Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Hi Joyce,


Thanks for sending along Lambs for Dinner. I read it over the weekend, and wanted to get back to you with my thoughts.


There's some good, smooth prose in these pages - in fact, the quality of writing is better than most of the material that crosses my desk. I also thought these pages had a good narrative pace, and that there was a solid sense of tension throughout. It's with real regret, then, that I must admit that I ultimately didn't fall in love with the manuscript as much as I had hoped. Perhaps part of the problem is that, while there were things about Skye and Drew I admired, the characters never felt quite authentic to me. They didn't come alive as fully realized, multi-dimensional protagonists in my mind, and, as a result, I found it tough to become fully invested in the story. Joyce, in spite of this manuscript's strengths, I'd better pass. I suspect that, based on my above reservations, I just wouldn't be the best advocate for the project.


Thanks so much for contacting me, though, and for giving me this opportunity. It is much appreciated, and I'm sorry to be passing. This is such a subjective business - I'm sure another agent will be a better fit! I wish you all the very best of luck in your search for representation.


Thanks again, and have a very happy holiday and new years, Andrea



Andrea Somberg
Harvey Klinger Inc.
300 W. 55th St., Suite 11V

New York, NY 10019
T: 212.581.7068
F: 212.315.3823
andrea@harveyklinger.com

Monday, November 01, 2010

NaNoWriMo!





















NaNoWriMo starts today, 1 November! One entire month of uninterrupted writing, just to make it to the finish line: 50,000 words by the end of the month. The thing about NaNo is that it always clashes with my exams; National Novel Writing Month is always in November, and with me mired in revisions and finals, I've never been able to take part in it. This time's no exception either, but I've decided to give it a shot.

Actually, I've already had my own NaNo in June, when I completed Lambs for Dinner in a few days shy of a month. 67,000 words and in the editing process now. So I believe it is possible to complete a 50,000-word novel in a month. What I did the last time was to force myself to bang out 1,500 words after breakfast. And then I'd take a half-hour break, and press on, banging out another 1,500 words. And then I'm done for the day. 3,000 words in a day, and 50,000 words in no time at all. It's actually pretty darn exhilarating - not to mention gratifying. And when I wasn't writing my novel, I was living, breathing, swimming through, and dreaming of it every moment. I love that focus, that 'something to do', that goal (just lofty enough to strive for, but not enough to pose as an insurmountable challenge), that writing Lambs gave me.

This coming winter break, I'll be working on The Dreamcatchers. I left it at page 126 the last time, and I'll work towards finishing it up this December - yes, I can! Go, NaNo-ers!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Haiku:














Borrowed skin that clings
Like winter fever in me.
Fingers on fire.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Haiku:
















A warm dream sets in:
You plunge through the night, caught in
A suspended dance.

Saturday, October 09, 2010

Colour Test

You have no idea how accurate this test is. Saw it on Gerlynn's blog. Take it here if you're interested.

Here are my results:


Color Test - Results

Your Existing Situation
Needs excitement and constant stimulation. Willingly participates in activities that are thrilling and offer adventure.

Your Stress Sources
"Has high standards and wants to make friends with those who have equally high standards; however, she has been unsuccessful in building these types of relationships. she is feeling under appreciated and her self-esteem is damaged because of it. she is uncomfortable with the situation and wishes to escape, but refuses to make compromises or lower her standards. Puts off resolving her problems because she afraid of the conflicts it may cause. In order to feel secure, she needs to feel appreciated by others so they will do what she asks of them and respect her opinions"

Your Restrained Characteristics
Current events leave her feeling forced into compromise in order to avoid being cut off from affection or future cooperation.

Has strong emotional demands and is picky when it comes to choosing a partner. she chooses to remain emotionally distant and uninvolved in relationships.

"Seeking to broaden her horizons and believes her hopes and dreams are realistic. Worries she may not be able to do the things she wants and needs to escape to a peaceful, quiet environment in order to restore her confidence."

Current events have her feeling forced to make bargains and put aside her own desires for now. she is able to find satisfaction and happiness through sexual activity.


Your Desired Objective
"If motivated, she will easily and quickly learn new skills. Is very intense person who seeks excitement and sexual stimulation. Wants others to see her as an exciting and interesting person, who is also charming and can easily influence others. Uses her charm to increase her chances of success and gain other people's trust."

Your Actual Problem
"Impressed by unique and one of a kind things, and by people with exceptional personalities. Tries to takes the characteristics she likes in other people and apply it to herself as well as coming across as a unique individual."

