What motivates Aiza to write
By Huang NingShan
Thousands of children across the world dream of being authors when they grow up. They aspire to be journalists, famous authors, or they simply like to write for fun, sometimes in secret. However, some are brave enough to share their stories with the world, such as Aiza Zahra Elmi Haryadi, 15, the winner of Brigitte Rozario’s 2024 Pipit Writing Competition.
After finding out about the competition one night in early August, Aiza entered the competition because she has always loved writing. She’s been writing since young, whether it was a page in her diary, a poem, or a story. But recently she hasn’t had the time or motivation to write.
Everything changed on the night she found out about the competition. She began brainstorming ideas immediately.
“This competition was perfect for me to kick things off again,” Aiza said, adding that she’s never entered writing competitions before but she’s very glad she did, as she enjoyed challenging herself to produce a story.
The hardest part, according to Aiza, was starting to write. She had the base of the story all laid out, but she was afraid the first sentence she wrote would be the wrong one. So, she delayed writing for a long time. However, as the due date approached, she had no choice but to start putting words down, trying to ensure she didn’t miss the deadline.

“I did get stuck at times because I decided to stress myself out by including a bunch of characters,” Aiza shared, admitting that she struggled to write the different characters, and she also had a hard time trying to make them not sound like each other. That’s understandable; if you had to write multiple different characters, wouldn’t you struggle too?
Aiza also shared how she chose the animals, saying she liked the city setting, so she decided to use animals which could be easily found on the streets. There was little to no research done because she wanted to showcase the cartoony side of the animals. Furthermore, her favourite part of writing the story was crafting the characters themselves. According to her, it was really fun making them unique in their own way.
“To every single one of those who supported me, I am very grateful,” Aiza said, adding that everyone around her would listen to her evolving ideas and give her feedback.
Onto the subject of winning, Aiza admitted that she still can’t believe she won the competition. In her words, she probably “started jumping higher than a basketball player” on hearing she had won. One of her major hobbies is reading, so winning RM600 worth of BookXcess book vouchers was definitely something to be excited about.
Aiza added that when she reads, she imagines the scenes playing out in her head like a movie. According to her, that’s why reading is fun. You can also cast the characters as anyone you want, and the drama and plot twists give you “your daily boost of serotonin”.
“It’s nice to try something new every now and then,” the winner of the Pipit competition revealed, saying that the first books on her list to buy were contemporary fiction books, after mainly reading fantasy.
Hopefully, this won’t be the last we hear from this young writer and aspiring veterinarian.