Do I really want to be a writer?

There are days when I sit down and the words just flow. And there are days like today.

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

I have often asked myself recently. Do I really want to be a writer? There are days when I sit down at the computer, and the words just flow.

And there are days like today.

I fret about everything but writing. The laundry needs doing. Dishwasher needs emptying. Even dishes need drying. Maybe I will get some groceries before I start. Read. Then read some more. Should I watch some YouTube for ideas? I will read some more.

I guess I am not a natural. It takes a tremendous effort to get started. Reading about successful writers can be discouraging. Why is it so hard for me?

I was a good storyteller

I didn’t always love reading. Growing up, when my classmates were into Enid Blyton and The Famous Five, I was playing hide-and-seek and “catching spiders.” I didn’t like the library, or books in particular. I mean, I didn’t hate it, but we didn’t have books in the house when we were growing up.

But I was a natural storyteller. As the eldest, I told stories to my siblings in the afternoon when my mother was busy preparing dinner. With a small blackboard and pieces of chalk, I would sit all 4 of us down and draw as I tell fantastic stories. Making it up in Teochew (our local Chinese dialect) as I go along.

There were monsters, special submarines, and giant snakes with laser beams. Godzilla was a popular guest. And the four of us were scientist-heroes fighting every imaginable evil to save the day. Along the way, there would be arguments and compromises:

“I don’t want the octopus-submarine. I want a shark-submarine!”
“Why can’t I have the laser cannon?”
“The elephant is wrong. Elephants don’t have spikes!”

And the days filled themselves with adventure and memories for all four of us.

(Our youngest sister haven’t arrived yet.)

I only read to impress the girls

It wasn’t until I was in college that I read my first book, cover to cover, and enjoyed it. It was my grandfather’s copy of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. It was an old, hardcover, early edition. I read it because… I want to be popular with the girls.

But I also discovered that reading wasn’t as tedious as I thought it would be. In fact, I quite enjoyed it. Some stories made me cry, like “The Key of the Kingdom” by A. J. Cronin and “The Cardinal” by Henry Morton Robinson. Or “Illusions” by Richard Bach, that set me on a path towards a spiritual life.

I read Ray Bradbury and Sidney Sheldon. I read C. S. Lewis and Alan Watts. Fiction and Non-Fiction. Trashy novels. Histories. Biographies. I even met Roald Dahl when he came for a book signing at Times Bookshop in Singapore. Thousands of his books sold out even before they arrived at the shop.

In fact, I loved reading so much that for my first job, I worked at the largest and busiest Times Bookshop in Singapore. As staff, we had unlimited access to books that you couldn’t find in libraries. New publications. Best-sellers. Fresh-from-the-press titles that the shop lets us borrow anytime we like.

It was there that the idea of being a writer first surfaced. Several of my colleagues in the bookshop were aspiring to be published. I could see how much money a best-selling title could make. And I dreamed of being a rich and famous writer.

But it was a chance encounter with an ex-classmate that set me on the path towards a writing career. He was a freelance copywriter.

What’s a copywriter?

I asked Keng.

“Oh. I write ads.” 
“What. Like…TV ads? Newspaper ads?”
“Yes.”
“And…freelance?”
“Freelancer. I work for myself,” he said.

He explained that he makes $300 per page of copy. 300 words. A dollar a word.

“How long do you take to do that?” I asked.
“A day or less.”

He described how the agency’s art director would come over to his house, and they would knock out an ad over a bottle of whiskey through the night. He would be half-drunk by early morning, but would still be paid double for overtime.

Oh wow.

Context: I was in retail, selling books, making $550 a month, working 6 days a week, including weekends, 8–10 hours a day. I barely had enough for the bus fare to go to work. This was 1993. And of course, I want to be a copywriter. A freelance copywriter.

“Hey, you should do it too! It’s not hard,” said Keng as he left.

So over the next year, I read everything I could get my hands on about copywriting. I read David Ogilvy. John Caples and Luke Sullivan. Jack Trout and Claude Hopkins. “The Secret of Successful Copywriting” by Patrick Quinn became my bible for a new career.

I am so going to be a rich and famous copywriter.

“The freelance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.”
— Robert Benchley

In 1997, I took a huge salary cut and landed a job as a copywriter in a small “Christian” ad agency. Until then, I had worked as a marketing executive at various companies and had written only occasional house ads. Unless I get a job as a real copywriter, there’s no chance of fame and fortune.

Working in an ad agency was inspiring and soul-crushing at the same time. I met the best and the worst people in my life. The politicking, the bullying, and the outright insults from bosses are mixed with kindness and moral support from colleagues. It was toxic and confusing.

To give you an idea of how weird it was, we had to gather in the conference room, hold hands, and pray before sending our boards off. Sending out our boards was when a client asked for a pitch, but did not want to take the time to listen to our pitch. So we spent days and nights preparing the ads (boards) and strategy papers, put them into a nice pack, and sent them off.

We prayed that our heavenly father would help us beat the competition and win the account. Things were not looking good, especially when you need divine intervention to win a pitch.

After 6 months, I was fired. They said that I wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t put in the hours. I was not a team player. I didn’t believe in God. But I suspected it was because we lost our biggest account at the start of the Asian Financial Crisis in early 1998.

I gave up copywriting completely and went to work “on the client-side,” as they say. It was considered “selling out” in the industry. The client-side was less stressful and paid better. There were other issues, but nothing I can’t fix over a cup of coffee in the nearby hawker centre. I had an illustrious career over the next decade. But I didn’t make my fortune through writing.

Now what?

In 2017, I made a drastic career switch and became a restaurant owner. It was a small restaurant and mostly a one-man show. By then, I had been away from writing for so long that I had difficulty using MS Word. I am writing this in Google Docs, by the way.

Over the years, my focus has been on serving authentic Singaporean food. Especially those I missed. It was fun and satisfying, but the food business paid little. I closed shop after 5 years and now find myself, once again, at the crossroads.

I am too young to retire, too old to return to corporate 9-to-5. I still have bills and mortgages to pay, but I also have enough stashed away for rainy days. I am looking for a career, maybe a second act, over the next decade or two. Should I become a writer? Do I really want to be a writer?

For me, this is a good place to find out. These are early days, and it’s just my second month of writing. It feels like a job at the moment, just without the paycheck. It will be some time before I can see a meaningful difference in my bank account. Hopefully not too long.

I have no illusions about becoming a celebrity writer or making thousands of dollars a month. Apparently, this is possible. I am happy for those who do, but I do not think I am such a writer yet. I will explore ways to sell my craft. I read today that ghost-writing is a thing.

“What’s a ghost-writer?”

You can make good money, it seems, writing vanity pieces for those who can’t. A dollar a word.

Maybe I’ll be a ghost-writer.

But for now, I enjoy the writing process as it is. Unlike copywriting, I write whatever I like. It has helped me revive old memories and learn new things. I can see my writing is improving, even if so very little at a time. I am getting more comfortable tackling the blank page and a blank mind.

And today may not be such a bad day after all.

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