To New Writing Adventures

Sometimes the Universe helps you out a little and points you in the right direction.

I was browsing through writing courses on Coursera when I came across this course – and found myself registering for it. After writing professionally for the last 13 years, I felt like it was time for me to expand my writing horizons and write for myself more.

As a teenager I used to love writing short stories, and they mostly revolved around teenage perspectives and lives. This was in the early 90’s, and I used to save these stories on a 3.5 inch floppy disk, and printed it out on special computer paper But someway along the line, my disk got corrupted and the physical copy went missing. And with that, that the end of my fiction writing days.

My three years as a journalist at Malay Mail didn’t give me much time to write for myself. I was always writing my stories, if not at the office, I continued writing at home. Yes, I enjoyed my job that much. After leaving the oldest paper in Malaysia, I went on to write for a web portal and a branding company, before becoming a freelance writer. During that time, I attempted to write for myself, but somehow I experienced writer’s block for years, writing in fits and starts, without much to share.

Fast forward to 2021, I found myself with a little “extra” time, what with the COVID-19 pandemic forcing Malaysians to stay at home. The inability to go out made me think doing something more, something extra – and the Universe directed me to Writing for Young Children – Opening The Treasure Chest.

I must admit, I really enjoyed the course, with online lessons and peer reviews. Students were asked to write short stories in 500+ words and it was definitely an interesting process for me. Thanks to the course, I wrote three stories in a month. While I am presently editing the stories, I look forward to putting up the stories on the blog in due time.

This course has given me the inspiration and motivation to continue writing children’s stories and I’m excited to be see where this adventure takes me.