My Mentors in Writing

The published writers who’d become, inspirations to the apprentice of, storytelling, how reading and writing go, hand-in-hand, as always!  Translated…

My eldest sister is eight years senior to me, and the eldest sisters are like mothers to their, younger, siblings, she’d looked after me through my younger years of life, and, in the means of me, modeling after everything she did, what touched me the most, is probably those days that I’d chased after the author, Chung Yao.

At the time, there was a local novel, comic rental shop, my eldest sister was a VIP there, every time there’s a new book that came, the owner would always save it for her first, of these, were the “Crown magazine” with the chapters of romance novels by Chung Yao.  In my eldest sister’s not banning, not encouraging, the author’s earlier works, I’d, not, missed out on.  As the kids my age were still into the series comics on the papers, I was getting introduced, into the love and hate of the adult world, romances.

After I graduated middle school, I had an allowance raise, and knew to utilize the libraries, my outside reading started off on a, different stage.  At the time, I’d loved the ghost story writer, Zhong-Yuan Sima and Yu.  These two masters were diverse in their styles, and because of the major disparity of the two, it’d, added more to my joys of reading.

Yu is a Taiwanese novelist living in the U.S., born in Shanghai, after graduating university in Taiwan, she’d headed over to U.S. to pursue a higher degree and to live.  She’d excellent in delicately describing the Asian foreign exchange students and the scholars from China in the U.S., the characters were all feeling the dissonance of the two cultures, the cultural shocks, and gone through identity crises, the realistic stories are really, resonant.

Yu often sighed: in the U.S., I can only, settle down but NOT set my roots down, my roots are in China………post 1975, she’d gone to China many a times, and, commended Communism publicly, and this upset the then KMT government, and the government agencies banned her books; not allowing her entry into Taiwan.  In 2016, she’d returned back to Taiwan, and had a book promo “Li-Hwa Yu’s Selected Works”.

Sima was famed for his ghost-storytelling, a national treasure.  He’d claimed, “I’d forgotten to drink the soup of the goddess of the wind, and, reincarnated, that’s why I’d talked of the supernatural all the time.  Other than the ghost stories, he’d also written the horror novels, the historical novels, as well as the, essays.  Being articulate, he’d even hosted the radio shows, and T.V. shows too.  His works were quite unique: the setting of his scary tales were most often in the graveyards, the deserted land or the, open plains, the protagonists are all handicapped.  Every single tale, from the first word, to the descriptions of the setting, the plot, all tingled the readers’ minds.

Both writers are excellent in digging deep into the times, and, gotten in in-depth discussion of human nature with their writings: one had studied abroad, can write in English; the other, native and local, with the files of never-ending tales from the crypt that never finishes being told.  They were both, my mentors in writing, and given me the inspirations I’d needed when I ran dry on inspiration…………can’t imagine, how my pursues of the stars in my younger years, is still, yielding the returns, back to me to this very, day!

So, this is how the books are, excellent, because you get a peek into the writer’s writing styles, and, it helps you become, a better writer, and the writers this individual enjoyed reading are totally different, which added to his depth of literary gift too.