I find it hard to believe that any literature major did not harbour some pretensions or delusions of literary success. After all, why study literature at that level if not to write the Next Great Novel (NGN)?
I certainly did, until the harsh reality of life without a surname (not a problem on my mother’s side of the family, admittedly) and means to maintain that name hit hard.
Over the years, I dabbled in Chinese to English translation, poetry (dire), scratchings of historical fiction and most recently, a play that liberally and loosely mashes the immigrant histories of my mother’s families. There is also the little matter of all the travelogues I’ve been privileged to log in the past three years, and many have told me I need to immortalise those adventures.
One thing 2020 drove home to me was that excuses are little gremlins that block your path to enlightenment. Kidding. Achievement and fulfilment, maybe. In my case, it was time to get off my arse, crush that annoying, obnoxious, sneering voice in my head and WRITE SHIT DOWN.
Of course I harboured pretensions of being an essayist. With the democratisation of publishing, I no longer have to subject myself to countless editors’ rejections. I have an entire internet to play judge, jury and executioner on my thoughts, translations and attempts at creative output.
Here we go.
Originally published at https://noeticnotions.substack.com.