Your opinion matters - IMPORTANT!-

Ughhh...Life seems impeccable if there would be no problem aligning ahead. Keeping things straightforward, while Keeping Up with The Kardashians (ahaha), I should tell you that my first trial with this publishing house, ended up with an unpleasant note. So, hmmm..I don't have much words to say as obviously, as I was pretty worn out with the right gusto to write much longer. So, again, let's face it. Here it goes:

I have just read your submission. Judging from your writing. You still have a long way to go before this becomes a book. The two very basic precepts of storytelling apply.
1. Write about what you know
2. Show, don't tell. You have too much telling.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. Your writing chokes on it.
4. Avoid preaching to your readers. Nobody, least of all young adults, like to be preached to.
5. We prefer Malaysian stories about Malaysians in Malaysia.

-An Editor from A Company-

Yeah, that was how the email sounded, though literally, it wasn't making any voice.

I would love to give out some point of rebuttals for all the five items the guy had outlined in his reply to my submission, but for now, as it approaches maghrib now, I leave it that way. I have so many things to say, but, hmmm, well, let just keep it to myself first then.

So, I would love to hear from you! My friends! Your opinion matters a lot here. How you can help is just....click on the link below, read the google doc as it displays, and tell me what do you think.

And you should know me, that I am open for suggestions and critics as I am still learning this thing. I never write anything before, but somehow, this is my new found passion. So, okay..keep it short, read the preview of my book and please, comment, on anything, you think, could improve this writing!

Thanks. I went out camping because of this. Haha. I need a rest.

Everyone is welcomed. View the document here: Dead Cat for Zoey - Sample Writing

I Am A Dead Cat Yet I am Ignorant

There are things that we love to hear, we love to do, we love to watch, but when none is benefiting ourselves, none which are under the consideration of newfound strength for your faith and principles, let just put them as 'Nonsense' then.

For a record, they are lots of nonsense things I had been doing, no matter how old am I getting now. There are things that I hear, I love, I watch and laugh at, don't really agree with any of the values that I am wishing I could gain as the aftermath of doing any of those specific behaviors above. Yeah, for instance, I hear to Katy Perry, I love her, I watch her and laugh at her spoof and practical jokes, subscribe to her Twitter and stuff, but none of it, literally and logically, benefits myself and my long-kept principles. I am ignorant.

I know, it is for fun right? It is for stress relief and so forth, right? Well, I agree at some degrees but how much fun have we given up in life when compared to the time we have paid to our faith, to our God, our beloved mom and dad, and how long the laughter would last when compared to the endless sigh, breeding tears and distasteful wound that patches on every inch of the skins of people in Gaza.....I couldn't help but holding the same tears as I am groping for more words for this post. I am ignorant.

I never know that there were and are people out there who are still not getting the jokes of 'Why the chicken crosses the road' and 'A: Have you found God B: Owh, I don't know that he is missing..Ahaha', for instances, yes, they don't know how those supposedly to be a 'just kidding' thing, as what they know everyday is swallowing their hungry bellies with sands, as for rice with bullets as chicken thighs, and if lucky, they won't be hit by sporadic rifle attacks as they tried to filter a cup of water out of a muddy water well in front of the new 'Berlin Wall' of Israel, while I was tickling my stomach with those jokes with a jar of sweet ice lemon tea on my hand next to my laptop. From that moment, I know, I had been an ignorant again.

When she died seven years ago, and when her name was provoked and mentioned brutally again and again these past days, it struck me again that she was much better than the one who claims to embrace the same religion and professed the same God, which again, is me. And though she wasn't a believer, she had the faith that she shouldn't need to mention. She had died for her ignorance of her modern world or she had died for her ignorance-less of how could she shape the landscape of the never-ending war of the middle east. No. She had died because she had to care a lot, when people like me care a less. Again, I am ignorant. Thanks Rachel Corrie, for not being me. Your soul shall be raised among the righteous ones.

I hope I am living my past, so that my tomorrow would make me a new person. A person who cares. A person who hears. A person who loves. A person...of hating ignorance.

Sorry Katy,
Azrin Z.

P/S: This is the video of Rachel when she was in 5th grade. She said "I am here because I care". And I am sorry, I wasn't there....because I was less care.



She died at 23, on 2003, when protesting an IDF (Israel Defense Forces) bulldozer from raging a building unit in Palestine...seven years ago...if you still care...