There were many nights when Bryce was younger, about a couple of years ago, that our imaginations ran wild through bedtime stories. We took turns in continuing episodes of adventures of multitude of characters, starting from X-Fighter-X — which was Bryce’s brainchild. It starred him and his classmates in Cascades, where they battle otherworldly creatures in a cave, sky, space, and even in a transdimensional wormholes.

After one of our Chinese New Year celebrations, Cucu-Toofoo & Juju-Loo — the catfish and little girl whose bodies and heads were swapped with one another — were birthed along with an ensemble of fabled characters. Those were priceless moments that I believe shaped and expanded Bryce’s imagination, not to mention our father-son bonding moments — made stronger by gestures in the air and a shared vision of what transpired in our very own tales.

Depending on our life events, stories presented themselves to us while already lying in bed trying to capture nightly yawns. Just like each turn of a page of a newfound book, stories unfold like apparitions — only that they linger longer until ho-hum storylines cue us to end it right then and there and say the mandatory, “to be continued…”.

Taking the next step

Jaycelle herself have countless stories in her mind, in her dreams, that she wanted ultimately inscribed on paper as books. She invited me to join the How to Write A Book & Self-Publish It Workshop by PaperKat Books. We attended and were introduced to self-publishing. There were several authors that we’ve met who have realized their own dreams in writing and publishing. They were such inspirations that with effort and hard work, every day, it can be done.