professional writer. In 2017, an online website published another Malay fictional short story of mine. I will probably start writing fictional short stories again in the future, who knows, but it probably won't be anytime soon. I kinda enjoy writing random stuffs the way I do now, and I guess my ability to fantasize and creatively imagine over fictional things are becoming poorer too as my age is adding up its number. 

So that's the story of 5th August - one of the dates that I will always cherish for the rest of my life, for the memories and the flair He bestowed upon me :)

Writing is a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don't want to make eye contact while doing it" - John Green