Mordant piece

Believe it or not, half of me wanted to be an author. Yeap, a serious one. Well, waay back when I was in primary school. I was a devoted writer for the school's magazines and also for the monthly spread.

My mum was instantly giving the pats behind my back for having the spirit and guts to write. Even more so, back then I had a small journal and wrote almost everything in it, even in airplanes travelling. So it was quite a bizarre and excellence-expectancy all together for seeing your kid jotting down (mostly bits of nothing important) silently instead of pestering my parents for sweets or gifts. So yeah.

Then after I left home for boarding school, my aspiration of creative writing plummeted. Big time. I seemed like to overlook the thrill of by some means trying to put my thoughts into writing.

It seems like a joke now though.

'Cos I know it takes pure interest and inspiration to write. Maybe for some, they think it's easy, so I give them credit for that. For me, it takes time, and strong determination to create a masterpiece.

I mean, come on, it took Nobel prize winners months or maybe years to come up with something worth reading.

I remember reading a whole lot of classical literary writings including the Bronte sisters’ novels back in my grandpa’s house when I was younger. My favourite at the time was Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte ‘cos I’d watched the motion picture version of it starring William Hurt and also supermodel Elle Macpherson much earlier.

Then there was Wuthering Heights by Charlotte’s sister, Emily Bronte which is very haunting for me. Jane Eyre is great, more to grown-up abit more mature chemistry between a man and a woman.

But Wuthering Heights is more simplified (at least from a view of an amateur reader at the time) even though the plots and all abit of a rough blur. I was pretty horrified by the stark description of physical and mental brutality in the story. Pretty ruthless one there.

Back in the late 90’s, when I was still in school, I came across a novel by Alice Hoffman (yeah the one who wrote Practical Magic, where then turned into a movie starring Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock) entitled Here On Earth. I still have the copy.

Not even half way through, it took me quite a short interlude while reading it ‘cos it suddenly appeared to me that Here on Earth bears a really striking resemblance in both plot and classical dramatic characters in Wuthering Heights.

So much for being a creative author, eh?

Told 'ya. It's not easy at all.