Hello, fellow disciples! We've been searching far and wide for individuals who have cultivated for a long time. This month, we bring to you an interview with Moyun_ZJ, the author of A Sliver of Frost.

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Tell us a bit about yourself!

Hello! I'm a harried working adult living in the island state of Singapore. (It's a dot at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, if anyone is trying to find it on a map.) I've always been an avid reader, and I love how a well-told story can immediately transport you to a different world. I consume all forms of storytelling - books, manga, film, animation, games, audiobooks and plays, the works!

Being a third-generation Chinese immigrant in multicultural Singapore has rendered me effectively bilingual. English is my first language, Chinese is my second; and the crazy, multi-faceted creole that is Singlish — is the language that I speak most often.

Apart from reading, writing and my day job, I've also dabbled in some freelance voiceover work (primarily mandarin projects) in recent years. Unfortunately, I can't sing for nuts, but I'm always up for a round of bathroom karaoke!

What is your writing process? Do you outline everything or write as things come to mind? Why?

My stories usually start off with a premise - a 'what if', and they can percolate in my mind for quite a while before taking actual shape in the form of words. Once I have the beginning, the main conflict and the ending figured out, I'll plan a rough outline of the story before I start writing. This outline gets expanded whenever I start on a new chapter, when the exact beats and details of that segment are planned out before I write.

In truth, I'm a discovery writer, so more often than not, I'll find the story and characters shifting as the story unfolds — which means tons of outlines left by the wayside. I'm flexible with unexpected developments though, it's nice to see my characters grow and change according to their environment and experiences. If I feel that a deviation makes sense, I usually just roll with it, as long as it can be steered towards the ending I have in mind.

What are some things that influenced your story?

While my education was western-oriented, I grew up in a Mandarin-speaking home environment, steeped in Chinese traditions (compared to other Singaporeans, at least). As such, my stories often embrace the myriad of influences that shaped my growing up years - things like bingeing on Louis Cha wuxia novels while simultaneously nerding out about The Lord of The Rings, devouring all the fairytales I could get my hands on, exploring countless RPG worlds, as well as geeking out on marvel comics, Japanese manga and anime.

My eastern fantasy works, especially 'A Sliver of Frost', are heavily influenced by my exposure to Chinese culture, especially the wuxia and xianxia novels, animation, dramas, games and classical Chinese literature that I've consumed. I'm lucky to be able to access these works in Chinese, and often wonder how readers will perceive translated works, since the nuance of the original language and its intrinsic cultural references are often lost in translation. Having done some translation work in the past, I know how difficult it can be to convey the meaning of a context-laden language like Chinese, where a four-word idiom can hold a story in itself, and a quote from a line of poetry can reference several other works that add layer and meaning to the tale being told.

'A Sliver of Frost' (ASOF) is my experiment with trying to tell a Chinese high fantasy (xianxia) story in English, where I try to stay true to the spirit of the Chinese language and the genre, without being a dogmatic purist about the way the final product is interpreted. I've always loved the minimalism of classical Chinese poetry, the way entire sentiments can be compressed in a few brief words. My consumption of C-dramas and animation also make me imagine a sense of ethereal transcendence in xianxia depictions, where the struggle of gods, demons and mortals happen in beautiful, other-worldly realms. So ASOF is really just a fun project where I try to combine all the things I love about Chinese culture to create a world where landscape and nature reflect deep-seated feelings, and magic and mayhem can descend in the mere flick of a wrist.

Since I work in the wellness sector, I have a keen interest in health, nutrition, herbalism and aromatherapy. Other personal interests include history, myth, folklore and exploring how these aspects influence and shape a culture. While I don't use this knowledge overtly in my tales, they do influence my world-building, especially when I'm coming up with the history, culture and mythos of various worlds. 

Tell us about the main character of one of your stories. What inspired their creation?

Yun Zhi is one of the main characters in A Sliver of Frost. She's an immortal Celestian, who like all Celestians, can access Qi, the invisible life force of the world and use them in various aspects of creation, depending on their mastery of the Seven Weaves of Power.

Since ASOF is a loose retelling of the myth of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, my main character Yun Zhi references Zhinu — the titular goddess in that same myth, who visits the mortal realm, falls in love with a mortal cowherd and bears him two children before being forced back to work the heavenly looms by the Heavenly Empress. Like Zhinu, Yun Zhi is a weaver, though she weaves with Qi instead of using the loom. Like Zhinu, Yun Zhi visits the mortal realm and meets a mortal man. However, the similarities to the myth end there.