Your Actual Problem #2
"Feeling tension and stress brought on by situations which are out of her control, leaves her feeling helpless, anxious, and in adequate. she tries to escape into a fantasy world where things go her way and her desires are easier to reach."


Freakishly accurate. Apart from the sex part, that is.

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

This past week has been busybusybusy. I hate how this semester's turning out. 'Hate' is not a word I normally use, but come on, I'm only a sophomore who has no clue what I'm going to be after I graduate. Is there a need for all these academic demands?


Never mind. It's just five and a half more weeks to go before the exams. And then everything will be over. After the two presentations next week, things will hopefully die down. I've said this before, but I'll say this again: projects are a bitch.


Okay. That's probably enough negativity for a night. I'm actually supposed to be working on my readings while simultaneously drawing up my research proposal for my bilingualism module, but yes I'm here blogging and I'm also reading Wu Chun's blog and scouring for pictures of Jiro (at last count, I have 328 pictures of him in my file) on Facebook. Multitasking is good for your brain, says I.


It seems like my days are counted down according to deadlines and presentations these days. Man, I'll be glad when this semester's over!


Gerlynn and the rest have started their first semester in uni too, and while YL's practically AWOL these days, being completely tied up with school activities, Gerlynn's beginning to experience the onset of disillusionment brought about by being an undergrad. As I had and still am experiencing. I don't know what it is about being in university that makes us feel this way. To see everyone slogging their guts out to get a 4.0 CAP or higher, participating so actively in class, passionately involved in discussions, etc, I can't help but take a step back and wonder if I can ever be like them, or if I even want to. I don't really get the point of all this. I don't know if I can be that impassioned about what I'm learning. What I'm learning is interesting enough, but it's not like I want to make it my life's work. Social variation in English or the how's and why's of language acquisition are not something I want to pursue.


It's strange. I never really used to feel this way when I was in secondary school, or junior college. All I knew then was that I had to work hard - that I wanted to work hard - so I could prove that I wasn't worthless. Everyone says I have to go to uni, get a well-paying job with good perks and promotion, and all my hard work at O' and A' levels will be worth it.


But right now, the problem sets in. I don't even know what I want to be after I graduate (it used to be 'in the future', but now that the future is so close, it seems more apt to use 'after I graduate' instead). What do I like? What do I want in life? What is the point of life? A fat, regular paycheck? Bags? Cars? Shoes?


It's enough to make my head explode, thinking about all this. I've said before that sometimes I don't know what I'm doing in uni, and when I said it at the primary 6 barbeque last Saturday, they laughed, thinking I was joking. But I was more serious than they probably thought I was. Mr Chan assured me that I'll find a job that suits me, that I'll like, but right now I'm not feeling too optimistic.


Gosh, life is a bitch. Oh well. At least I have someone who understands how I feel. Kisses, Ger!


And thank goodness for small comforts:



Friday, September 24, 2010

On Character Voice ('Split' by Swati Avasthi)

I've been obsessed with character voice lately.

Especially for writers who write mainly from the first-person POV, character voice is a direct display of their writing style. Whether they're spunky, smart-ass, introspective, character voice is how the character is revealed.

When I started writing Lambs for Dinner, I dived in with Drew's voice ringing loud and clear in my head. It was one of the reasons why I managed to crank out 3000 words a day. Before that, I'd only ever written from the female protagonist's point of view. Raven (When the Lilies Turn Orange), Kristen (Bedful of Moonlight), Leigh (from the defunct Mint), Ethel (Red December Skies), and lastly Skye (Lambs for Dinner). But then I read Shiver by the ever-awesome Maggie Stiefvater, who wrote Shiver from both Sam and Grace's POVs. She drove the story along with their voices, alternating chapters that vary in length and emotion (though I feel their voices sound rather similar and not distinctive enough - although I must stress that her writing is really good nonetheless and that's just my personal opinion). And I thought I'd try that. I don't think I handled Lambs with Maggie's dexterity, though, but the process was exhilarating and addictive. Now, I don't think I'd want to go back to writing from just the female protagonist's POV.

I just finished Swati Avasthi's Split yesterday. It's written from the first-person POV of the main character, a sixteen-year-old boy who was kicked out of the house by his abusive father after a particularly vicious fight. Nowhere to turn, he looks for his older brother Christian, who left two years ago to start a new life on his own. The plot sounds dire and gloomy, and the theme is nothing new, but Avasthi's writing comes to life and pulls the story to life along with it - through the immensely likeable Jace, the main character. He's funny, acid-tongued, private, and has real fears (like he might turn into his father - case in point: he hit his girlfriend, the first and last time he ever did it) and dreams (to be with his family again) and internal conflicts (he's always been closer to his father, and does not know what to believe when he sees his father hit his mother and Christian; he still wants his father's approval and love) and hesitations (he's afraid of entering another relationship because he's afraid he might hurt the people he loves again).

