One year later, as Philippines is facing typhoon again, Sinzou still finds unbelievable that she made through the worst time of her life by writing.
In November 2020, Typhoon Ulysses hit Philippines, more than 60 people died and more than 10,000 lost their homes in that disaster. When Typhoon hit Sinzou’s home, their plants, which is their main source of income were drown with floods and broke by the loud thud of the wind.
“Unpassable roads, broken and damage roofs, and flood water that remain stagnant for how many days, that’s what this typhoon gave.” says Sinzou.
The continuous rain is nothing compared to the grief she felt the following day, November 12, 2020. Her father passed away due to liver cancer.
The life of Sinzou is nothing but full of ups and downs. At the age of 3, she was diagnosed with Diabetes, a condition wherein the insulin produced on her body is not enough, leading to fluctuations in her blood sugar. Having Diabetes means lifetime treatment, and no hard and dangerous activities. She can’t do any other extracurricular activities because of her condition, therefore she devoted herself into writing and started writing stories at the age of 15. “Sinzou” is her pen name. At that time, an online reading and writing platform named Dreame gave her hope again. She is able to write and publish stories on it. Now, she has one signed and completed story on Dreame named “The Sky Dragon Princess” and receiving stable income from it.
Sinzou said, “Life may not be good as it seems, but because of many people that help us either financially or physically, we learned to move from all the tragedies.”
Dreame offers intriguing multi-lingual fictions for readers while allowing local authors to publish their own works in their native languages. On this platform where various creative contents meet, writers will be spurred on to diversify their creations. Dreame’s writers enjoy one-on-one guidance from their editors, receive inspiration and motivation through interactions with readers, and last but not least, earn respectful income for their works.
Dreame opened up a lot of opportunities for everyone, any novice writers without previous experience can start from this platform.
Fantastic Yeoja, a registered nurse who works in the ICU, started writing K-pop fan fictions when she was 17. As Yeoja said, writing on Dreame has changed her life in more ways than she could imagine, “a change that even my day job wasn’t able to offer me.” Also, writing on Dreame helped her and her family live through the pandemic as well. But that isn’t all. “Through Dreame, I was able to come across readers from all over the world in different walks of life. I was able to interact with them and get closer to them.”
Dreame allows readers to provide feedback to interact with writers. Many writers find extremely helpful and blessing while reading the comments—either positive and negative—which inspire them to keep improving their craft. Just as Yeoja said, “My readers are one of the very reasons why I was able to keep writing and striving to get better. “
Against a background where the translation of novels has become the trend for reading platforms to go global, Dreame stands out with editors from around the world to help train budding authors in local areas. In this way, the original creations are tailored for native readers and fit their tastes.
Three years after its debut, Dreame has now achieved tens of millions of users with more than 300,000 fictions, covering 20 languages in over 100 countries and regions.
Ben Arnold
