These words we write

Something not many know is that Ollie’s Diary began as a way to deal with grief.

For context, Ollie’s diary is a story published every other week in Little Stars, the children’s tabloid of The Sunday Morning. We published the first story three Augusts ago. We published the last story today.

But four Augusts ago, Calvin passed away and I was devastated. A few years before that, Calvin’s adventures came to life through A Diary of a Mischievous Cat, also published in Little Stars. We brought it to an end when I left The Sunday Morning to join Daily FT. In it, Calvin was Kat, Gingie was Ginger.

Ollie wasn’t part of the story because she was yet to join our family. Later, when I left Daily FT and joined The Daily Morning, I started writing for Little Stars again. And so, Ollie’s Diary began.

I remember talking to Kusumanjalee, the editor of Little Stars and my friend, about how I wanted to write about Calvin’s illness and death in a way that children could understand. I thought that easing them into heavy themes like illness and pain, death and loss could be done using characters like Ollie, Kat, and Ginger.

But as the story went on, I didn’t have the heart to do this. I wanted Kat’s character to always be part of these adventures. I didn’t want it to end.

But now it has. Of course, it’s not really an end because Ollie, Kat, and Ginger will have their adventures shared through books like Ollie Shoots for the Sun. But Ollie’s Diary has ended. Little Stars has ended. And with it also the one thing I held on to after leaving not just The Daily Morning but also print media last year.

I don’t know if other industries have the same effect on people, but there’s something about writing for a paper. It feels special, I suppose. Having your words up on a blog or any other digital platform doesn’t come close to that feeling.

So to lose that… well, it’s heartbreaking. It feels like I’ve lost a part of myself. And I don’t know if I’ve been holding on too tightly to these articles and stories. If I’ve been convincing myself I’m doing okay because I get to still write for a newspaper in some form, even if I’m no longer in the industry.

I don’t know how to end this post, so I think I’ll say this. For a long time, I thought creative writing wasn’t my thing. I loved writing stories in school and probably wanted to publish my work someday. But as an adult, I realised my writing lacked something.

Little Stars made me discover a love for writing children’s stories. It made me realise that children’s stories could deal with very serious and adult (and also personal) problems like unemployment, death, change, loss, grief. It made me realise that characters written for children can also reach adults.

It made me realise that words, written by humans, edited by humans, read by humans, are powerful and impactful.

 

So, during a time of newspapers shrinking and shutting down, of people calling themselves writers even when the actual writing is done by AI, of people moving away from the wonders contained in books, I hope that people keep writing and people keep reading and people keep falling in love with words and the stories we tell using them.