SCENE I

 

First day at a new workplace. The person who sat at this desk previously has left a typewritten letter inserted in a manila envelope. The piece of work is not addressed to anyone in particular. All I know is that I am filling the shoes of one of the junior editors who has left. After standing in that long train commute, I have all the intention of reading the letter and no intention of starting work. I tear it open.

 

Dear Newcomer,

 

Let this be a clear example of how this company can throw you under the bus without hesitation when it no longer needs you. Please always be careful with what you say, because when you say something that the leaders don't like, they will always remember that. To them, we are just cogs in machinery, we are nothing but disposable objects, regardless of how great our contributions and achievements are. Always protect yourself and never trust anyone in this company. . . .

 

Not exactly a good omen for a newcomer on her first day of work. This workplace has a three-day-work policy, and earlier this morning, a few people came forward to introduce themselves. Warm. They were the other junior writers, and the chattier one was with the Human Resource Department. Not having much to do initially, I sat looking around and realised that through the tall glass windows of the office, past the many buildings that sprawled out below, was the sea. Shimmering and vast, it contained vessels and ships coming and going. If my eyes ever need a break from the writing, I thought, they can find rest on the horizon. The clouds outside were forming the shape of interlocking rings. I thought of this:

 

 

Then I found the letter.

 

 

 

SCENE II

 

Before I landed this job, I did not write anything for general consumption for a year. I used to write articles that were read by friends and strangers, students and teachers. Racing against deadlines, I worked on my personal computer and at wherever I could carry my laptop to. Though some good sentences were fleshed out on my handphone. Mainly, the writing was for the money, but I also wrote to create something, to get the feeling a child gets when making an arts and craft project. Cardboard toilet rolls, coloured markers, pom poms, coloured papers. Writing is making scenes and pictures with words. In black and white, as they say.

 

Enter the 990 sqft home, fitted with vinyl flooring, and bask in the natural light of the living/dining area with elongated layout. Find seamless panelled cabinets by the door as great storage space. There are even more shelves for your decoration pleasure at the elegant TV feature wall. Decked with rugged brick wallpaper, the space below tasteful pendant lamps is used as dining space. And when you have more guests, don’t fret! Just seat them al fresco at the adjoining balcony outside! Come evening, turn up the ambience with plenty of cove/downlights.

 

I was no Henrik Ibsen, but here I was, writing ENTER character. Was fun while it lasted.

 

Anyway, it had been long enough since I last published such work. That was a busy time during COVID when writing assignments kept pouring it. The rhythm and routine of writing piece after piece and being paid for each was therapeutic. I was writing to sell houses, at the same time writing to heal from certain challenges life had thrown at me at that point in time. They were scripts for agents to use in their YouTube videos, and I was paid to put words into their mouths. Feeling the most creative I had been in a while, I wrote to sell and used words like ‘contemporary’, ‘haven’, ‘ambience’ and ‘refreshing’…

 

There were school worksheets too. Instructions to colour, match, circle. School magazines. Zines. I submitted those feature articles like my life depended on it. Day in, day out.

 

 

 

SCENE III

 

Soon after that busy stint during COVID, nobody contacted me to write for them. I could not find a regular arrangement or an editor I could write for. No paid work, no artistic work. Am I still a writer if I do not write?

 

Thing is, I still feel like I am. If I cannot be the writer that I want to be at the moment, then I can always be a reader and a consumer. You have to read before you can write, right?

 

Not much changed in the literary scene that past year. There was an alternative spoken word club near Arab Street. It was run mostly by Gen Z women. They were a vivacious bunch whose enthusiasm for life and writing I admired. The poetry club, which convened mostly on the upper deck of an Islamic bookshop, was called Night of Poetry, and it was a place to spot local literary stars. Some of the poets were veterans, while the others were corporates looking for safe outlets. Occasionally, there were odd-jobbers. They wore traditional garb and clothes with symbols. They came in costumes and they abandoned themselves to talk about secret topics like dating apps, body itch, and the likes.

 

A community library called Casual Poet Library also opened not too long ago in a sleepy neighbourhood in Bukit Merah. They were part of a wave of book clubs mushrooming across the country. Their collection was erratic, the perfect antithesis to national libraries and the Dewey system. The only book I borrowed, Minimalist Home: A Room-by-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life, gave me a domestic rather than literary impression as a writer, and it was soon overdue. A friend said that good writing speaks for itself, sometimes even better than the writer can. Another friend, who worked in the corporate world, gave me the reminder that, unfortunately, we almost always have to place our work somewhere, in a category. Forgot what the context of that conversation was. In most places, we have to place ourselves in a box that can be ticked.