J.D. Salinger did it with Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye). Eireann Corrigan did it (see my post on Ordinary Ghosts here). Anna Jarzab did it (All Unquiet Things). And now Swati Avasthi's done it too.

They all managed to create a character whose voice is so compelling they can drive the story forward just with this voice. The plot falls secondary to the voice, and for Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, I was sorry to come to the end and wished it were longer. I wanted to listen to Holden Caulfield's impassioned commentary about the "phony" things in life and the "phony" people he meets. There was poignancy beneath Caulfield's wit and disillusionment, and it was a character that stayed with me beyond the pages of the novel.

For Split, I was immediately pulled in by Jace's voice, although he got a bit sappy towards the end, when the author decided to tie up all the loose ends and hint at new beginnings blah blah blah. But at least she didn't overdue it to the extent of employing vomit-inducing cliches. Her writing was concise, snappy, and totally revealed the character of Jace, raw and in the flesh (figuratively speaking, of course), to the reader. Sames goes for Ordinary Ghosts and All Unquiet Things.

I doubt I can pull off writing an entire novel from a guy's POV. Because the danger of character-driven novels is that you can get carried away. You try to reveal the character to the readers, but focus too much on voice and your story may end up plotless and wandering, and your character a rambling, self-absorbed idiot. Alternating POVs seems the safest, and yet it doesn't compromise on the fun factor. I'm glad I've completed Lambs for Dinner (I completed a novel! I didn't throw in the towel halfway!), and I'm thrilled to have completed it in a month, but then I also wish the process hadn't been quite so short. I barely had time to enjoy it before it ended.

Anyway, I'm in my first round of editing Lambs now, having finished editing Red December Skies (I need to work on distinguishing Jerry's voice from Ethel's, though). Yes, I'm swamped with schoolwork. Which explains why I'm only editing and not writing. But as a fellow writer told me on Facebook, I should "just think of the experiences at school as inspiration for (my) writing", because "at (my) age, time is on (my) side", so I should "keep punching". Rightly so, Paul! Thanks for that bout of encouragement.

Monday, September 20, 2010

This post is way overdue.

Not only because it's been months since my last entry, but because things have happened that I didn't chronicle. Not that they're particularly momentous events (oh, to have one of those in my life!), but you know, a blog is a blog.

Geek that I am, I'm enjoying what I'm learning this semester. Because I was forced to take modules to fulfil the faculty requirements last sem, there wasn't a whole bunch of modules for me to choose from that I'm actually keen on. Oh, I did all right for my Southeast Asian Studies module, and my Singapore, Asia and American Power module, but they're none too scintillating compared to what I'm taking this semester.

GEK1506: Heavenly Mathematics may sound off-putting, especially if you're not especially mathematically-inclined. I do fine in Math, and I actually enjoy it, even though everyone says, "Oh you're a right-brainer, you're more artistically inclined, so you should, by right, destest Math and Math-related subjects." Besides, Heavenly Mathematics has nothing much to do with Math, really. It's more about cultural astronomy and how the calendar and time zones work, how long daytime is at different latitudes and the position of the stars in the night sky at different times of the year, and how astrology came about. In short, it's everything that's fascinated me ever since I started writing Lambs for Dinner. Constellations and where to find the evening star Venus (also called the morning star; since it can be seen after sunset and before sunrise), and how the distance between Sirius (dog-star, aka Canis Major) and the Sun is the furthest during summer; time zones (did you know that Singapore is actually in the wrong time zone?), new moon sightings and the different positions of sunset/sunrise throughout the year. I am completely psyched to be learning about all this.

Also, PC1322: Astronomy. It focuses more on heavenly bodies like comets ("dirty snowballs") and the planets and their moons, moon phases and stars (lovely, mighty things they are - and all that loveliness from just nuclear fusion!) and nebulae and how to use a telescope. Well the last part's a little technical and dry, since it brings in optics and physics (goodness knows I'm terrible in that), but it pertains to my novel, so I'd say it's good research.

Who knew science modules could turn out to be so interesting?





Joyce is in love with:




1. Writing (as you all know), as I always have and always will

























2. Pink daisies.










3. Jiro. Who could forget him?

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Gerlynn has been bugging me to update my blog, and I suppose I really should, except that there's really nothing much to update, because I can't stand rambling on about myself and my life.


"Who gives a flying crap?" I asked Ger.


"I do!" she barked. "Blog about your life, bemoan your single status, whatever - just blog!"


