1/8/12 HOW I STARTED TO WRITE.....

A reader asked me, how should he/she start to write? Quoted :(Very good blog! Do you have any hints for aspiring writers?
I'm planning to start my own site soon but I'm a little lost on everything. Would you recommend starting with a free platform like Wordpress or go for a paid option? There are so many options out there that I'm totally overwhelmed .. Any tips? Thanks a lot! ) Actually, I'm not a writer yet. I just write and keep practice writing. In deed I'm now very happy since I could see MyBlog is being access by not only locals but readers from abroad. I write to kill the thirst of knowledge that we are greatly experiencing now. And to answer this young guy new coming writer as he/she called himself/herself, let me just narrate to you how I started.

(2) First, I love poem. Since I was in my Lower Secondary level (age 15 years) I love to read and tried to write poem. May be it was Allah gift to me as now I found out among those Muhammad SAW disciples, all of them love poetry. Except for Muhammad SAW since he was an illiterate, he knew nothing about reading and writing. He never have the ability to even recite a poem. In fact, Al Quran is a language of beautifully worded knowledge. In the past, anything that were beautifully worded, were poem or poet. Is is of Allah the Most Knowledgeable that if Muhammad SAW was among the literate and poetry lovers, definitely he will have great difficulties to convince the apostle Arab that the Al Quran are the words of Allah not him.

(3) MyBlog evolved from MyFlickr. In those photoes, I wrote simple and sometimes hard poem, which end with lots of critics and I need to explain. Both my friend Busrah Bujang and Omarali then helped me to develop MyBlog template. The rest then were history. In fact I'm looking to have my own WebPage since such platform would give me better illustration maneuvouring.

(3) To understand poem is not easy. Try to read those saying by A Samad Ismail, surely most will just dumb his writing aside. Poem or poetry are illusive, abstract, metaphoric, instinctive, and even a crack, but there are beautiful in their own sense. Even if one listen to the songs by the Indonesian Musical Bands such as Petter Pan, Wali, Unggu, etc one can appreciate the beautiful well organize lyric. Locally personalities such as M Nasir, Zubir Ali, and even Sudirman Hj Arshad have such caliber to send beautiful message through their songs. I quote a song by PeterPan, title Walau Habis Terang, which says:

ku terbiasa tersenyum tenang
walau...hatiku menangis
kaulah cerita tertulis dengan pasti
selamanya dalam fikiranku

peluk tubuhku untuk sejenak
dan biarkan kita memudar dengan pasti
biar semua seperti seharusnya
tak akan pernah menjadi milikku
berjalanlah walau habis terang
ambil cahaya cintaku terangi jalananmu

di antara beribu lainnya
kau tetap, kau tetap, kau tetap
benderang....

(4) In a simple word, the first para portrayed, Ariel the composer, had gave up in his chase, and in the second para he just want to say goodbye, yet in the last para he just want to swear, he will never forget. In another word, what I want to say, I firstly practice to read and understand people thinking or messages from their words, body language, environ setting. Self practice to be critical minded person. Mind you, prophet Moses, David, Abraham, Yusuf and surely Muhammad SAW they were great because they use to have self-critical mind. The same with big scholars such as Shafiee, Bukhari, Muslim, Hambali, and Hanafi. I see poem could teach me to read and feel better understanding of lots of lives matters. I believe Abu Bakar As-Sidique, Umar Al-Khatab and Ali Abi Thaalib as well as Khalid Al-Waleed they understand the Quran better because they love poetry and they can even recite beautiful poetry to keep their subjects attentive and understand the elaboration of the meaning of the Quranic verses. Persons who are great in poem or poetry, they have calculative, concise, and sharp mind. Everybody can have such talent by mean of great interest and thorough practicing.

(5) Secondly I read a lots. I read all those writing in the papers, magazines, journal, books, anything. I read broad based subjects. I challenge myself to be equal if not better than those I found were great. I just keep telling myself if others can be knowledgeable, why not me. I just want to be as intelligent and smart as others. What wrong to compete with Dr. Mahathir in term of knowledge? Basically I always envy smart and sharp mind people. I studied their way of facts and arguments presentation. I always believe, the trust on us is all about fact marketing.

(6) One writing or presentation would be far excellent if one grasp the real ground situation of the matters. For example, Muhammad SAW, and even Abu Bakar As-Siddique, Umar Al-Khattab, and Utham Affan knew how to plan and direct precise war strategies in Sham (Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria) and Persian (Iraq), though they were faraway at the Headquarter in Madinah, were all because they used to trade in those regions and they were very well verse of the region. According they knew the culture and spirit of their solders, thus they knew which verses of the Quran that they could recite so that they love death more than lives as compared to the Roam nad Persian generals and armies who love lives more than death.

(7) One's ground knowledge is much sustain in one mind. The Malays' proverb: Tempat jatuh lagi dikenang, inikan pula tempat bermain justified my statement. So good to travel as much as possible to see, hear, touch, and taste and based on one reading, other experiences, than one should made one's critical judgement or notion of what one's saw, heard, touched and ate. Than write, read, write, read, write, read, write.....and read to see if what we had written, as a reader, did we understand what we had written. Never behave as a writer when we review our own writing, we must look at our writing from a reader perspective. We write for others to understand. We don't write for ourselves. We are not taking lecture notes anymore! In this photo, what do you see, what do you feel? Won't you not waht to find the truth? If you are clear with all the fact, can't you then not able to describe his true life?

(8) Last but not least, always say: Bismillah before we read, write or even see, hear, touch, and taste. What I want to say, I don't write and read for money. I just want to share my knowledge, experience and thinking. I'm not interested with too much money.

(9) But mind you, I compose my writing while for instance stopping at a Traffic Light, while showering but never during easing, on my way to sleep, talking or having discussion with anybody, etc which, basically I keep my mind to think and think and think and think and think. Must always think. Then I write for others to benefit. At least, as the Quran saying, I want to correct matters with my tongue since I have limitation to do it with my hands.

Kuching, Sarawak
1 August, 2012