I used to believe that too, until I achieved enlightenment under a Bodhi tree

… NOT! That’s just me goofing at Prambanan, Yogyakarta 🙂

Like a lot of starry-eyed aspiring writers, when I started out, I had my heart and mind set on becoming a specialist in food and travel writing, with the ultimate aim of breaking into a prestigious international publication like National Geographic or New York Times! I knew that you could make a lot more moolah doing corporate writing, but I was sure I could make a living without sacrificing my “artistic integrity”.

Six months into my job, I still couldn’t bump my income higher than the paltry RM400 that I’d gotten from my two articles a month. I had to face the facts. Starving artist only sounded romantic in books and movies. The reality was painful: like it or not, I would have to diversify my options if I wanted to put food on the table.

“Corporate writing is soul-sucking”? I’ve since changed my tune 🙂

As I realized in time, what suspense writer John Ling told me once a long time ago was true. Every kind of writing is rewarding, and I don’t mean only in the monetary sense.

Whether it’s novel-writing, journalism, or (sic) soul-sucking corporate writing, “There’s no inferior genre in writing, only an inferior writer.”

You can read the rest of the article in the scan 🙂