Welcome to my little corner of the Internet, where I share my thoughts on all things book- and writing-related, from the perspective of an ESEA (East and Southeast Asia) indie author based in Singapore. 

Ahead of the launch of my debut novel, Our Funny Love Story, I've been thinking a lot. More than usual, actually, especially with my writing soon to be released to a wider audience internationally. What was personal is no longer just mine, but yours, yours, and yours. 

I will always wonder: how are you, the reader, interacting with the text? Are you engaged? Are you bored? Are you swimming between the layers? Are you pleading for the characters to smooch? Or holding a shovel and excavating earth to hit the heart of the truth?

On top of these, I've been pondering how I can engage with the world more meaningfully. Can I balance the fun with introspection? There is an urge to dive more deeply into topics I feel strongly about, but I often find myself constrained by the demands of social media and what draws eyeballs, and, even more painfully, held back by the luck of the draw when it comes to having my content seen. A common complaint, as you're sure to see.

As a cave-dwelling troll who recently emerged into the blinding world of social media (please note that I'm the kind of person who only updates personal socials twice a year), I have come to dislike, yes, dislike, that I'm subconsciously reshaping my thoughts into trendy soundbites when I should be digging my heels into my novel, clumsy and fragmented however the words are. I did feel that, for a period of time, my writing lacked clarity, and I wonder if that was because I wrote hurriedly, chasing after some invisible timeline so I could quickly move on to other tasks. Which includes steamrolling into Canva and making pretty posts to promote my book launch. 

Writing this a week from launch (March 2nd), this feels deeply ironic. 

Indie authors are invisible unless they shout about their work and pray the algorithm takes a fancy to them; that is the inevitable tragedy of being a creative in the modern era. It can easily turn into a content hamster wheel if we aren't careful. It's all fun and games until you realize, does this pretty graphic with 1,000 likes sell a single copy?

You start calculating. Your time versus the measurable value you receive in return. Time that can be spent writing. Reading. With your family. Out in the sun. Instead, you're using Canva to batch content from templates, which, while it saves you time, makes your work no different from anyone else's. It's loud, and getting louder.

The human need to compare with others and think, if I do that, maybe I can succeed too, is placed in a petri dish under a terrifying microscope once you log into the app.

Attention is a scarce resource, and the flashiest tend to win, as measured by whatever metrics of the week the social media overlords deem ideal for keeping eyeballs scrolling on the app. Content generation is rewarded with dopamine hits—the feeling of being liked, admired, or even respected by fellow scrollers. Dopamine keeps the monkey brain happy and willing to pump out even more content. It can seem impossible to step off the wheel, because how else can one measure their marketing efforts to push their work into view for others? What other free platforms are there? It's either you pay with cash (run ads) or time (social media soapbox). 

But attention also compounds. The more you put out something, the more likely it is to register in a person's mind.

At the end of the day, we are writers who use social media as a marketing tool to promote our work, form communities, and find our readers. Creative work and marketing are completely different creatures. Some writers have managed to maintain a balance. Some, like me, need to drop into a hole and forget that the world exists when I write. When you pick a side, you are choosing the trade-off. And it's not an easy answer to accept.

To write means to slow down and let my thoughts percolate and pour onto the page. When I write, I need to hear my voice, and being on social media drowns that out.

At the end of the day, I do prefer longer-form text over the quick, snazzy cuts that social media so favors. Visibility is so vital for a new author in the indie space, and being on socials less means I'd be sacrificing that aspect. Still, I guess the moment I've decided on what I want to write (Asian-centered stories with queer protagonists), I've made my peace with the fact that my books will almost always reach a limited audience.

I suppose this marks a new way for me to engage with greater intention. 

I'll gradually shift toward posting longer pieces on my website and newsletter (crossposting from Substack), while keeping the fun, snappy updates on my socials at a reduced pace. Of course, I will always prioritize writing the best book I can write at that given point in time -- and write more deeply, I shall. 

And I hope you stick around for more.

My debut novel, Our Funny Love Story, launches on March 2nd. It's a story of two faces: MM screwball romcom meets queer literary fiction. An ode to complicated editor-author dynamics set against the backdrop of contemporary Tokyo, early readers have praised its lucid prose and striking semiotics, as well as its unexpected complexity in character dynamics.

Image from Dupe Photos.