Jerat: How it all started

Er, well I recently wrote a book and it's going to be published soon. The book will be launched on 17th September at Annexe, Central Market. If you're surprised, so am I. I never thought I'll have the perseverance to complete a book. Not too long ago I dreamed about it, but the idea was shelved because I had too many things on my plate.

The cover, you'll find this in major bookstores in a month's time.

You can read the first chapter for free at the publisher website. I hope you'll like it. For most of my blog readers the blurb might ring bells to you because I've actually published a short story with almost the same storyline in this blog in early 2007. The main characters in Jerat are based on that short story. However, Jerat is in Bahasa Melayu and I created more twists and drama so that I could come up with 60,000 words.

Back in 2007 I didn't see any opportunity for such story to be published and sold in major bookstores. The local book industry was then (or even now) monopolized by love stories, political books and autobiographies. I didn't know how to fit in or create the opportunity.

So, when books from Fixi (which I've bought and read all) became such a hit with the young readers in 2011, I started to reconsider my story. That was when I started downloading an Open Source novel writing software and came up with my characters, story map etc. Since I've established the storyline back in 2007, it didn't take me long to complete the manuscript. I started writing my first paragraph on 1st June and submitted the completed manuscript on 5th July, which coincidently was my 37th  birthday. Well, that has got to be the best birthday present I ever gave to myself.

Five weeks is a short time to write a story, considering the fact that I could only write after the kids have had dinner and prepared for bed. Sometimes, I skipped gym and went to the nearest Kopitiam and wrote at least a scene. Throughout the 5 weeks, I gained 2kg because I've been missing gym, and had a bit too much of Old Town White Coffee.

However, during the writing period I was very grateful that I took all the trouble to learn touch typing. When you have so many words pouring out from your head, the fingers were having trouble keeping up with the speed demand. Alhamdulillah I didn't go crazy during this writing process.

The author, yours truly.

If you're asking me about hope, well yes I have a few. Firstly, I hope Malaysian readers will understand the story (you see, sometimes I can be a bit syok sendiri, so I didn't even think about readers acceptance when I was writing this novel). Secondly, I hope readers will enjoy it.

Lastly, I hope all the IT people in this country will feel happier knowing that I wrote this book especially dedicated to us all. Yes, IT is used as the background. There might be some technical jargons and terminologies that are foreign to many. But, hey, there's always Google and Wikepedia.

Selamat berpuasa uolls!