A few bloggers, some who have read my books before, were kind enough teach me how to write a blog well. Therefore, from this entry onwards, I’m going to follow their advice!

Recently, I was in a cruise ship’s casino. I saw one woman sitting in front of a jackpot machine for hours. Someone told me that some people believe that they can strike a fortune there; in other words, an overnight success. In reality, we’ve seen stories about people achieving “overnight success”. Is there really one?

Okay, I admit I was focusing on other things, so I just took this picture in my handphone during the trip. And this picture is here because bloggers told me to insert more pictures -_-

I believe there is no overnight success. The founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg seems to achieve that: creating Facebook, garnering massive popularity and becoming a billionaire. However, if you’ve watched The Social Network, a movie about Facebook, you’ll know he spent a lot of effort in Facebook. Not only that, when he was younger, he had immersed himself totally in programming. We only see how Facebook grows rapidly, but not the countless hours he spent learning how to programme before creating Facebook. Is it overnight success? Could he have achieved this if he had not been crazily passionate about programming, and learning it?

Picture from www.time.com

When my book reached bestsellers lists, several of my friends told me that if they were to write a book, their book would be a bestseller too. Initially, I was defensive, telling them how much effort I had put into my book. Soon, I get used to it. After all, before I was published, I had the same thinking!

Why is believing in overnight success so tempting? When we are faced with a problem, we believe in overnight success as it provides an easiest solution in the shortest time—sometimes, literally overnight. And so, we don’t do anything to solve the problem, choosing to believe in that. This belief is so destructive that anyone who has really achieved overnight success failed overnight as well. Stories of lottery winners going bankrupt are everywhere!

I’ve got several bloggers to review my latest book, and some of them agree on this: their readerships do not come overnight. They spent years building a base of readers, and now, they’re still working hard to provide good content. Are they overnight successes? No! Anyway, here’re some of the reviews:

http://www.lukeyishandsome.com/2012/01/singapore-love-story-low-kay-hwa-review.html
http://pxdkitty.blogspot.com/2012/01/singapore-love-story.html
http://www.rynaque.com/2012/01/qreviews-singapore-love-story-by-low.html
http://mintleong.blogspot.com/2012/01/blog-giveaway-autographed-singapore.html
http://itsthylife.blogspot.com/2012/01/sponsored-review-singapore-love-story.html
http://araphoenix.com/2012-01/a-singapore-love-story

One of the bloggers, Rachell, with her boyfriend. She relates the story with her relationship—it works well, as people are touched by their relationship in that post about A Singapore Love Story!

To conclude, I solely believe that if success is achieved without any long and hard work, then failure will also be short and easy. After all, we tend not to cherish something that can be obtained so easily.

I realize, too, that in order to garner more publicity for my books, I need to work with various non-profit organizations that have been VERY supportive. It is going to be a long journey—from long meetings and planning, but if it occurs overnight, then I won’t cherish it!

My first collaboration is with Singapore Book Council and The Arts House. We are going to have a book launch for A Singapore Love Story (yes, despite it being out since October 2011) in The Arts House on 7 February 2012. To make the event more interesting, we have contests for my readers! Just send us a picture and you may win eight books. Go to http://www.goodybooks.com/booklaunch.htm for more info.

Till then, enjoy the last few days of Chinese New Year!

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This must have happened to you: You decide to recommend a book to your friend who is from a top school. When he sees the book, he says, “Sorry, I only read those ‘chim’ and thick book.” Or maybe one day, you realize that many students from top secondary school read those “chim” and thick books. So what exactly are these books?

The length of a book (thickness) is obvious; after all, it’s tangible, so it is a correct description. However, from both a writer’s and an English student’s points of view, I don’t see books as “chim”. In general, I prefer to use the word “style”. A book that is “chim” merely has a different style. Many factors determine this style! For simplicity’s sake, I will focus on two main factors that you can—from now on—see the word “chim” from a different angle!

Firstly, every single book has a readability index. A readability index is a number to show how difficult it is for someone to understand the prose, based on his or her education. For example, a primary five maths assessment book must have a different readability index from a secondary four maths assessment book. Therefore, a “chim” book, in this example, shows that it merely has a higher readability index. Assessment books usually go through this test to ensure that it caters to the correct student. But how do we determine readability index? There are, once again, many factors (I told you there were many factors, eh!), but these two are the ones that we are most familiar with: Sentences and words.

Sentence is interesting. Do you know one way to determine is that the longer the sentence, the more “chim” it is? For example, in this sentence that I am using that starts with an introductory element, it uses many adverbials to modify many clauses, and in addition, there are many independent clauses, yet with several dependent clauses as well, causing it to appear “chim” yet without using difficult words; this illustrates how our mind subconsciously deems that long sentences are difficult (“chim”), though that is another factor altogether; in case you’re not aware, I am connecting independent clauses together as one long sentence using semi-commas too, so this sentence has yet to end…but ends now! Now, as I complete the previous sentence in Microsoft Word, a green dotted line prompts this: “Long Sentence (consider revising)”. Yup, you’re right: Long sentence equals to “chim”, but it is not recommended!

Next will be word choice. Usually, when one’s writing is deemed to be “chim”, it means the writing consist of many words that a typical reader would not have come across. To some extent, that’s true. But to be more exact, a “chim” writing with “chim” words means the writer uses more precise verbs and nouns! For example, “walk” and “stroll”. “Walk” is a very general word; “stroll” is more precise, telling us how a person walks. You can see that the main difference is how much more precise the verb “stroll” is. Many aspiring writers make a mistake of using very precise verb (or in Singaporean lingo, “chim”). Because these aspiring writers come across the words often, they believe the words are understandable by many. It’s not! My advice is to always use general word first; if it’s too repetitive, then use a slighter more precise one. Don’t let your ego take over readability. The misconception of “using precise verbs is better” is due to how a person learns language (learning the general words before the precise words), and a person is tempted to use precise words to show his or her proficiency in the language. For those who know about this: We’re not talking about concise writing here!

Now that you know what some of the key factors that define “chim” are, next time, should someone tell you that they read “chim” books, just turn to them and ask, “‘Chim’? You meant the readability index is very high, uses long sentences and precise words? I see!”

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