The jar that opened the path to a Scholastic book award for Sophia Lee

Wanderlust and the thirst for adventure are worn by a number of fortunate individuals who share perfectly composed pictures on Instagram, telling stories in the vein of "Eat, Pray, Love" or "Under the Tuscan Sun."

In Sophia N. Lee's case, the birth of an award-winning story is as humble as they come. While trying to cram for a class requirement, she discovered a scene in the kitchen.

She had been taking a creative writing class, where one's work is written chapter by chapter and critiqued weekly. Her chapters would eventually become the short young adult novel "What Things Mean", but she did not expect that it would also lead her to the Scholastic Asian Book Award (SABA).

All she wanted then was a little pasta.

"My week was coming up and I had nothing," she told the audience at the Philippine launch of her book. "Naturally, my first instinct was to eat."

She wanted to make spaghetti and she found herself confronting a jar of sauce that simply wouldn't open. Despite her best efforts—which included running it under hot water and crying a lot (because she was really hungry)—the lid did not yield to her will.

Another person, she went on, had to open the jar for her. As she was (finally) cooking, she looked at the vessel and regarded it as a symbol of the seemingly unconquerable things in life.

"It intrigued me how something as simple as a jar could mean something as profound as independence," Lee explained. "If only I could conquer jars, maybe I could conquer bigger things."

Although the book is far from autobiographical (the young protagonist's father abandoned the family, whereas Lee's own father was present at the launch and is evidently supportive of her), the experience gave her the first scene for her book.

The chapter was expertly read by her creative writing professor Heidi Abad, whom Lee credits for inspiring her to write and for encouraging her to submit her work to the Scholastic Asian Book Award.

SABA is a joint project of the National Book Development Council of Singapore (NBDCS) and Scholastic Asia that started in 2011, meant to encourage the proliferation of stories about Asian experiences. Lee and fellow writer Catherine Torres ("Sula's Voyage") took home first and second place respectively in 2014.

Lee is thrilled that the book is now available in the Philippines and the young readers of here will get to meet the character she created, Olive.

Olive is neither blonde nor blue-eyed. She is morena, she is fascinated with words and their different meanings, she knows that EDSA can feel like hell on earth, and she can open jars.

Asked what advice she has for aspiring writers, Lee shared that she feels that stories close to home need to be told and encouraged everyone to write and read them.

"First, write your story. Second, pick up a story by a Filipino author and and see what has been told already," she said. "Third, please talk about them more. We have such a big group of readers—we saw it in the "Harry Potter" launch last week—and I hope that kind of excitement will happen over a Filipino book soon."

"But the best advice is really to just write. Don't be afraid to tell your story," Lee concluded. — BM, GMA News

"What Things Mean" is now available in bookstores.