short-cut writer

writing is not his cup of tea. he cannot just sit down and let words and sentences come to his mind. he has to squeeze hard to put down the thots, and most often than not, laying down the thots into words and sentences that can be understood takes a tremendous effort. even so, when he reads what he has written, he can always find mistakes, either in spelling, in the way the sentence is constructed, in missing out ideas he wants to put across...... in short, he doesn't know how to articulate his ideas into words and sentences to impress the readers. sometimes trying to express too much into one sentence, and in end, the meaning does not come out as intended. worst, it doesn't make any sense. but not for this writer marathon man met yesterday when he was jogging in the botanic gardens.

once he entered the garden thru the side entrance along bukit timah road, the surrounding abruptly changed from the noisy and hustling buzzles of the busy bukit timah road to the refreshing, enchanting, invigorating tranquility of the greenaries. new york has central park, singapore has the bontanic gardens, the lungs that pumps fresh air into the singaporeans wasted bodies, the sanctuary for the wretched souls.

just by looking at the 3 white swans in the pond, moving gever so racefully in the water made one feel like jumping into the pond for a good swim with these majestic fowls. all the big kois in the food court pond did not fail to pull marathon man's heart nearer to the core of that something he's always being yearning to achive in life - peace of mind. star gardens was new to him. the planked-floor was very slippery, and there's too much of artificial decoratings, like painted flower base, to match with the meticulously arranged flowers and plants. in the water lilly pond, the seasonal flowers bloomed, scatteringly in brilliant colors of white and purple.

then he bumped into into this lady. she was taking pictures of the glorious blooms. she asked marathon man to take a picture of her next to one of the flowers. after that, she said, "i am a travel magazine writer, writing an article about singapore. other than the normal tourist places like botanic garden, the zoo, nite safari, bird park, merlion, china town, litlle india, geylang...... what else that's good to write on, yet not known to the normal tourist?"

marathon man said, "write about me, marathon man."

"what's that to write about you? you think foreign tourists would be interested in knowing who you are?"

"why not? i'm marathon man, i know all the beautiful places in singapore. why not you spend today with me, i will show you the a few places that you would like to visit as a tourist, but not well published as torurist location.but you must mention me in your article."

"hm... ok, deal. but i must finish the article by tonite. so do it within 3 hours. then i will have one hour to write my article."

"wow, one hour? you can write an article? how you do it?"

"how, just write whatever comes to mind."

"no need to arrange your thots, phrase the sentences properly, put down some bombastic words, make some drama out of the story?"

"i don't go for all these technique, just plain simple writing."

"like how?"

"like, if i want to write about botanic garden, i would start with, let me see.... if you like clean air, alot of green, there's no better place to go than the singapore botanic garden.... then how to get there, then what i see, then what i feel, then what's so nice about the place, then finish off with a sentence like, for a place like the botanic garden to have existed in this little island, it must be the very intention of GOD to make this impossible nation into a brilliant jewel that He's proud to show the human race what Eden would be like long time ago."

"hmm.... the ending sounds flowery though."

"to you, it does. but to me, an english-speaking person, every minute we talk and think like that."

"so.... i have to change my way of thinking if i want to be an english writer?"

"you want to be a writer?"

"yap. but i'm no good at writing."

"let me tell you a secret. if you want to write good stories, be it travel stories, novels, or plain articles... just pretend you are so stupid, write down only the things that comes to your. forget about gramma, making long senstences, flowery language. just write plain stupid phrases, like some shorthand minutes... then you can take your time to develop these ideas into something more sophisticated.... no hurry, just write and re-write until you are satisfied with what you write."

"hmmm. no short cut."

"this is the short cut. you start with cutting a long story short, then lengthen it as you like. remember a writer is an idea organizer, that means, you have to be receptive to ideas, ie when an ideas pings the mind, write it down immediately in criptic form then, collect your ideas, then you can sit down and take all the time to organize them. and in doing so, you will find your own style."