I was always interested in writing fantasy. It was not something that was pressing. I was always interested in the genre. I only started to write it when my late husband asked me to. He unfortunately died in 2007, from cancer. But before he passed, he was doing many different treatments. And while he was doing chemotherapy, we had a routine where I would write stories and read it to him.
He said “Why don’t you write a fantasy this time? Because that way when you write it and you read it to me I can imagine I’m someplace else not getting chemotherapy.” And I said okay, and so I did. But unfortunately about one third way of the book he lost his battle with cancer. And I was very upset, obviously, I was devastated when he passed. I thought well that’s the end of the book. I’m not going to write it now. Now that he’s gone.
And I thought that was the end until one day, a good friend of mine Janet Wong, also an author and illustrator, she came by. And she said “Whatever happened to that book you were writing?” And I said “Oh I couldn’t finish before Robert passed. It’s just not meant to be.” And she said to me, “No. Maybe it’s better you didn’t finish it before he died because now you can change the ending. And if you had finished before he died you would feel like you couldn’t but now you can change the ending and the book can be anything you want.”
And when she said it was a big moment for me. It was a big revelation and I realized not only could I finish the book and make it any way I wanted, it was also the same thing from my life. Just because he passed and I was devastated for that, my life still hadn’t ended and I could still write for the rest of my life. And so that’s pretty much the soul of this book. And this book is kind of my homage to him and his life.
In this book, in this book Min Lee is on the search for happiness. Basically she’s looking for the secret for happiness. And that’s when I wrote it, that’s what I was. I was looking for the secret of happiness too. I was looking to, to, after Robert had died I was so upset. That writing this book made me realize that I had the secret of happiness all the time too. Just like Min Lee did.
