WHY I WRITE

by Zabariah

11/4/13

   I am a late bloomer, when it comes to writing that is. I “discovered” my interest and my natural aptitude for writing when I was a freshman in university. I was a Social Science & Humanities student then majoring in English, and one of the assignments that we had to prepare, was a weekly journal of anything and everything under the sun. That was indeed the initiation of my love affair with writing. I found such joy and pleasure in writing. I began to look at everything with fresh perspectives, an almost childlike enthusiasm I must admit, and would look forward to my journal-writing classes. I started to experiment with new vocabulary, new idiomatic expressions, and a whole range of figure of speech. I thought then and even now, Literature and Linguistics were created just for me. Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Wordsworth, Percy Shelly, John Keats and in fact all the Romantic Poets became my idols. I aspired to be one of them. I also bought my very first Roget’s Thesaurus, with more than 20,000 words and numerous entries. I was like a child in a candy store, very happy and really thrilled. With one word, I could elaborate into substantives, phrases, verbs and even interjections. Online thesaurus was a thing of the future.

   Life indeed was rosy and beautiful.

   Of course, like any love affair, writing is not all a walk in the park for me. Yes, I sometimes experience pain and heartache too especially when I am faced with my writer’s block. It could be days when my brain refused to cooperate and come up with a single, coherent sentence. I felt like I was in the deepest abyss with no hope of getting out, and no one that could understand. It was not a pleasant feeling indeed - a yo-yo existence between ecstasy and misery. I hope I would never have to go there, ever. But it does happen, time and again.

   Somehow when I started working, the desire and the need to write were buried beneath piles of proposals and annual reports. But that did not dampen my spirit of “getting my hands dirty” and write again. That spark is still there, waiting for the right moment to rekindle itself. And it did.

   When AZAM launched its weekly column, The 3^rd Voice, I found my writing voice again. It was intellectually exhilarating, emotionally cathartic and spiritually calming. But I wanted more, I wanted to explore and write more than just a column. I wanted a memoir, my very own recollections of my life. Something that I could share with, and would remain in the recesses of people’s mind. Something to remember me by. I have even crafted the title “My field of dreams – a Memoir”. I wanted to push the boundary of my thinking and my potential. I have this conviction of leaving behind a legacy and that legacy is in the form of a creative, intimate piece of me – my writing. And that is why I write.