Getting My Article Published

It is the 28^th SEA Games and I love watching the events, especially the swimming finals. I used to watch the competition on television, and even go to swimming meets with my friend. Even though I was very keen on watching, it would be near impossible with very young kids.

It turned out that I was stuck at home with horribly infected feet with burns after putting medication on blisters which developed after walking to a clinic five minutes from my home. It had even resulted in an A&E visit, and it was excruciating pain as the nurse tried to remove the dead skin.

Hence, throughout most of the SEA Games, I was stuck at home, so I spent my evenings watching the swimming finals.

I had enjoyed watching the commentary provided by Gerald Koh and Mark Chay, as they gave me a greater insight into swimming. In the past, I had attended swimming meets with my friend, whom I had discovered enjoyed watching swimming competitions. In the past, I could only see them swim for a few seconds or a minute, and I had never thought about what swimmers had to go through and put in.

I had also enjoyed the time with Gar. Gar would sit beside me at night and watch the competitions together. He was very tickled by the backstrokers, whom he described as swimming backwards. Whenever the swimmers won gold medals, I would sing the Majulah Singapura, our national anthem,  during the award ceremonies and Gar learnt how to sing after a few times.  When I asked him what sport he would take part in, he mentioned that he would like to jump about.

A few nights later, I had inspiration so I typed out my article at 3am (couldn’t go back to sleep as the antibiotics were quite strong on my stomach) on my iPhone and emailed it to myself.  I have always wanted to be a published author, so I guess writing to the newspapers would be a great start.

The next morning, I tidied the article up and sent it to Today Voices, a forum for Today newspaper. I thought I would stand a higher chance getting my article published as the newspaper is owned by Mediacorp and I was writing about their programming.

I received an automated response to the article. They said they would contact me if they were to publish it.

I had expected my article to be published the next day, so I was disappointed when I did not see it. Perhaps I should just publish it on my Facebook feed instead.

I read the newspaper in the afternoon after I was back from my appointment with a podiatrist. I was reading, when I finally saw my article, Ex-swimmers add depth to commentary. It took up half a page of the tabloid, along with another article. There were minimal changes, and I presumed the editors found it easy to edit. I remembered when I was writing for a student paper when I was 14 years old, the editor mentioned that my articles were the easiest to edit, compared to the other cub reporters.

I was so excited! My writing is far from Pulitzer standard, but I just like to write. It is a good form of catharsis for me, and it was a good start.

A motivation speaker mentioned that to know what you are really passionate about, dig deep into what you were doing when you were 8 to 16. What do you like to do? What are you good at? I had been writing diary entries since I was 10 years old on paper, and then when I was 20, I started blogging. I guess some of my greatest joys come from writing. This is what I really want to do.

Sorry for the digression. On the same night, I was watching a Japanese drama starring Takuya Kimura. He had lost his memories and forgot why he had married his ex-wife. It was later revealed that he did not respect her dream. They met when she wanted to interview him. He married her to climb up the corporate ladder. He would demand her to get the household chores done, and would wonder why she would lose track of time, as she would always be working on her computer. When she had finally finished her book, she was so excited and she gave her husband her book to read. She was very disappointed when he used her book as a coaster, and her brief show of anger when she saw the coffee stains. I could empathize with her.

My husband did not show any excitement for me that my article was published. He even said that he knew I would be eager to write the next article, but said I had better do the household chores. I think he was quite frustrated with being sick as well, and without a helper to help with the chores, but I definitely felt my spirits dampened by his lack of enthusiasm.

I would still strive towards my dream of being a published author.