This isn’t an acknowledgement. I have written that down quite excessively in the first few pages of the book. This post is dedicated to how 3 (Tiga) came into being; of its journey from my creative womb to your hands.

In October 2013, I had this strong urge to write a novel. Quite conveniently, the idea struck right when NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) was nigh, so I outlined the majority of my novel with participation in mind.

Then November came, and I started writing this idea down. Writing fiction was not a new thing to me, but finishing a novel in one month was bizarre, even when I tried to convince myself otherwise. From a stranger’s point of view, what I pursued must have sounded ridiculous. However, I persevered through the month, and sixty thousand words later, put down the last sentence of my novel on the fourteenth day.

While I admit, the first draft of my novel was unsightly and full of mistakes, I felt a sense of liberation I had never experienced before, and it carried on until the following year, when I edited the manuscript through the first three months.

Life went on for me, and it wasn’t until August 2014 that I finally considered publication as one of the possible paths that I could take. While I tend to shy away from publication of any kind, when the idea came to me like a moment of epiphany, I immediately sent it away, in hopes that maybe someone would read my manuscript and feel something.

In December 2014, I received the news that my novel was getting published.

Fast forward several months, and here I was, writing down this post. Life really works in strange, unfathomable ways, and while I still have my insecurities, I decided that this manuscript would be better off with readers.

Readers who would read it. Readers who would feel something. Readers who would hopefully cherish it as much as I do. And this thinking brought the book to you.

Even now, as I walked through the aisles of the bookstore, finding how they placed my books amongst many other great titles, I couldn’t help but to hope that maybe, out there in this vast and wonderful world, there might be someone that would read my novel and spare a room on their bookshelves to forever immortalize the experience.

You can find more about my debut novel, 3(Tiga) on this page.

Yours,

Alicia Lidwina