Rewrite the Stars

Acknowledgments

I never thought what a silly English assignment can do such extreme yet great lengths to my writing. In all truth, I never thought this silly prompt could have landed me a second place in a writing competition within my small state and won the hearts of the judges of Univeristy Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS).

To Mr. Preston Jimbun, thank you for teaching me and being the coolest teacher I've ever had. Truth be told, I've never came to met with anyone as chill as he is and he's a goddamn English teacher. With his lessons, he teaches me something new and refreshing about the world. He makes me learn every day. I would have never submitted this prompt if I had been aware of the competition. I was extremely and hopelessly clueless and I thought my prompts were another one of his essay assignments. Thank you for pushing me to my potential, sir.

To my overly-imaginative best friend, Philadelphia Elisa for making my prompt stand out from the rest. In all my experience, authors need inspiration and she's the inspiration behind my story. I believe with all my heart the greatest stories are always written with great minds alike working together. I'm a believer in feminism and woman's empowerment, and I never thought once at all about making Abel having a local and typical Malaysian as her love interest. It was genius to add Arui into the picture because not only he captured the true essence of Malaysians but he's one to show what's pride, decorum and patriotism for our country. It's one of the message I wanted to be clear with the generation. She's also the one to name Abel's love as Arui because she has a nephew with the same name.

To my pushy with a devilish spark of a friend, Nabihah Ali, thank you for your constant keen feedbacks on my general writing. She knows I'm a writer and she continues to support whatever I write. A year ago, she was the strongest shipper for the Liam and Helena boat. Now she just booked herself on the Arui and Abel ship. It was incredibly genius for her to make a suggestion that I should be making more and more challenging things on Abel's bucket list. I rarely watch good movies and my ideas usually end up being midway great. With Nabihah, she adds a bit of realism yet a satisfying melancholy.

To real life people inspirations, Megan Finley, Annamaria Holek, Ashley Esther Holek and my newfound friends of exchange students from Kuala Lumpur's very own Victoria Institution,  Shahir Amri, Haziq Danish and Syed Farriz. Thank you for existing in my life and making yourself a part of my novel.

To my greatest readers with a high dose of emotional breakdowns to emotionally provoking books, Dida Ammirun, Angellin Ginam, Bari'ah Hamzah, Alisa Syazliana and Armia Fikriyah. Thank you for reading my junk. In all honesty, I think I would have never been this eager to prove my writing's worth without your eye for the potential I had within myself. Thank you for seeing something in me that I haven't realized and shamelessly I needed to take about three years later after a fling of my fiction when I wrote at eleven years old to discover that.

Thank you, again!

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L A S T  E P I G R A P H

"Don't ask what the country can do for you but ask yourself: What can you do for your country?"