Marsha Maung: Write. Cook. Read. Watch. Try. Innovate.

c Happy birthday to me,  Happy birthday to me,  Happy birthday to meeeeee..., Happy birthday to me! Technically, it’s past 12am and it’s my birthday now and I’ve crossed a major milestone in my life, age-wise. Le sigh....there’s no stopping time. The more birthdays you celebrate, the more depressing and desperate you get . Did not do anything much. We ate lunch at the nearby restaurant, a simple meal; then splurged like mad at Daorae , a Korean BBQ restaurant. Spent an insane amount of money on the good food but it was crazy good and we almost exploded.   Been watching past Running Man episodes like a mad person these few days but only the ones with Gary in it. For some reason, I have a strange liking for his honest but weird behavior. Nothing to do with the Monday Couple gimmick. Anyway, as far as birthdays go, I’ve said before that today, my XXth birthday, might turn out to be my turning point . No, I want it to be so . Honestly, I have been on sabbatical because I felt...

Sunset in Port Dickson It's been some time since I added anything new to this blog. So sad. Things have definitely changed by leaps and bounds since the pandemic hit us. Furthermore, my boys became adults during the pandemic and everyone now knows the difficulties and challenges of working from home.  Before that, it was just a bunch of us trying to convince the rest of the world that we're really working.  via GIPHY So, now I would like to spend some time reminiscing about what I missed..in general, not just post-pandemic.  Girly Stuff I have, for most of my life, tried to raise my boys (no girls in this family except for me - LOL) and at some points, I found it absolutely baffling when I could not understand men. I think it goes both ways when my woman-personality comes through and they're left 😟😂.  In exchange for raising men, I miss quite a few girly stuff. I miss painting my face and fingernails as cumbersome as I think they are. I miss talking to people about...

It's funny how when you're not really thinking and then something sort of goes off in your head and you KNOW it's something. You can't put your finger on it and if someone asked you to explain what it was, you'd probably shrug it off. But it's these little things that can bring about unexpected things. I just started off a new website , in case I've not announced it, and I was just scrolling through Linkedin (as usual, being careful not to click on anything too political or religious, it's LINKEDIN, for crissakes, right?), when a gong went off in my head. I REALLY liked this post, this girl and what she's doing. I want to write about it. No, I will . And that was how it started. You can read about it here on the website . But for a barely-a-month-old website, it experienced a sudden jump in visits because of how much people can relate to not just Ruchika Pandey whom I wrote about, but also me who just pounced on it. At last count, the pos...

When the alarm does go off, get up and prepare for your day as you would for an office job: take a shower, and get dressed - New York Times Whenever I tell someone that I work from home, or am a freelancer, I almost-never fail to get envious sighs from them. A sigh, especially from a very tired working mom or dad, that tells me that, perhaps, they wish they were in my shoes. While I also point out the perks of working outside of a home, I DO concede that there ARE benefits to working from home. Working out of your jammies, so to speak. I remember the days when I would:-:- cook and work at the same time breastfeed while making phone calls or answering emails (rewind 15+ years ago) walk out of the house with paper clips in my hair (because really, who has time for pretty little Hello Kitty hair clips when you're harried) get no proper sleep all day, every day and apparently a real Living Dead thought that I could master everything on my own go berserk at the smallest thing...

The road, or rather, the journey towards full-time freelancing was not an easy one. It is something that I continue to be amazed about...myself. Remember, I did this during the early days of the internet when even 'telecommuting' was often met with 'Are you nuts?!' My grandmother asked me to get a REAL job, my family wasn't happy that I have wasted three years worth of law degree and I was facing a financial and parenting crisis. I mean, come to think of, I really had the balls to do it when I was a brand new mother with an extra mouth to feed, eh? I can guffaw my way through now....it wasn't funny back then. LOL. I've friends who passionately expressed their wish to freelance and asked me how to go about doing it. I will peel it all down into a few things:- Networking Freelancing means you are in it on your own now. You will need to be sociable and sell yourself often. Pimp yourself or get someone to pimp for you. Loads of it. Yes, freelancing is all...