So here I am, trying to gather a list of blog-worthy things.


You realise that I haven't said anything of weight so far. Such is the state of my compulsion to blog these days.

School's started. Which means less time to pursue worthy ... pursuits, such as watching drama serials on YouTube. And working on my WIP, an urban fantasy involving spirits, a carnival and being trapped in dreams.


This semester seems more hectic, I realised, because I all my modules list group project as a CA component. Individial papers, I can handle. But projects are a bitch. They take so much synchronisation, organisation, negotiation of timetables, discussions, etc etc etc. For papers, you can get it over and done with quickly, but projects take time; they drag on all the way till the few crazy weeks before finals, where we'd then be rushing to finish up the project and mug for exams.


Here's the list of modules I'm taking this sem (I'm about to fall asleep writing this post - I am certain no one is interested in reading about all this bs):


1. EL2251 Social Variation of English

2. EL3880B Cinematic Discourse and Language

3. EL3208 Bilingualism

4. GEK1506 Heavenly Mathematics (It has everything to do with calculating the lunar/solar/Chinese/Islamic/etc calendars and 3D visualisation - I think I may potentially be screwed.)

5. PC1322 Understanding the Universe (ASTRONOMY! Finally, I can read astronomy magazines without feeling guilty for spending too much time on leisurely pursuits, because now I have a justification for reading them - I'm taking a module in it!)


And in case you were wondering about my sudden Fahrenheit fangirlism (as posted on Facebook), it was because I watched Momo Love and ToGetHer, both of which star Jiro Wang. And I swear, that boy is GORGEOUS. He's got beautiful high cheekbones, a sharp chin and nose, and the sexiest lips I have ever seen on a guy. Plus, he dances, sings, draws (VERY WELL, might I add - I bought his autobiography filled with his personal illustrations and pictures from his trip to Amsterdam, home of his idol Vincent van Gogh), is cute, funny, and has an omfg-ripped body.


Proof?





























And you know, who says watching drama serials doesn't teach or expose you to anything? In ToGetHer, the characters had to memorise a poem by Tagore, called Stray Birds.






A taste:


Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away.
And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh.




It was such a beautiful poem I rushed out to the library today to borrow the book. And I must say, his employment of imagery is comparable to Rilke's (my favourite poet). Although I still think Rilke's better.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Okay. I'm employing the lazy method of updating.

1. I'm on my first round of editing for Red December Skies. And can I just say that if I see another 'finally' or 'wondered' again, I will cry? I know many authors use certain words way too many times, and mine are apparently those two (and a whole lot more). I definitely relied too much on adverbs when I was working on December. But I know better now, and I am cutting out the deadwood. Adelante!

2. I've finally decided to read the Wake series by Lisa McMann. I was sort of hesitant initially because it's written in a sort of third-person diary form (with distracting times and dates) and the writing style was sort of disjointed and curt. For example:

January 1, 2006, 1:31 a.m.

Janie sprints through the snowy yards from two streets away and slips quietly through the front door of her house.

And then.

Everything goes black.

She grips her head, cursing her mother under her breath as the whirling kaleidoscope of colors builds and throws her off balance. She bumps against the wall and holds on, and then slowly lowers herself blindly to the floor as her fingers go numb. The last thing she needs is to crack her head open. Again.

She's too tired to fight it right now. Too tired to pull herself out of it. Plants her cheek on the cold tile floor. Gathers her strength so she can try later, in case the dream doesn't end quickly.

Breathes.

Watches.


It makes for easy reading, and I know she's trying to create immediacy, but the curt sentences can get a little annoying after a while. Still, that's not the main point.

I'm reading Fade now, the second of the Wake series, because I couldn't find the first one in the library today. And my heart plummeted after I learnt what the book is about. Because its premise sounds like my Dream-catchers. In fact, the main character in the series is a dream-catcher. Oh, they're different of course, McMann's dream-catcher and mine, but the idea is still there. I realised that dreams are not an uncommon theme for fantasy fiction. Take Inception, for example. Dream-hacking. And Wake: ditto. Mine doesn't really dabble in crime/thriller like those two, but the idea is still there. I don't want people to think I copied their ideas or anything.

Anyway, I decided to read McMann's series. Because one of the most common advice literary agents and editors give to writers is to read widely in your genre and out of your genre. Know what books and ideas are out there so that you can come up with something entirely original and fresh. So call this market research. That said, I'm enjoying Fade so far.

School's starting next week, by the way! Does it make me a geek to be excited about the things I'm going to learn this coming semester?

Oh, who am I kidding. I am a geek.

Friday, July 23, 2010

So close!

