Author’s Words

Happy Chinese New Year! The loooooooong holidays stretches from 14th February 2010 to 28th February 2010; that is the end of the month!

This issue, I am going to focus on one thing: Passion. Many people have asked me what keeps the zeal in me on writing. My answer has always been the same: Passion. Without passion, everything we do will not be the best. Passion is what runs the engine within you: Without that drive, you will need to constantly push yourself to do the things you are doing… You should know how hard it is to push a car compared to driving a car!

Passion is what drives me to this career path. When I was young, at six years old, I bought a notepad that can write on one page and draw on another page. I wrote a detective story and forced my elder brother to read it. Like any other kids, I would draw the scene beside the words. Initially, it was just a short story; somehow, with my imaginative mind (I was only six!), the character that died came back to life a few times. The character never dies; so did my passion. I did not complete the story, but what matters most is that after throwing the notepads away, I bought new notepads. I never gave up even when my brother stopped reading them, because writing has become a passion.

I was thirteen years old when I tasted my first rejection. I completed my first novel, and together with my cousin, I sent the manuscript to almost all publishers in Singapore. All of them rejected me; with most of them citing the Asian Financial Crisis as the reason for not publishing my story. I was demoralized, but I kept on writing.

During that period of time, mIRC (an internet chat client) was as hot as Facebook and MSN Messenager now. I made an online friend; her nickname was Elf (thanks Elf, if you’re reading this!). I sent her the first chapter of a story that I had written, and she, upon reading it, requested for more. I had my first official reader who requested for my writing everyday. I felt a sense of achievement; everyday, I would rush home after school to write the next chapter. That is why now, even when I have a number of readers, I still hold on to this mindset: “I will keep on writing as long as I have one reader waiting for my next story, even if it means I have to starve.”

When I was seventeen, I published Destiny’s Cries and followed the routine path of consigning the book to bookstore. Apparently, I thought people will buy the books when it is shelved in bookstores: I was wrong. No one bought. No one knew who was Low Kay Hwa; My moral was pushed to the bottom of the pit. Just imagine this: You wrote a book, you expect people to buy all your books in the bookstores You did not expect zero sales!

I wrote I Believe You, even knowing that Destiny’s Cries was collecting dust in bookstores. Upon completion of I Believe You, I uploaded all the chapters to the internet (yeah, I know some of you must be cursing and swearing for spending $15.90 or RM 22.90 for a book that used to be uploaded entirely on the internet!) and was surprised to receive a number of emails, asking to buy the book. After printing the books myself, I started Goody Books (now incorporated as Goody Books Pte. Ltd.); and here we are now!

If you read through how many failures I have been through before reaching a stage whereby writing becomes a career, you will know only one thing drives me here: Passion. If I have ever lost a little of my passion, I will not be typing all these here now.

Some people say it is luck that brings in so many readers; some people say it is persistency. But no one ever tell me that it is my passion that brings me here. Luck is an external factor; persistency requires time and effort physically.

Passion: It is within you. Either you fire it up, or you let it fade off.

So, to all my readers: If you have something you want to do now, do you really think that luck, effort and time are the ingredients to your success?

Back