Most writers will not hesitate to define themselves as creators of the articles or blog posts that they have written; although I would love to consider myself the creator of this article, the truth is that it was inspired by another article written by another writer. So, in this respect, am I still the creator of this article, since it is sort of modified to sound like me and written with different words? Writers and bloggers alike will not hesitate to agree with me when I say coming up with something completely original to write about is just about the most amazingly painful thing to do on your off days. That is how some writers or bloggers stop doing what they like to do. Their well have run dry or they have received too many negative feedback from people (who have nothing better to do than to ruin other people’s day) who read them. Things like that happen all the time, trust me, but I am one of the few who prefer to bulldoze my way through. Thankfully. Otherwise, I would be a par...

Not everyone understands that Twittering, tweeting or twitting or whatever is a type of blogging. It's called micro-blogging because you continue to say what you want to say but in micro-style. Long, long, long, long, long time ago, I used to spend a lot of time thinking of things to say/write in my blog and most of them are well-thought-out stuff that crossed my mind. It was a hobby that I relished because it was fun and I didn't have to care about what people said....well, mainly because not a lot of people were online then. Hey, we're talking about 12 years ago, alright? Anyway, today, everyone's online. I've got my nieces and my kids online too and I have to be more careful about what I say online. The only other person who is not online is my dad who pretends to be an online kind of person by checking emails and having a Facebook account that does not have a profile picture and an account he does not update. Tweeting has actually hurt the way I blog becau...

Don't worry too much about criticism. It builds character. I used to beat myself over the head all the time whenever someone thought badly about what I was doing or did. Here are the type of thoughts that enters my head whenever someone said something bad about me (or something even REMOTELY bad or just something that is not COMPLETELY positive) 'I am not good enough', 'I am terrible at this', 'OK, Great. Now, everyone hates me' or 'Gee thanks, that was a lot of help!' But here's the thing about criticism that I have not learned from my parents, not learned from my friends but I have learned about accepting cricticism through my business. Hey, bad things happen, alright? No matter how good a freelance writer or online social networking consultant I think I am, there are bad hair days that turns into bad mood days which, in turn, turns into just BAD DAYS. And on those bad days, I can't perform.    Woman Bad Hair Day Ima...

I just want to leave something with you today. Look, Nanowrimo is coming up again...it's November. For those of you who have been dreaming about coming up with a novel or write a book, here's your chance to challenge yourself. You are given one whole month.....to write....and complete....50,000 words. OH MY GOD!!! That's impossible!! You're ape, you're crazy, you're out of your f-cking mind! No, it's not. I've done it before while whacking out article after article after article and it got completed. I finished and I am still alive. Anyway, all it takes is a constant reminder that we can do it if we want it bad enough. If we see it in our heads that it is happening and we continue working towards that goal no matter how fruitless we think it to be....it will happen. Simply because we want it to happen. I'll leave all the deep stuff to some people here who explained 'The Secret'. At the end of the day, thoughts become reality. For mo...

Image credit Ever since I was a young girl, I knew I was built to be a human antenna. I receive signals very easily. I prefer this word to the word 'sensitive' because when you say someone is sensitive, they see you as someone who gets hurt when you tell them that their ears stick out. Mine does, so don't tell me that. I deliver sucker punches. Anyway, as a kid, you're a bigger antenna than when you're bigger because you're grown-up, you can't act like a kid who kicks people in the b-lls when they tell you the truth. You learn that the truth builds your character and you become better. But this doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt, of course, it does....just that, the reaction is a little different now that you're an ADULT. A friend of mine asked me a few months back, 'Why does everyone's problem has to be your problem?' Here it is....in its full glory, I'm a human antenna. I absorb feelings and emotions very easily. If you hav...

