I like to explain. I want to make sure my audience knows exactly what I am talking about. I try to eliminate any possible misunderstanding. I dislike open ends.

It is difficult to give myself the permission freedom to be not only ambiguous and cryptic, but brief. My rational mind knows that great writers do not tell the reader what they feel; they describe the emotion so that the reader is lulled into feeling the same way. But I tend to kill that by spurting too many words.

Anybody can have ideas — the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.
—Mark Twain

Poetry, when read aloud, ought to be more than a string of words put together. I realised tonight how fascinating it can be to hear a poem's inherent drama spring to life. Francesca Beard on stage is constantly in motion, conveying the essence of the poem with her whole being. Never insipid, never droning, never merely reciting, and definitely never reading.

Watching and listening, I was humbled. For I realised that modern poetry — the free verse I so detest and rarely read — is the form that lends itself best to performance. Ordinarily, I have no patience with free verse; one sentence broken up into two or three lines or more — anyone can write that kind of 'poetry'. I prefer the beauty, the orderliness, and the sheer challenge of the rhyming quatrain or sonnet. Yes, I am a poetry snob.

I may never be able to fully appreciate free verse in written form, but I could never tire of watching it performed. Not read, mind you, nor recited; performed.

There is something about the "artsy-fartsy" crowd that is terribly intimidating. I will never be one of them, I know, since I am not any of these things: I do not smoke, I do not dress outlandishly (not much, anyway), I dislike both wine and beer (give me Bailey's!), and I am not gay. My only redeeming features are my tendency to be outrageous at times, and my uninhibited laughter.

Given the chance to step up to the stage and read my poetry yesterday night, I doubt I would have done it even if I had prepared a piece. There is in me a strange mixture of diffidence and pride which I think may be present to a certain extent in all writers, whether poets or novelists or biographers. I want to show off my works and have the world know that I, I am the creator of these; yet at the same time, I am afraid to lay them before others for fear of exposing all my inadequacies and ignorance, which I am sure shine through my finished work. 'Tis a paradox.

Among that crowd, I am also afraid of being denounced as a poseur, a pathetic wannabe. Because I'm not one of them. And I'm not sure I could ever become one of them.

Friend: "I don't think I write very well. I have a tendency to write long sentences!"

Me: "Long sentences are okay as long as the meaning is clear. The trick, I feel, is to think like an academic but write like a layman."

Spreading my invaluable insight. How did I ever become so smart?!

Me: "You know how you always say your writing is hard to read?"

Friend: "Yes?"

Me: "I discovered the solution today." (points friend to pertinent blog post)

Friend: "Think like an academic but write like a layman? Still doesn't sound easy enough to me."

Me: "The point is not to find an easy solution but to be aware of the way you write. It is only when you are aware that you can change."

Friend: "But why is it people like you don't have to be aware and can write so well anyway? Seems like you do it so easily. It's not fair!"

Me: "That's because I don't think like an academic in the first place. I've read too many novels, especially romance novels. But you — you don't even read fiction, so you don't have the chance to let that kind of writing style seep into you."

Friend: "You mean people like Tom Clancy and the rest write simple English?"

Me: "It's not a matter of writing simple English. It's got to do with writing in a conversational style, almost like talking to the reader. Your writing must engage the reader and draw the reader in."

Before the advent of smilies and emoticons, I actually expected to convey my tone and emotions to the reader through my writing alone. Imagine that! *gasp*

I confess: emoticons have made me lazy. I am not sure whether I have allowed myself to become careless when it comes to conveying the correct nuance through my writing, but I am sure that I do not try as hard to get it exactly right. After all, there is always the playful wink () or mischievous grin () to call upon in a pinch.

My emails are peppered with emoticons. I never missed those little images when they didn't exist, but now it's almost as if I cannot write without them. This won't do; it won't do at all.

Knowing that my words were prophetic is not any consolation.

Having my 6-month contract terminated after a mere 1.5 months is a shock.

Hearing the client say, "Most of the articles you have sent our way lacks the life and creativity that we saw in your sample works" is a blow.

I will go away and cry and come back again tomorrow, hopefully strong once again.

You Should Be a Joke Writer

You're totally hilarious, and you can find the humor in any situation. Whether you're spouting off zingers, comebacks, or jokes about life... You usually can keep a crowd laughing, and you have plenty of material. You have the makings of a great comedian — or comedic writer.

Doubly hilarious, then, that I can never remember any jokes and cannot recount any in front of an assembled company. Oh, but we're talking about writing jokes here, aren't we? I'm not so sure any comedian would want to take me on as a scriptwriter, either!

Me: "Do you have a blog too?"

Stranger, via instant messaging: "Yeah, here (gives URL). But you'll surely find it boring."

Me: (reading) "Ah, you write about what you do. Why don't you also write out what you think?"

Stranger: "It's too hard."

What is this about wanting the perfect environment and perfect conditions in which to write? I tell myself, "I am too tired, I cannot write right now." But at the end of the day I am always tired and if it is work, I would write anyway — and come up with something worth submitting. I need more determination. And self-discipline. Gaaah!

I just submitted something for inclusion in the British Council's New Writing anthology. Now I'm freaking out.

Writing on blogs is safer; self-publish, no critics, no editors, no pulling your work apart and putting it together again. No risk.

Even better: scribble away in the quietness of your room and accumulate a pile of papers, a manuscript that's never finished and never ready to be shown to anyone.

Or type furiously and have it languish on the cold hard disk.

Putting my work out there means bracing for rejection; I have always been afraid of hearing those three words: not good enough. My motto comes back to haunt me — no guts, no glory!

I think I need to start marking chunks of time off to write, and write properly, ie. not on the computer. When I sit in front of the computer, a lot of other things start crowding in & taking over. I get distracted and it just is not conducive.

Ever since I started working, I've been writing non-stop, and tonnes of stuff, most of it for work and the remainder for my various blogs. My creativity has really suffered, or has been neglected... I haven't written any good poetry since at least 2000 (but I think it's more like 1998). I don't know whether you could say that work bled me dry. I think it's more like work demands focus and creativity requires we become unfocused — open to imagination and exploring possibilities and pursuing various trains of thought. I always sit down knowing exactly what I want to write about, and have forgotten how to just let the story carry me along as it develops.