            

Anyway, it was lovely how the Casual Poet Library boxed all their selected books according to personalities. In my defence, there was nothing wrong with building camaraderie around categories within the MBTI personality test or generational groups.

 

 

 

SCENE IV

 

I, myself, started off as a diary writer, and later a blogger when the blogosphere started to take off in the 90s. As a young child, I loved penning down my feelings about people in my pastel notebooks. I no longer have them, but I just know that if I were to read them now, I might cringe. In life, memories that are viewed in retrospect often appear good, even bad life experiences. Ironically, a really old piece of writing is always bad, if not outdated, to the writer.

 

But I soon learned to regulate my relationship with writing in university. In the heydays of university workshop writing, everything was cool. It was the first time that I had heard of writing and making art as work. I knew of it ambiguously before, but then it all became so real. Here was a place where you entered into the minds of Yeats, Carver, Cummings, and other greats. Writers crossed mediums to produce their work.

 

Poetry and Visual Art. Film and Poetry. Artist/Writer. Artist/Writer/Educator. Artist/Activist. Writer/Activist. There were endless permutations. Everything and anything could be a muse. There were sleepless nights working on manuscripts that may never be published. Some got lucky—they got out there into the wild world. I, myself, was paid to work with writers more famous than I. I think what I wanted was to feel like a writer. And eventually, I did.

 

 

 

SCENE V

 

Having reconnected with writer friends and getting to know new ones recently, I found out that my contemporaries have gone on to release their own anthologies and novels, but I, on the other hand, have produced most recently this (see picture below):

 

 

There were no concurrent publications with my by-line in that timeframe.

 

Was not a labour of love I expected. Still, it is my magnum opus. Induced labour. Guaranteed publication after hours of teleconferences and consults with healthcare professionals who were insistent from the get-go to misunderstand the idea of ‘A NATURAL BIRTH WITH NO INDUCING MEDICATION’.  

 

Indeed, many writers refer to their books and stories as their children and babies. Writers are, after all creators.

 

I still do not think people are born writers. An inspirational Instagram post said that habit is what drives writing. Not talent. Habit as in routine. Routine as in not really my routine because my life has to revolve somewhat around the baby’s now. I think people who call themselves writers get this.

 

 

 

SCENE VI

 

However, this is what they wrote to market me as a teacher at a writing school in my previous job. This was before the junior editor thing came knocking.
 
A Professional Biography of Me:

 

She is also an aspiring writer who has published numerous fiction stories. In 2015, she was mentored by local writer Alfian Sa’at under Singapore’s National Arts Council, which led to a reading of her original work at the Singapore Writer’s Festival stage.

 

ASPIRING.
ASPIRING.
ASPIRING.
ASPHYXIATION.

 

I could just die. I am no aspiring writer. Expired at times, maybe, but not aspiring! Whoever wrote this, where are they now?

 

 

 

SCENE VII

 

Well, here I am now. I made the rookie mistake of introducing myself as a short story writer to my colleagues earlier. Was it significant to the job? Would someone think there is some sort of conflict of interest? I am not as interested in the work as I am in the money which will fund my life. A life well-funded would mean taking a lift up in Maslow’s pyramid, which then means I can write as I wish.

 

Anyway, my gut is telling me that the introduction was probably unnecessary. Too personal, that bit of information. I could tell from how they responded. As it appears, the reaction of people hearing that you identify as a writer can be as unsettling as their lack of any self-identification.

 

“This is a different company,” I remind myself. “A job is a job.” I return to the letter.

 

The letter has taken me too far, it seems. It ends as it is supposed to, on a bleak and hopeless note:

 

…Apparently I was not a “good fit” for this company. All of this happened because I tried to be assertive by calling out the managers who never took their job seriously in verifying our timesheets, and the HR manager for being incredibly incompetent and only focusing on office politics and power tripping. They don’t care about your well-being, they don’t care about your feelings, they don’t care about you as a human. If you die today, they will replace you tomorrow immediately.

 

Little do they know, I will not die. Many great writers of the past have spoken of the immortality of a written body. My work is a thumbprint of me, and my time here at this office will serve in a continuum of the long line of junior editors past, present, and future.

 

I am yet another worker filling a vacancy, but there are words awaiting me to write and edit them.

 

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