Life is a whirlwind for a freelance mother...hang on, that doesn't sound right....a mother who is a freelancing writer....ah, that's much better! Sometimes, you're trying to hang on to a single thread of sanity while trying to beat the clock at its own game. The clock, in my personal opinion is not only my personal enemy, but it makes every second that passes me by a blur.  It's ten o'clock before it's supposed to be ten o'clock! And by the time you shower, it's time to sleep because you've got to wake the kids up for school tomorrow. There's also the consistent worry about whether the supply of shampoo has run out, whether you've missed a meeting with a teacher while trying to get your act together.  It's tough . Sometimes I wonder what was the main purpose of working from home was. I question myself and the answer always comes in a timely manner.... .... laughter from the other room.  In the chaos of everyday life, laughter from t...

In my line of work, there's a lot of testing and trying of everything new in the market. Recently discovered www.openzine.com through Twitter. Two brothers started the website up to help others publish their own ezines. The concept is nothing too new because it's a combination of ezinearticles, blog, facebook and twitter.  I've just published my first Openzine. www.openzine.com/them . Go check it out!!! Sorry it's a little shoddy but I won't apologize for that cheeky picture I posted up. I have a set of photos that use and currently, that's the image that I want to adopt. Not very Hannah Montana, I have to admit but I don't fancy her, anyway. Bah! Publication of pictures and images are easy but for newbies, you might find it a little hard to navigate. I had a little bit of trouble trying to find where things are. I would say that you might need a couple of days trying to find where everything is and sometimes you would sit there wondering where your ma...

My biggest fault: LEARNING HOW TO SAY 'NO' Bumming around and came to this article , WORD TO THE WISE: Know when to say no. People who launch start-ups are often go-getters who take on more and more work. But you can burn out really fast that way. While I love what I do, I'm not in business for myself to work seven days a week, 15 hours a day. I remind myself to set limits. I should have read this sooner. The biggest problem with me is that I don't know how to say 'no' and when I do, I really mean 'I AM GOING TO LEAP OFF A BUILDING SOON'. Come to think of it, this shouldn't be the way it's done. If you're planning to start your own business, considering the unemployment rate at this moment, heed this advice. Learn to set your own limits and build the business around yourself...and not the profit.

I got new icons for the services that I have to offer through my website! Been thinking and thinking...then thonking, thonking about it for such a long time and just NEVER MADE TIME for it! In my industry, word is everything but recently, I was working a website for a client of mine and his brother reminded me that despite the fact that I am a freelance writer and it's always about words, words, words and more words with me, I need to spruce it up with a couple of images to 'pretty things up'.....just a little wee bit. I agreed....so.....force myself to sit down and think of some nice little icons to make for my freelance writing and search engine optimization services and TADA!!!!! SEO article writing services - writing for the purpose of search engine marketing and optimization mah. Search engine use spiders mah....so, spider lah in replacement of the 'o' for SEO. Cute spider or not? Surprisingly, not very hard to illustrate this spider. *yawn yawn yawn* We...

No one, not a single person, can become BIG walking alone. This is something that I have to keep reminding myself. Delegating , for people who know me or have worked with me before, is not one of my stronger points. But eh, cannot blame me, right? I’ve been freelancing for a long time liao – this means, everything I phow-ka-liao (packaged) mah. So, it’s normal for me to feel so apprehensive and distrustful over other people’s skill-set. Nevertheless, in order for me to grow, I have to learn how to do that. I’ve been yearning to grow bigger and better with my career and I see incredible opportunity and there are opportunities everywhere for me because my business is literally boundary-less. If US cannot, I target London, if London cannot, I go Australia, if Australia cannot, I go Hong Kong, etc. You get the picture. And I don't even need AirAsia punya low-cost ticket. Don't even need to move my sorry ass. Yet, I’ve said ‘ no, I don’t have tim e’ so many times already….a...

