Even though it's supposed to be light reading I don't want to descend into mindlessness, totally fluffy and irrelevant
When In Ten Easy Steps is published this year it will be the first 'chick lit' novel by a Singaporean. It will also be a first for author Lum Kit Wye, a law lecturer who until now has only written dry legal briefs and complicated legalistic dossiers.
'I'm feeling a bit schizophrenic. I'm writing fiction at night and working on legal papers during the day. As you can imagine, the writing styles needed to be a bit different. I guess I'm learning as I go,' says Lum, recent winner of the inaugural Asian Chic Writing Competition founded by publisher Marshall Cavendish in its search for Singapore's first 'chick lit' writers.
Lum admits she decided to write chick lit 'more by chance than anything else' after seeing an advertisement for the competition. Marshall Cavendish started selling its 'Asian Chic' collection of chick lit books 'written by Asian women for Asian women' with three novels by female Filipino writers; it was hoping to find a Singaporean to add to the ranks. Chick lit has been gaining international traction for more than a decade, with Helen Fielding, Candace Bushnell, Marian Keyes and Sophie Kinsella among the most successful writers.
'I'm a bit of a manic reader, I read any fiction and I've read a lot of chick lit in my time. I like the genre for its light-heartedness,' Lum says.
In Ten Easy Steps tells the story of Elaine, who has just been dumped by her long-term boyfriend and decides she needs a big change in her life; not only scenery, but also her normally placid nature. The story follows many of the tried and tested scenarios of the genre but from an Asian woman's perspective, following the main character through a string of bizarre, funny and often humiliating situations as she tries to transform herself into a more glamorous and successful person, having moved from her native Kuala Lumpur to Singapore.
