It should be occurring to everyone by now (myself included) that I’m only ever updating here when I’ve finished everything on my plate. Now, this post will have quite the mix of topics, from my writing work, to mental health, to life, and how all of them come together. Before I get started on the crux of this post, which you should have figured out by the title (but if not, simply put, I’ve been offered a spot in college), I want to tell you guys what I’ve been working on the past few weeks. For starters, there are these title artworks for the upcoming Chronicles of Tearha: The Number 139.

There’s also the slightly edited cover for 139: In Evening’s eBook release. Just a little stylize effects, levels adjustment, and other fancy-shpansy Photoshop mumbo jumbo. Personally, I like how it turned out, though feel free to tell me otherwise in the comments.

To fancy or not fancy? That is the question.

What does all this have to do with college though? You, my imaginary audience might be asking. Well, for starters, it’s currently one of the main reasons why I don’t want to go to college. I’ve been setting myself up as an author, though not that successful, but still, you know, going there. I’ve got some stuff in the works to hopefully let me write full-time, and I’m also putting quite a bit of effort into Chronicles of Tearha to make it something that could help me take off.

Unlike a lot of the top author’s on JukePop, I just barely scratch the top 30 rank last January, and I got there by sort of a miracle in getting a few new readers who binge read that last month. I’m putting some hope that The Number 139 won’t be a lucky shoot, but just good enough to go up to the top with its own weight. If successful, I think I’ll have something cool to work on. But to do that, I need at least a year to see the result. And this year can’t happen if I was studying for a degree.

There is also the issue with my mental health. It’s been a year since my breakdown, but I’m still having some residue fear. It’s a strange thing, fear. After several suicide attempts, I no longer fear death. But I am terrified of the process. It’s not the dying after the jump that I’m afraid of, but the fall. And now, I’m quite terrified of a relapse. Depression is a shitty period of life. You can’t do much properly, and half your time you spend locked up somewhere, be it a room or the confines of your own mind.

So having a full year, maybe more, to properly rest up and try my own thing, seems like a good idea to me. But here’s the crux of my point here. I’m 23 this year. I’m about 3 years older than the average university students in the States becomes of our conscription policy. Our idea of time has been cut short here, and any time wasted on things like gap years and recovery time is often considered laughable here. I’ve known friends, and have personally, done things against recommended timeline in a process to speed things up. Dislocated my toe once and was told to give it half a year to rest up properly. I was back to doing martial arts in 3 weeks.

Out culture here in Singapore has become all about the pace. Being fast. We walk fast, think fast, live fast (but drive slow), and recently, as I’ve found out from my western friends, we also talk fast to the point where no one can understand our spoken English. So while I’ve been trying to convince my family and friends that taking a break is what I need, I’m met with quite some heavy resistance. Here’s the thing that I want, not just fellow Singaporeans, but people all over the world to understand. It’s okay to go slow sometimes. I learned that the hard way two years ago when I went so fast that I nearly killed myself (literally).

We only have one life, and it’s okay every now and then to re-evaluate your life. Figure out how much you want to earn and how much you want to give to the world and work on that. Give it your all in everything you do. A lot of people have told me that I’ve been writing for over 10 years now and have tried to break in multiple times and failed. They also told me that only 1 in every 100 people can have some kind of success after giving it their 100% in a project or venture. I just told them that I won’t give up, not until I’ve tried 100 times, giving 100% each time I try. Travel the world, learn new things, try new things, work on projects, start your own company. And most importantly, fail. It’s really okay to fail and take things slow. Learn. Become better. Do a collage of life. Here’s to another year of writing!