Says who? I am deeply, deeply, gravely offended that as a freelance writer who has published countless, COUNTLESS articles on reputable websites, blogs and online ezines that I may be denied the right to consider myself a 'writer'. So who are these people who claim that people who write on the Internet are not real writers? Established authors? Some kind of writing association? Perhaps some kind of International authority on writing and publishing? Do you know how hard it is for people to get published? You don’t? Try giving it fifteen years…well, unless you’re lucky or willing to pay a really good literary agent to get your book into a publisher’s door. Otherwise, it all ends up in a ceiling-high pile that is destined for the trash can. True, there are too many writers on the Internet today. Even students or people who can’t string two words together can call themselves a ‘writer’ these days. But if you look hard enough, you’ll eventually find one that counts for something....

OK, I'll admit this. I am desperate to get published! No-lah, not me being published but all those stories that I have in my head, all those half-written stuff that I abandoned. Some of them are good, some suck to high heaven. I want to get them one by one, published. I recently published a short-short story via amazon's self-publishing engine and I gotta say that although it's bloody expensive to order a proof of the book, the quality is pretty good. And it's just too neat to see your name in print....only thing is that I signed it off as 'marshamaung' (as in my username) instead of my name, albeit Marsha Maung. If you're looking to publish something for your own enjoyment or stroke your own ego, you can go this way. So, here I am, addicted . I have this one book that I managed to drag to about 77,000 words now, right? So, I am thinking that this should be something that I finish because 77,000 words is not easy to come by, you know!! So, I start sendi...

Many parents should mortgage, re-mortgage and sell of properties just to get their kids through college. My parents did the same thing and in exchange for a law degree. With that, it’s natural for them to expect me to make something out of it. Hence, when I pounced on them with the news that “I am going to write for a living…on the Internet…not with a magazine, not with a newspaper, not with a renowned financial or law journal…but on the Internet”, my parents cried themselves to sleep every night for months on end. It’s natural for people to think that creative people are bound for the less-trodden hard-traveled road of poverty. Writing is a passion, as with acting, singing and painting. You’ll never and should never (according to some obscure, source-unknown folklore out there…it’s the X-files we’re talking about there) expect immediate return. If your writing brings you financial security, you better start thanking your lucky stars! Continue reading (Marshamaung.com - New Window)

46,189…that’s the number of words on last count. Gosh, I thought I would have reached at least a gazzilion words by now!!! And I am having this thing with halting my writing for fear that it sounds, reads, looks, imagina-ted weird. Oh, did I tell you already? Well, apparently not. You see, on my computer, there’s this secret folder protected by some obscure password that only I can access. Inside this folder lies, on last count, 60+ files and inside these files lies skeletons. Hee hee….got ya there. Skeletons as in skeletons of a book lah! I don’t know about you but even when I have to write a short article or press release, I make it a habit to map it out with a skeleton, albeit in point form. Using this point form as a guidance, I would then flesh out the article. In this case, the skeletons in the secret folder are skeletons of unfinished books that I chickened out of, got bored of, thought nothing of or thought was complete rubbish. One sunny Sunday afternoon, after feeding my ...

I started my writing career on freelance with sites like www.getafreelancer.com . If eBay was the site people went to for cheap stuff, then www.getafreelancer.com is the site people went to for cheap services. That’s how started my career as a freelance writer….producing really cheap writing materials. There was one time I wrote 100-word articles for about less than $1 a pop! No seriously. But the competition on the freelance writing world is tough…being that there are a lot of adequate writers in this world with a little bit of talent, who can whip out a decent article with a decent number of words, laced with keywords (splattered is more the word) in this world. Particularly countries like India where there are, admittedly, more talents than others….really cheap ones. I’ve long abandoned my account with Getafreelancer because I started to have a client base and I focused more on quality these days. But I got curious, one day, and I went back in and took a look at the kind of proj...