(1212) A Lifetime of writing

If I had accepted the high school- college scholarship, I definitely would not be here today. I would be exclusively Mandarin speaking. At age 13 when I joined a Malay school, I could not speak English, neither could I speak Malay. It was very difficult to overcome the language barrier.

I came from a poor family, at a very young age I was enterprising enough to sell articles to Chinese newspapers and magazines. At first I was paid in stamps, which I would use to write to pen friends outside of Malaysia. Later as the articles became longer, postal orders were used. The most I was paid for a single story was to Reader's Digest All in A Day's Work at US$30, it was a joke with a 63 word count.

Eight years after my first offer, I did accept an offer to study in Virginia, USA. It was not for writing. I was selected for being good in all three branches of Science and Mathematics. Of course being able to write well helped tremendously in the selection essays or statement of purpose.

In the university, I had to fulfil requirements. In year two I took a second level writing course and chose to write a term paper on my maternal grandma's biography. In year three I could not find anything I like and ended up with an independent study writing Chinese folk tales with my writing instructor. My instructor happened to be a professional copy-editor, she was surprised that as a foreign student I could produce work on par with publishable manuscript. She made me promise I would hold on to the eight folk tales and not throw them away. I actually brought it back from Texas both in diskette and in printed forms.

Thirty six years passed by. I still write almost daily, in my journals, letters, notes, e-mails, ... Then when my children showed me what a nifty way it is to store things on line, I started blogging. In no time was I convinced to publish my work. I didn't need money as my needs are few. I am fearful of being known. It is very easy to be totally anonymous. I have little ambition, and I no longer wanted to be rich. I have seen how my friends and classmates become rich and turned into people I could hardly recognise. And I dare not say that wealth would not change me to be a lesser person. And so I muddle on, year after year.

Then I was sick and came close to dying. I told my children I have stored on line 7 and 1/2 books. I offered to write down instructions on how to get them ready for publishing. They dared not take on the responsibility to publish posthumously. It was a mental choice to fight to live. By God's mercy, I won the battle and live to publish 3 books. The first was Stories My Grandma Told me. The second was Animal Stories and the third was a Chinese translation of book one plus an article left by my dad: The Stories of Four Generations. The fourth one is in the pipeline: it will be a collection of picture devotional articles, title to be determined.