Sunday, April 24, 2005

*Sigh!*

Ever get the feeling that you're talking to yourself sometimes when nobody listens to you? Yeah, thats the feeling I'm having right now with this blog. I'm writing and I always get the feeling that no one is reading it... judging by the number of comments that had appeared in this blog of mine.

I guess its the same with every writer. The phobia that no one is reading their works will always exist as long as we're writing. Is there a cure to this phobia? Of course there is... by strengthening our resolve and don't get too bothered by whether people read our work or not. Just keep up the passion for writing and do what we do best - write! So what if our writing is not up to par with international standards? So what if our writing is not Pulitzer or Nobel Literature material? It'l always be hard but thats what we got to do. Never give up just because we think nobody likes our stuff.

So yeah, regardless of whether people read this or not, I'm gonna soldier on and keep writing.

Ciaoz people! Love life and live it to the fullest!

Philip_G signing off... ^_^

Friday, April 22, 2005

About time this is updated!

Hoo ha, hello people!

Its about time I get this updated. Its been two whole months since my last post! Mind boggling! Bah, thanks to work committments, my poor blog's been cast aside, abandoned... hahaha, but not anymore as I am free to resume my insignificant ramblings from now on!

So, whats the focus of this post? Well... haven't thought about one yet. I just feel the need to write something, anything whatever that comes to my mind right now. As long as I am writing something. Read a book about writing and one of the tips the book recommended was to just write whatever that comes to my mind so I guess thats what I'm doing right now. To keep my mind going and the creative juices flowing.

I'm quite inspired by the literature scene in Malaysia at the moment. Quite a significant amount of people are writing and publishing their works. I hope I will one day too. You want to know what my dream project would be? To breathe a new life into old Malay classics. I'm sure many who had gone through SPM BM papers know what a drag Malay classics are. I hope to one day be able to modernise them and turn them into English translations complete with illustrations.

A modern JK Rowling I am not, but I guess I got to start somewhere. My dream project is still far away but right now, I'm working on a different project. I'm currently doing a children's fantasy-adventure story, tentatively titled "The Ellendale Saga". Not a very catchy title but for now it'll do. The premise of this story revolves around three siblings who stumbled upon a mysterious passage way that leads them into a mystical yet fantastical alternate reality. What sets this aside from other fantasy-adventure series is that this is a very much Malaysianised story. I've inserted references of legendary Malay creatures such as the 'Garuda', the evil tolol and many Malaysianised characters and places.

Its a project that I had started since I was in college, only to be hampered by the need to look for a stable income job the moment I graduated. This was shelved and while working, I began on another project, a teenage spy action-adventure novel but that too got scrapped as I felt I had difficulty finding material due to the hush, hush nature of our country's national intelligence. Yes, it's supposed to be a Malaysianised adventure as well.

The problem I feel is due to the marketability of these type of books, especially if they are written by Malaysians. They definitely had to compete with the likes of Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, Dianna Wynn Jones, JK Rowling, Tolkien, Clancy, Horowitz and many others who had successfully carved out a sizable portion of the market. And looking at Malaysian literature in general, most of them are political commentaries, biographies, romance novels and BM versions of The Famous Five, Hardy Boys and the Three Investigators.

Regardless, I hope that some day, my stuff will get published and many will hail me as a literary genius. But I still have a monumental task ahead of me before I get to that stage. By God's grace, it will come to pass.

Philip_G