I consider Yun Zhi my alternative isekai heroine — an introvert goddess, raised to embrace order and balance in all things. She's technically accomplished and quietly curious, receptive to the beauty of the natural world but oblivious to the rhythms and depths of the human heart. When she visits the mortal realm, she's almost akin to a blank canvas, letting her experiences in the complicated world paint her soul in a myriad of colours. What will ensue? Will she succumb to passion? Will her encounters stain her or will they make her understand herself better and become a more well-rounded character? 

What were some challenges you experienced while writing the story?

Carving out time to write consistently is one of my main challenges. Work and family commitments take up a large part of my day, so it's usually late at night when I finally get the chance to sit down and write. (Bye sleep, hello morning caffeine) I'm also a terribly slow writer — because I write and edit at the same time. So it often takes a week or so before I can get a chapter done, and even then, I have to resist the urge to keep going back to tweak it and move on to writing the next instalment!

Another challenge was in trying to find a balance between telling a Chinese-inspired tale while ensuring its accessibility to readers who are not familiar with the genre or culture. Things like the appropriate usage of foreign names and terms in the story, when to weave in my own concepts, when to explain a term and when to replace it with something more easily grasped in English... these are all issues that I constantly think about when I'm writing ASOF. In the end, I tried to make the process of reading resemble the experience of travelling to a foreign land - where people and places have foreign names, but common objects will be easily identifiable in one's own language. The level of immersion in a foreign culture will then depend on the traveller/reader - if they want to know more about the meanings of names, places and terms, or the cultural nuances behind certain terms - it's easy to refer to the glossary or just ask for clarification in the comments. 

What message do you hope your story will tell your readers?

The main characters in A Sliver of Frost are all searching for their path in life while navigating the weight of expectation — be it their own or someone else's expectations of them. Yun Zhi in particular, experiences the world in a quietly curious but very intense way — able to find beauty in both light and darkness.

I hope this will inspire my readers to look at the world around them in a different light and to discover the beauty in nature's rhythms. Most importantly, I hope it will remind them about the importance of authenticity and the beauty of ambiguity. Life is filled with imperfection, but there are perfect moments to be gleaned from it too, as long as we pay grateful attention.

If you woke up in a time or place that was very different from reality, what would you do?

I'd probably get a brain freeze, slowly force my collapsing system to restart, then scuttle off to a corner to quietly observe my surroundings and try to make sense of its rules and connections. After I've gotten my bearings, I'll head into the world and experience it for myself before deciding on my game plan: Should I accept my circumstances, stay in this world and try to flourish? Or find a way to escape this world and head back to my own?

If there was something you could learn (i.e., some spell, some martial arts, etc.) like the main character in your book, what would it be?

I'd definitely want to learn the first weave of power from her — being able to conjure inanimate objects be such a convenient (and money-saving) skill to have. There are many instances of musical flexing in the story too — so I wouldn't mind getting just a wee bit of Yun Zhi's musical talent!

Would you rather go through a lifetime of never finding love or be willing to go through several lifetimes of hardships just to save your love? Why?

Does love mean romantic love in this instance? I'm currently a time-strapped, sleep-deprived human being, so I'll choose the first option. There are other forms of love besides romance after all. I'll just leave the multiple lifetime challenge to my characters instead. ;)

What is your favorite creature from Asian mythology or folklore? Why?

I'd have to go with the Immortal Crane. It's not exactly a mythical creature, since they exist in real life, but Chinese myths often portray these elegant birds as giant rides for immortals — which I think is absolutely cool. I'd love to soar through the air riding on the back of a crane! Cranes also symbolise longevity, happiness and graceful temperament in many East Asian cultures, so what's not to like?

What is your favorite Asian myth? Why?

That will have to be the myth of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. (No surprise!) I've been obsessed with this story ever since I watched a Hong Kong movie based on this myth as a child. I can't even remember the name of the movie or who acted in it, all I remember was that it was an urban fantasy.

To be honest, many things bother me about the original myth: Firstly, the Cowherd was a peeping tom (he was spying on the bathing goddesses and he stole the Weaver Girl's clothes to make her stay back). Secondly, it seemed inexplicable that the Weaver Girl would fall in love with a stranger at first sight and leave her comfortable immortal life. Finally, what does her duty of weaving clouds entail? These questions are the reason why I keep going back to the myth, because I want to retell it in a way that makes sense to me. Before ASOF, I've also written a short story retelling with a feminist spin, as well as a rather terrible YA urban fantasy. Yes. I'm obsessed.

By the way, WattpadAsianFantasy has included this myth in their Asian Mythology and Folklore Anthology, so you can head over there to read it in full!

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, Moyun_ZJ! We wish you the best of luck in your writing endeavors.

Until the next chapter, fellow disciples!