If not for my English teacher at the time, I would’ve never heard of the competition, let alone participated. What I ended up writing was a story with a mixture of the first and third prompts.

My thought process was leaning towards the Mars Room being a punishment for stealing the parakeets, which must have been a pretty serious crime. In our world, parakeets aren’t valuable, so I started to delve into a distant world, where those hundred parakeets are the only parakeets on the planet. Then came the motivation of the characters, and I immediately thought of poverty, a setting similar to the favelas in Brazil. This train of thought really summarises my ‘planning’ for writing for this story. To be honest, I never planned the stories I wrote. I used to come up with an idea, write with the flow and fix the holes along the way, which obviously wasn’t sustainable for long-term writing. The day I submitted my story, I was not expecting to hear back and thought that it would be the end of it.

When I did hear back, I was honestly confused. My English teacher presented me with a letter stating that I was invited to the Junior Academy Workshop, and I was a finalist out of a thousand submissions. Although I didn’t win, this was the first time that writing had felt rewarding to me. I had no knowledge of the Literary Arts programme, so I decided to give it a shot. I remember I met the author of ‘The Diary of Amos Lee’ at the workshop. It was quite exciting to have an author of a famous book answering our questions about writing. This experience left quite a big impression on me as I realised that being a student in SOTA as a Literary Arts student meant having more learning opportunities to learn how to be a better writer.

Safe to say, this increased my interest in applying to SOTA, so I attended the SOTA Open House, learnt more about the course, and how I would be able to expand my horizon in the different forms of writing. Since then, I have gone through two whole years of the Literary Arts programme here at SOTA and ventured into many writing modules, including playwriting, one-shot comic and short fiction.

Out of all my works thus far, I am proudest of my Reportage assignment that I did in my second year. It was challenging, since I had to learn the format of feature articles which I had barely had any exposure to. On top of that, it had to be based on a myth of our choice, from any culture. As mentioned earlier, I have always had a love for myths, be it Western or Eastern mythology. In the end, I decided to write about Medusa.

Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking: but Greek mythology is so basic! To me, Greek mythology was the spark that ignited my pursuit of writing, the same way the godly fire Prometheus gave man accelerated civilisation.The story of Medusa itself was intriguing, especially the fact that she was a victim and somehow morphed into a monster. With this myth, I would be able to include my own opinions and morals into this piece by challenging the reader to adopt a more empathetic view on Medusa as opposed to how she has been portrayed for the longest time. The road was bumpy, with endless feedback from my friends and teachers and I’d like to think that it helped polish the final product.

So far, the unique LA SOTA experience has been very rewarding, as I wouldn’t have come this far without the encouraging environment of my teachers and friends to pursue the arts. I’ve made so many close friends and learnt lessons about writing that I will carry with me to my future. The lessons learnt can be applied to many things, no matter if you decide to switch career paths in your future. If there is anything you need help with, your friends and seniors will be there to guide you along the way!