School's Literary Week and AIN MAISARAH's book signing!

PHOTO CREDITS to Amirun Afiq, an amazing photographer-slash-buddy

I'm writing this post at nighttime . . .

So, I have a lot to tell you today. Last Tuesday, it's a legendary day as the FIRST local author came down to my school and done a book signing slash talk there.

Well, it sounded enthusiastic, eh? But actually that's not the point here now. I wanted to talk about what a terrible day that day went for me.

Apart from the day before when an idiotic barber cut my hair until it became almost like an alien version of Chad White, being late to school (EXTREMELY) and realize I missed a lot at school, things going down like a roller-coaster to me that day. Becoming emotional, fussy, extremely confused about things, that day had almost become the worst day in my life since 2012 starts.

It's almost a good news to me when a popular local novelist AIN MAISARAH is about to make a visit at my school.

Ain Maisarah is a young novelist, writing books from age ranges 10-16 (I guess) and her books are usually contemporary teen books. She wrote the Aku Mahu . . . (English: I Want To . . .) series which is extremely popular among young girls. The books inside the series are included Aku Mahu Popular (I Want To Be Popular), Aku Mahu Saiz S (I Want An S-size Clothes) and the rests of I Want . . .and she wrote books under a publisher where it receives books about teenage friendship. And that publisher is PTS Publications.

I watched a local reality-TV Nona some time ago and her interview was aired from her home. If I was not mistaken, her husband was interviewed and he told about how she'd start writing. Before she got married, her husband received a love letter from her and he noticed how talented she is in writing. After marriage, her husband manages her writing time, and what she should do in writing. Her writing became wildly successful in Malaysia and she's currently on tour around Malaysia to local schools in having some talks and book signing.

That's a little about her. So, on the 10th of April she came. Yeay! Amazing! I was super excited although I read none of her books, but at least a writer, A WRITER, came down and gave a talk about writing. As you know, I am always interested in writing, and writing to me is a part of MY LIFE. Half of my soul, writing is my life, my therapy, and when I write words, it can be a remedy to any internal pain I felt.

So before the book signing started, I sat and listen attentively to her talk about her writing life. And devastatingly, I was disappointed.

Well, she's amazing. But she was promoting writing in a way of businesses. She told us how profitable writing could be, convincing us that each one of us can write excellently, and earn profits for our future. In the talk, she stated some young authors who got signed by a publisher at a very early age, like Riha Jamil, who published Gadis Piano when she was fourteen if I'm not mistaken (Gadis Piano, English: Piano Girl). And she stated her profits, how much she earned and she promoted writing to us like it was the easiest way to earn money.

So, that's that, and I have my story. I came up during recess to see her manager and talked to him a little about publishing in Malaysia . . . which I researched slightly deep and knew that Malaysia have this one policy where they can only trust foreign authors or imported books for English fiction. I know that. And he repeated that. He offered me writing in Malay in teen contemporary genre by posting a query to one of PTS editor and wait for a respond AND THEN, I can start writing.

And this is my opinion . . .

After the book signing, kids who knew about me self-publishing my first 100,000 words mediocre YA Te Amo urge me to write and earn profits like how Mrs. Ain Maisarah suggested them. If I am following the track, I'll break some cultures I have in writing such as:

1) IF YOU WANT TO GET PUBLISHED, SEND A BRIEF SUMMARY TO PTS EDITOR, WAIT FOR A RESPOND OF EITHER REJECTION OR APPROVAL, AND THEN I SHOULD WRITE.

This is so awful. I do not do this in writing.

I write every day, and I write always and if I feel it was a broken writing, I'll stop. I'll keep writing the story if it felt inspiring and good for me. After I done halfway, I will do an editing, where I'll keep the writing in a pristine quality and then I rewrite the stupid lines that I did.

If I wanted to get signed by PTS, I must send a brief summary to one of the editor via e-mail. And if the story sounds interesting to him, he'll approve and THEN I'LL HAVE TO WRITE THEM. How if I, as the author, felt like that story didn't hit the point, the whole big picture on why I started to write the story? And I will not like it, that means I do not wish it will turn into a book. So that's that.

Different from publishing in U.S., I must complete my work, send a query to literary agent, and then if he/she wants to represent my work, that's quite a green light. I'll have a chance to edit my work. I'll have chance to improve my query. And it's in my hands if I wanted to proceed in making the story comes alive. Not the editor.

2) WRITE BECAUSE IT LET YOU EARN MONEY. WRITE BECAUSE OF CA$H. WRITE BECAUSE YOU'LL HAVE DOLLARS TO SPENT WHEN YOU WANT TO GO TO COLLEGE.

I write because I love doing it. It is a part of my life therapy, where it builds up confidence, builds up new friends for me in substituting some a$@$ole in school where it doesn't functioning at all. And I write because that's what I do, the biggest ability I have in my life that I have interests in developing and I love it.

In an interview in Oprah, I knew that when Rowling is publishing Harry Potter when her agent said that she'll never make money by writing children's book. Rowling ignored those words, and published Harry Potter. It was clear that J.K. Rowling didn't care for cash. And that's what we have in common. I don't care about the cash. Of course I need money, but in writing, that's not what I'm chasing. I believe that in having sustenance we have to pray and put effort on a goal, and if we chase sustenance we'll earn nothing as it flees away from us.

I do not see cashes and dollars beyond the words I wrote.



To conclude, I am picking the AgentQuery way in getting publish. I was told many times to write Malay books because I will not go anywhere writing in English. Because my country imported English fiction, from foreigner authors. Yep, that's true.

So this post is to my friends who always asked me and convince me to stop writing in English and in YA genre such what's popular right now, because I will not go anywhere. Yep folks, Malaysia imported English books from foreign authors. So I have no choice, but to become a foreigner author.

I have to write, edit, read, polish my writing, write a query, polish a query, polish my writing, and submit my query, pray to get signed. I am a local author, who had no choice but to find an outsider publisher to get publish. And what's devastating is, IF I'm signed, my books will be in a high price here in my local bookstore because my book is still an "imported books by a foreign author" while I am a Malaysian author, and my books should belong here.

And I will show my country I'm capable of doing it. It's a matter of time.