To be honest, I've long had an idea of a book I've been dreaming to write - and it has the very things anonymous has been writing against. Strangely. I know it's such a cliche idea for anyone who's a wannabe writer, and it very often just stays an idea. So that's always frightened and made me ashamed from telling anyone I want to write a book.

I admit I never had the time for things like NaNoWriMo or some of the awesome activities Sharon Bakar's put up on her blog. I've always been too busy earning paychecks to maintain a living for my family and I; and chasing my career, which even then found me by accident. But there's always been a silent envious passion of wanting to be a part of the writing community, even if it's just to explore, try and fail.

Other colleague directors would find my lack of interest in collecting films or watching them peculiar. Even if I did pick a film or dvd to watch, it'd be one of those obscure foreign films my friends have never heard of. I'd rather sit at home and read a good book. At the bookstore, I'd pick out books written by Indian authors, or other Asian writers, who've won book prizes. It was my research into exploring what a book in an Asian setting could be about. We've been so inundated with Western writers and their stories injected pervasively into the media that we've drowned out our own culture. Our own creativity and passion to understand that our experience is richer than theirs.

I am amazed at the detail and clarity writers like Amitav Ghosh and Jhumpa Lahiri induces into their books. Their books The Glass Palace and The Namesake respectively are filled with adjectives and settings beyond what anyone is used to. I admire Ghosh's time spent on research just to describe each of his character's backgrounds and the settings in Myanmar. I want to learn from Lahiri's writing style; describing the little nuances and movements of a sari, and describing the lavish smells of curries seeping into a country alien to the Indian way of life.

I want to write like them. I want to return to my first passion, and write. And I will. So if anyone asks me again what I want to do with my life, that should be my answer, shouldn't it?