Haji dan Korban - Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia

information• Revising or rewritingmaterial• Preparing advertisingcopy and selling one’s workto publishers, advertisingagencies and publicationenterprises.when writing you are not just sharingyour thoughts but somehow guideothers. Others may sometimes relyon you to give them guidance andadvice based on story you havewritten.Sadly, not many parentsencourage their children to enter thefield of creative writing. Instead theyare pressurised to become engineers,doctors, lawyers and charteredaccountants because these, theybelieve, are the professions thatattract the big bucks. I rememberedone story that I watched long timeago about a frustrated young manwho had been rejected from hismarriage proposal over a girl justbecause he was a writer. The fatherof his beloved claimed that he couldnot sustain a family life just by writing.With an intentional heart and will, helater on became a very successfulwriter which then gave a sense ofregret to the father. We should neverunderestimate this job. We shouldby now realise that writing not onlyinvolves a man with a pen andpaper or perhaps nowadays a manwith a laptop, together with a story toshare, however it is more than that.Creative writing has a wide rangeof scope. One can be a journalist,an editor, a technical writer, a shortstory writer, a novelist, a playwrightand also a copywriter. All possibilitiesare endless. You can even be aninvestigative journalist who wouldwrite any news happened aroundyou without having to be tooimaginative. Those journalists merelyreporting reality events, written in anunconventional style which peopleread every day in the newspapers.Do all of these give you an idea onwhich writing job interests you more?Make a choice and off you go withit!Let me brief you some of theroutines that you may expect in yourdaily life as a writer.A writer’s work can include:• Creating original works e.g.:prose, poetry, song lyrics,plays etc• Proposing topics aboutwhich to write and receivingassignments• Gathering info about thetopic• Selecting and organizing thematerial he or she hasgathered• Using the written wordto express ideas and conveyAn editor’s work can include:• Reviewing, rewriting andediting the work of writers• Planning the content ofbooks, journals andmagazines• Deciding what material willappeal to readers• Reviewing and editingdrafts of books and articles• Offering comments toimprove the work• Suggesting possible titles• Overseeing the productionof publications• Reviewing book proposalsand deciding whether tobuy the publication rights.You may now know some ofthe nature of this job but may nowwonder if there is educationalrequirements for writers and editors.Nowadays, for your information,many employers prefer to hire writersand editors with a college degree,generally in communications,English or journalism. Employersmay require writers and editors whoare specialised in a particular fieldto have a degree in the field theyrequire and this is particularly true fortechnical writers.Just in case you want animmediate gratification, a writingor editing job with a small companyis right for you. You may have theopportunity to write and edit earlyon in your tenure. In larger firms,however, entry level writers andeditors generally begin by doingresearch, copy editing, or factCAHAYA | November-Disember 2009 19