You’ve always felt different from a young age. You grew up being told you weren’t enough. These would be the voices of a permanent gloom, a cloud that would follow you for the rest of your life.
Yet you try outrunning your cloud. You pick up self-help books. You play motivational podcasts on repeat. You adopt the billionaires’ morning routines. But nothing changes. You’re still you. Only now you take cold showers and meditate as soon as you wake up.
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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. My pre-all-black days.
I’ve always worn a black T-shirt for as far as I can remember. Scroll back through my Instagram account and you’ll probably catch the rogue grey or white, but I’ve always leaned more toward black clothes.
I have to credit my genesis story to the series Californication. Hank Moody was a true inspiration to the budding writer that was yours truly, and so I adopted the fictional character’s wardrobe, as well as the philosophy of a personal uniform.
But then came the next level—the day I decided to wear all black. Every day.
Continue readingEver since I joined the publishing industry, I aspired to be an editor. I just needed the writing skills, and I had a decent serving of that.
I pictured myself catching typos and lecturing writers on how they could improve their style. I’d be perched at my desk, approving or rejecting pitches like I was swiping on Tinder. Every once in a while, I’d throw out words like ‘pagination’ or ‘masthead’.
Turns out, I had totally misjudged that role. As a deputy editor for a lifestyle magazine, I get a first-hand look at what my boss does, and I’m quickly learning the many reasons why I might not want to be an editor, ever.
The first reason? I’m bad at dealing with people. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here are some of the other ‘interesting’ things an editor needs to do.
Continue readingDuring my active days on here, I’d wield the term Hiatus Monster™ a lot, complete with capitalisations and trademark symbol for the added oomph.
I’d save this term specifically for bloggers who’d publish ‘I’m back’ posts after months of inactivity. “Everybody falls prey to the Hiatus Monster™,” I’d type. “Hopefully you’ll evade capture the next time!”
Not once did I think I’d fall into the monster’s jaws myself. Until now.
Continue readingIdeas are about confluence. I believe it’s Neil Gaiman who said that. I can’t come up with quotes like that. That’s because I don’t typically insert ten-dollar words like confluence into my everyday speech.
And that’s despite the fact that I live in Kuala Lumpur (which literally means muddy confluence in Malay), but I digress.
Anyway, in my spare time, I watch sketchbook videos so I can fancy myself an artist. That’s when I came across this talented Singaporean’s video and found myself upon a confluence.
Chroma Moma’s (who shall henceforth be known as CM) thoughts on art mirrored mine on writing, and that was how this post was born.
There comes a point in your art when you’ll need to be specific with your progress. Which is why you’ll have to chart out a path like CM did.
In his sketchbook, he laid out goals like ‘study environment’ and ‘film composition’. For you, it might be ‘improve dialogue’ or ‘comedic timing’.
But what exactly should you learn? He answers this well at 5:50, which is to learn everything. Yes, this includes things like fan fiction if that’s your cup of tea. And no, it’s not a cop-out answer.
Because you’ll never know if that knowledge will be useful in your artistic journey until you actually learn it. But so what if it doesn’t? At least you’ll have acquired a new tool in your craft.
For instance, I enjoy sitting at Starbucks and ‘sketching’ with words the scenes I see or hear. Have I benefitted from the practice? I don’t know.
And I’ve yet to find a use for descriptions like ‘brows so prominent they left his eyes permanently in the shade’ or ‘she wore so many bangles that it sounded like she had a dozen belled cats in tow’.
But I guess I just did. See? Confluence.
I enjoy watching sketchbook videos because I like seeing how artists approach their art.
It’s the equivalent of them solving a math question, with the sketchbook demonstrating the workings they used to get to their end product.
I love it when CM said that the first drawing is never the best-looking drawing. “The idea is to make an ugly drawing to understand what it is you’re looking at, and then later on you can do a better drawing.”
That’s how you should approach writing too. The first draft is never the final product. It is, as Pratchett says, just you telling yourself the story.
Anyone who adds video game references to their content always gets a plus in my book. And while the arts isn’t a video game you can finish, the thought of pushing back the fog of war is a great analogy to end this piece on.
We each have our own map which we use to inform our art. And every skill we learn uncovers that map just a tiny bit more.
Sometimes, we don’t need to approach the arts with a laundry list of objectives. Sometimes, we can make art with the sole purpose of learning the lay of the land.
Because sometimes, knowing where certain things are on the map is enough. Then the next time you venture out, it won’t feel like uncharted waters anymore.
And who knows? You might even discover a confluence or two.
Your Friendly Malaysian Writer 