55 Fiction + Piece on writing

KEYS
He lives one level above. I often look up at him. We are two separate entities, never with the same voice nor skin colour. Today, I moved to the apartment next to his, yet in between was still the distance from my original identity. Keys like us can never open the lock to true love.

EACH HAS HER OWN STAGE
She sang loudly and melodiously. Her rich voice reverberated and echoes resonated. A grandiose turn, and a roar of applause was activated. She aimed for the highest note, but it came out as a pitiful squawk instead. Just then, there was a knock on the door. She turned off the shower and stepped out from the bathtub.

CHEMISTRY:
I held my breath, then blew. A firm grip on my neck. Too much force yet so delicate. After a playful tug on my ear the seek ended. My bottom lip met 25's. That moment seemed forever, but was interrupted as the clumsy lab student jerked me off and all emotions went down the conical drain.

The Writers’ Workshop “Keep on Writing”

Wiring Heartlands!

“I know everyone of you (character-wise), only that I cannot match your works to your face.” This quote came from Mrs Shum at last year’s Creative Arts Programme pre-camp briefing. She claimed that she could understand how every one of us was like as a person merely through reading our works. I did not believe in that. How much can a piece of writing say about a person? Nevertheless, this sentence etched itself in my mind and as I officially started my writing journey, I think I began to see the meaning enshrined behind it.

The Creative Arts Programme is an annual camp organized by the Ministry of Education, Gifted Education Branch. Every year the programme sees a new batch of budding writers who gather in a one-week camp where they can interact with others and through a series of workshops, hone their writing skills and appreciate other forms of art (visual, musical, theatrical etc) other than the literary kind.

After becoming a CAP-er, I began to write. Really write, write for leisure, and write for personal expression, not just for schoolwork.

Though I wrote in Chinese (I was a Chinese CAP-er! ☺), it gradually dawned upon me that yes, writing is more than a series of words connected in a coherent way; it has much more to it. Writing is a very acute revelation of the individual. Artists and writers create their works, often at the risk of removing the masks that society has forced us to shape and put on for protection.

Writers inject their true emotions and deepest thoughts into their works. Sometimes the writer’s identity is subconsciously reflected in the language aspect as well, in tone, diction, syntax and others. It is only when we write with our heart that writing finds itself a new meaning and quite a special one at that.

Writers are emo(tional) and writing is cathartic. I somehow find that people who write own a higher sensitivity to the world around them and are very easily touched or affected by even the smallest happenings, for instance, a leaf falling. This is perhaps attributed to the nature of writing where writers shed their outer disguises to let true emotions flow. The day we lose the ability to become touched is the day when we cease to be able to write.

Furthermore, writing wires heartlands! If there is one medium or channel via which people connect most effectively, it is language! Writing wires us to other people and other things and from that connection generates electricity, sparks and ideas.

Therefore, writing is dangerous. It exposes you unknowingly, leaving you no shield to defend, no mask to hide. It exemplifies our emotional self. We become powerless when we write, our naked identities surface and all efforts to conceal in the harsh realities of life go down the drain.

However, though we become powerless and vulnerable in this aspect, we actually transform into a more powerful person. This power lies in the ability to love, and to express in a new kind of space.

The pen is undoubtedly the greatest sword.

Care not about the risks involved in this perilous journey. It is the satisfaction and enlightenment that matters. Follow your heart, listen to your soul, and WRITE!

Written by Hui Ning 315