Mostly Perfect Ten
Hey, look at that! I’m back and it didn’t take me three whole months this time. I hit quite the milestone last week, by the way, and I’ll talk about that later, but first…
Support my work
Work-Life Balance – a multiple award-winning prose/comics hybrid co-created with Benjamin Chee
Worlds Apart: A Conversation About Mental Health – a comic co-created with Nurjannah Suhaimi
HANTU – Spotify channel for the narrative series, Ghost Maps, and the talk show, Dead Air, both of which were co-created with Kyle Ong
Tales From Incredible Tales – a show by Kyle and I, looking back on the cult classic horror series, Incredible Tales
Stiff competition
Work-Life Balance did not take home the trophy for the Singapore Literature Prize’s Comics and Graphic Novel category.
That said, the winner, kenfoo, gave a brief, but beautiful speech, about how hard work and dedication could—and should—be rewarded, which is just one more reason why his brilliantly named book, Cockman, won.
Also, my fit for the SLP ceremony was fucking fire, so really, there were plenty of reasons to party.
However…
Ghost Maps, on the other hand, did take home the award for Best Fictional Podcast: Indie at the 2024 Asia Podcast Awards.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: as much as Ghost Maps is a collaborative process between Kyle, myself and our narrator (along with our art director, Joline), Kyle deserves the lion’s share of praise for its success.
He’s the one who came up with the initial concept. He’s the one who constantly refines its social media presence to ensure that it reaches the right kind of listeners. And he’s the one who’s parlayed Ghost Maps into even more opportunities for us, like Tales From Incredible Tales.
This isn’t me trying to be all humble. I’m proud of the work I’ve put into making our show now a multiple award-winning series. But, as far as I’m concerned, you cannot celebrate Ghost Maps without celebrating Kyle.
Tiny anniversary
A week ago, my first book, Tales From a Tiny Room, turned ten years old.
I've spoken about my complicated feelings towards it before, but for anyone who missed that edition, here are the highlights:
It's a problem I imagine most writers have—not wanting to relook at their earlier work. The thing is, because of who published Tiny Room, it's added another layer of complexity with how I look at it. I won't get into the details. [...] I will say that what happened tainted the book completely for me. [...]
In the time since, however, a few books from that publisher have been reprinted by other people, and it's got me thinking about Tiny Room again. I don't know if I'll ever give even some of those stories a new home. [...] At the very least though, I think I'm done letting that book be soiled by the actions of another person.
Since then, I've grown more comfortable with the book. I've also found a couple of spare copies while moving and been selling them via social media, with all proceeds going to Love Aid SG or a charity of your choice that helps the Palestinian people.
(Reply to this email if you want one. I've still got a copy of the first printing for just SG$30.)
Today, however, I want to talk about what it feels like to have been an author for ten years.
Weird, mostly.
(I kid.)
It’s actually great that I’m speaking about this after the SLP ceremony because it got me to really take stock of everything. All those years ago, I never thought that I’d ever get a book published. After Tiny Room hit the shelves, I never thought anybody would even read it. Enough people did though to warrant a second printing.
Still, I never thought that I’d receive any kind of acclaim or accolades for my work, but then Work-Life Balance was named Best Literary Work and Book of the Year at the 2023 Singapore Book Awards.
And now I’m working on a novel practically full-time: yet another thing I never thought would happen.
How’s it really feel to have been an author for ten years? I feel lucky. Of course there were too-long periods of doubt and too many generally shitty spells along the way. Of course I’ve thought about just giving up and sticking with the “easier” path, like a career in advertising.
But more often than not, I’ve had an amazing decade filled with successes, learning opportunities, and growth. And as awesome as it feels to win awards, I hope I’ll never need a trophy to remember that.
A novel blog
I’ve created a blog dedicated to my novel’s journey.
Initially, I was thinking that a blog could help reduce the amount of stuff I pack into my more eventful editions of the newsletter (like this one), but then I realised that writing a post at least once a week really helps with my process. A kind of decompression after those particularly difficult or productive days.
I’ll plonk all new posts in every edition, like so...
Greedy monster
And that’s that
I held off sending out this edition till today because I wanted to wait till after the SLP ceremony. I’m thinking I might send out all new editions on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month instead from here on out.
As always, don’t forget to support my work.
And I’ll see you in two weeks.