Thursday, December 11, 2008

I know most of you reading this may not care. But - I'M DONE WITH MY NOVEL!!! I'M DONE I'M DONE I'M DONE!!!! OMFG. All 318 pages of it. Done. Finito.

All those days of replaying River Flows in You by Yiruma and Runaway World by Making April over and over again, and agonising over how best to move the story forward without making it all seem too cliched. All those days cooped up at home in front of my Word Processor. All those moments of joy and exhilaration when I actually felt proud of myself for writing this story. All those moments of self-doubt, too, when I felt I was wasting my time working so hard on something no-one cares about, much less read. All those days of losing myself in the world I have created.

Done. Over.

Strangely, I feel more depressed than I am satisfied. Don't get me wrong, I feel really accomplished and all, but it's still kind of sad, to see your novel come to an end. I don't intend to write a sequel to Lilies (that is, When the Lilies Turn Orange) because then it'll be too draggy. Connell's problem is solved, and the characters have come to a resolution. I don't wanna create a tension for the sake of it, you know?

I wonder if that's how first-time novelists feel when they come to the end of their debut novel. Well, technically speaking, Lilies isn't my debut. High Grounds is (in fact, there were a couple more stories that came before High Grounds, but they were so amateurish I don't regard them as debuts, more like 'trial novels'). But High Grounds never felt like the end to me, maybe because I always intended to write a sequel, so it's not like the world (the setting for the story) has ended, like it feels as though it has for Lilies.

I've been spending my morning scouting for literary agents. And I found one who does email queries. They'll reply in 5 to 10 days, they promise. Nelson Agency seems reputable enough. It specialises in YA (young adult) fiction and romance, chick-lit, etc. So this seems like the right agency to go to. I've sent in my query to Kristin Nelson. I just hope she'll reply. Nothing screams rude more than someone who doesn't reply your query.

In the process of editing now. If anyone is interested in reading it, please email me at jcxw2590@yahoo.com.sg. I'll send you a copy of the manuscript. But please give feedback if you're going to read it. That's my only condition. Your help will be greatly appreciated.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

I just discovered the beauty of haikus (a poetic artform with 3 lines, 5-7-5 syllables). Brevity is the soul of wit, like they say, and this is so true for haikus. They force you to make every word count, and that's good practice for someone like me, who wastes words like they're mine for the taking. I need to learn to appreciate the value of each word, and what better way to do so than to write haikus, yeah?

Amongst shadowed trees,
Blackened branches claw for light,
Reaching for daybreak.

I came up with this one this morning, when my dad fetched me to school. The road leading to the front gate of SAJC is really beautiful, all winding lonely lanes lined with trees. And you should see it on a rainy morning. SO FRIGGIN DRAMATIC. So Edgar Allan Poe.

Here's another one I penned during Econs lecture. It's kinda unrefined; that's cos of the distraction (in the form of the lecturer)...

Hold my gaze
A little longer,
A pause of heartbeat -
But I watch
Your back retreat.

Obviously, this isn't a haiku. Just some random crap I came up with.

Ripples fluttering,
A gentle storm takes over;
Crisp dew dapples
The waking earth.

I feckin love haikus :)

Monday, June 02, 2008

Got a couple more poems (not mine) that I'd like to share. They're so lovely.

Love Song to No One
Butterfly Box

Friday, May 30, 2008

I've decided I'll post my works up here, cos this is my blog, and it's supposed to contain everything about me. So if I posted my works elsewhere, like on WritersCafe, this blog would be somehow incomplete. But I'll still be posting my stuff up on WritersCafe.

So I just came up with this, when I'm totally supposed to be working on my GP essay. OMG. INEEDTOSTUDY. 3 MORE WEEKS TO BT2!!!

Anyway, I was kinda emo-ing a little, so the imagery in this poem is not as chipper as you'd probably prefer. So here it is: The Closed Sign

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Three Minutes by Amber Dinquel, Age 15
Three minutes
could mean a life time
Three minutes
is a dance, you've waited a lifetime for
Three minutes
is a kiss, passionate and slow
Three minutes
is a love song
Three minutes
is all it takes to break some one's heart
Three minutes was all it took
To make me fall in love with you

I so love this one.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Just came back from the Writer's Ink 12-hr Competition in school. It was from 8.30pm last night to 8.30am this morning, and I hardly caught a wink. Spent the entire night up writing two prose: 'The Best Disguises' and 'Angels Calling'. We were supposed to incorporate the clues they provided into our writing, which made it really tough, because the clues were like, so depressing (there were two movie clips that were like war films, where laundry of the dead soldiers in WW2 were uncollected and the soldier that survived had to collect it for them, and where this weird crazy artist was imagining himself in 'strawberry fields' which were actually representative of bombs and bloodshed during wartime. And then, there was the first clue, which we had to fish out of a bag and I got a toy car - ?! - and the last clue was the easiest - thank gdns - being a song by Day the The Fair about heartbreak: Thanks for the Christmases you made and murdered for me).

It was the first time I have EVER stayed up the entire night - through to the next morning - without sleeping! And I spent the whole night up WRITING. Yeahman. That's the part that rocked. The world looks so different when it's alseep. I especially love the 5am to 6am period, when the day is slowly waking and the smell of possibilities linger in the air like damp morning vapour, but the world isn't quite awake yet and everything's still quiet. Yeah, I guess I'm more of a morning person. I just love the freshness of a new day and the infinite opportunities and promises it brings.

Anyway, many thanks to Writer's Ink for organising this camp, though to improve it even more, maybe next time you could add a sharing session (on publishing and writing) in the itinerary? Special thanks to Kellyn, Gayathiri and Amillin (they're like ze star GP students in SA for our batch, btw) for all the help and friendliness. Oh, and thanks to Mrs Claudine Tan too, who oversaw this whole event, and went and got pizza, chocolates, grapes, biscuits and all that for our supper last night.

Had I known there was such a thing as Writer's Ink in SA, I would DEFINITELY have joined it. Stupidstupidstupid! How could I be so oblivious and uninitiated?!?!?!?!?! Now it's too darn late. They even have a newsletter published (this year's is the pilot batch for Writer's), and it's really good. It's printed on good quality material, and the whole getup is really professional-looking, and the works in there are really good too. If only I'd joined, then I could see my work published too.


But ohwells. No use crying over smudged mascara.

Anyway, thanks once again to Writer's Ink 2008 :)