The Story Behind the Story

sometime in May 2025…

I woke up.

Literally and figuratively. I was slowly gaining awareness of my bed and somehow knew it was slightly before 5 a.m. even with my eyes still closed. Then a scene came streaming into my mind – somebody significant bumped into me.

It was not an image nor was it a string of words shown on a screen but an instinct of knowing. She was gasping, in front of a glass window with the sun streaming in between the blinds. I did not know who she was but I could feel her surprise and mine, then I “heard” words coming out from both of us. A conversation that had no context and no conclusion.

Not long after, another voice in my head was telling me to wake up. “What… was I dreaming?” I forced my eyes open, blinked a few times and looked around my room. Nothing was amiss; it looked exactly as it should be each morning. I lay in bed, recalling the details of the scene as best as I could. When I could not recall much more, I got out of bed and went about my day.

‘Went about my day’ at that point in time was doing nothing. I was not working then, having quit a job the year before. I tried starting a few online businesses and gave up after spending thousands on courses and not getting any income. So the days were spent taking walks, reading, writing reflections, meditating, listening to hypnosis and activations, watching Mindvalley videos, flipping through Instagram, going through yet another online course (but this time, free ones) and of course, watching shows on Netflix and any other platforms I came across. There was no purpose to the day. I did what I felt like doing, and there were days where I just lay on the couch and did nothing. No thoughts, no feelings. My eyes staring at the trees outside my house. My ears listening to this almost inaudible buzzing (I label it the life buzz) beyond the swishing of the fan above my head.

I could go on to tell you about those aimless days but really, not what a preface should be, nor what a real author would say. Moving on…

The scene came again the next morning. This time longer and I was able to remember more. So I sat mulling over it as I sipped my morning coffee. Was it a dream to surface my deepest desire? Was it a premonition of a distant future? Was it a past life, or a parallel universe? Was I becoming schizophrenic? Yeah, becoming one was the more probable answer so I started researching the subject and did all sorts of tests Gemini threw at me. But by the end of that day I could safely conclude that I was not schizophrenic.

I still had no idea who she was nor what the conversation was about, but I knew the emotions. To be exact, I felt them. The shock of bumping into somebody you had a history with, the nostalgic longing for the good old days, the anxiety of how I was perceived being older and the curiosity to know how she had been, were running through me as though that encounter really happened. And it got worse over the next few days.

Instead of showing up when I had just awakened, more random scenes surfaced with longer conversations when I was doing my nothings and when I was about to sleep. One morning, the first thing that came to mind was her name. Another evening while I was walking at the park, a knowing that I was betrayed crept in. Some scenes were repeated often, usually with better conversations and more vivid emotions, as though they were re-written and edited a few times.

Perhaps I was doing too many Mindvalley courses. Perhaps I was watching too many shows on Netflix. Maybe I longed for answers to the broken relationships I had in my life. Maybe I was just plain bored. The scenes came so often that I no longer needed to switch on Netflix. I already had a movie playing in my head and it was distracting me from my nothings. So I decided to type out what I ‘heard’. The story became clearer as I pulled the pieces together into chapters. At the third chapter, it hit me — I was not writing the beginning of the story. The third chapter was in fact, meant to be one of the last chapters of my story.

I am not born a writer

I am not born a writer. The last time I enjoyed writing was when I was in secondary school, some thirty five years ago. I grew up speaking, writing, reading and thinking in English so it can be considered my native language. But it was one of my worst subjects in school, having achieved a B3 grade at both GCE O and A levels. I avoided writing as much as I could after university and hated writing reports and minutes of meetings at every job since.

Yet, how could I possibly write a novel? I did not know fancy words nor did I know what writing a novel entailed. I read mostly self-help books and was incapable of describing something other than its core function. Before I became truly insane, I decided to let two good friends read what I had written so far. Their feedback on those two chapters were in essence, decent writing. I’ll take decent. I was not aiming for great or interesting. I just wanted it to be readable, that’s all. But hey, if I could get a book or a short TV series deal, it would be a wonderful surprise.

I managed to persuade one of them to be some sort of an editor after promising her that it would not interfere with her full-time job. I did not want a full-fledged editor nor just a proofreader, not yet. I needed somebody who knew my voice and could deal with crazy and weird. When she agreed to do some light editing for me, I started on the first chapter.

I knew the entire story line before I wrote that first chapter. There were days I could not stop writing, and nights when I could not sleep as scenes continued playing in my mind. Then there were days I refused to write because it was so tedious typing each word out, and nights I despaired over what had been written. There were paragraphs that I knew had to be deleted but wished somebody could have read them first. I researched and reflected on everything I could recall from my life and everything that came into my daily life.

I now had a purpose. But still no income.

So I asked ChatGPT, how I could earn money while writing a romance novel. It suggested a few ways to earn enough for me and my family, while still having time to continue writing. I had no idea whether any of the ideas would work but it seemed confident and weirdly logical. After losing my savings to people who charged exorbitant fees for promises of a great life, I’d rather trust an AI now and at no cost.

Thus this website was born. ChatGPT guided me on the technical aspects of creating and managing an online community, while I wrote each and every word of the posts and novel. But AI was just not as good as I am at connecting with humans. And that is what I hope to do – connect with you.

Thank you for reading me. Thank you for being a part of my journey.