Dear Joyce,

Thanks for sending Red December Skies. Your writing is excellent and we love the premise. However, it seems that the voice in Ethel's and Jerry's chapters sound too similar. We also felt that the beginning could use more tension and a faster pace. We're going to have to pass on offering representation, but we're sure other agents will feel differently. Also, if you decide to revise or if you have other manuscripts in the future, we'd be willing to consider those as well. Thanks again for querying and best of luck placing your work.

Sincerely,
Judith

--
Judith Engracia
Literary Assistant
Liza Dawson Associates


Thanks, Judith, for the feedback! Will work on it.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Here come the rejections

[Dear Joyce,]

Many thanks for writing. You have an interesting idea for a book, and there's a lot to like about your approach. But in the end I'm afraid that I didn't come away quite fully convinced it was something I'd be able to represent successfully. I'm sorry not to be more enthusiastic but I'm grateful for the chance to review it nonetheless, and best of luck to you in finding it the right home.

Best,
Farley Chase

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

'Hate List' by Jennifer Brown

Every day at lunch, Mrs Tate would grill me about my future plans.

"Valerie, it's still not too late to grab a scholarship to one of the community colleges," she'd say, looking pained.

I'd shake my head. "No."

"What are you going to do?" she'd asked me one day as we ate lunch together.

I'd considered this, believe me. What would I do once graduation was over? Where would I go? How would I live? Would I stay at home and wait for Mom and Mel to possibly get married? Would I move in with Dad and Briley and Frankie and try to repair the relationship that I was pretty sure Dad didn't want anyway? Would I move out and get a job? Get a roommate? Fall in love?

"Recover," I'd said. And I'd meant it. I needed some time to simply recover. I'd consider my future later, when Garvin High had slipped off me like a heavy coat in a hot room and I'd begun to forget the faces of my classmates. Of Troy. Of Nick. When I'd begun to forget the smell of gunpowder and blood. If I ever could.

That excerpt is the best I found that can convey what the gist of Hate List (by Jennifer Brown) is about.

Valerie Leftman is left bewildered, betrayed and vilified after her boyfriend goes on a shooting rampage and kills people off their Hate List. She struggles to remember the Nick she fell in love with and convince herself that she is not guilty, even though she played a part in coming up with the seemingly-innocuous Hate List. Some label her a hero for stopping Nick (and earning a gunshot wound to her thigh as a result, but saving Jessica Campbell, Queen Bitch, as well). Some think she ought to kill herself like Nick did. With her parents' deteriorating marriage to deal with apart from all that, Valerie is left struggling to understand what she stands for and who she really is and can become.

While the plot might portend a predictable narration (how Valerie, deals with the aftermath of her boyfriend's shooting of the school, and learns to move on with her life and understand that it isn't her fault), Brown's firm grasp of the narrator's voice was what made me read on. And the more I read, the more I empathised with the protagonist. Brown considered every aspect of the shooting, from the parents to the girlfriend to the survivors. What I enjoy most, though, are the conversations Valerie has with her therapist. Brown has made her protagonist very introspective. You can tell the author herself thought through every facet of the shooting and its ramifications. It's not just some superficial oh-woe-is-me-my-boyfriend-went-nuts-and-I-don't-know-what-to-do-anymore narration. Brown draws out the quiet tensions and shifting dynamics between characters throughout the story, without dragging its pace. This is, in my opinion, very skilful narration and grasp of the character's voice.

Hate List is Brown's debut novel and already it has won the Michigan Library Association Thumbs Up Award, and is nominated for the 2011 New Hampshire Flume Award.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Short Story - Playmates

The movers came before I could do anything about it.

They started with the old mahogany table where my grandfather used to sit, playing Solitaire. There was a big hole in the middle of the basement after the table was gone. That thing weighed a ton. I know because I tried moving it before. But it only took four beefcakes to haul it into the truck.

The table left behind four circles where the legs had been. Four unblemished spots in the flooring. I stood in the middle of it, feeling the absence of its weight in the ground, like when someone gets up from the seat on the bus after sitting there for practically the whole journey.

“Puffer hates the new house. She’s not coming with us because she hates it.”

This was the fifth time that day I’d said that. While Mom had muttered, “Good,” the previous few times, now she didn’t even bother pretending to pay attention anymore, just went about checking to see if we’d left anything out from the packing. I was a hindrance to her now, a shadow in the corner of her eye.

I headed out to the backyard, where Puffer was sitting on the wooden swing, legs dangling. I don’t think I’d ever get used to how tiny she was. Or how pretty her raven hair looked when it fell over her dark wide eyes. She was more graceful than I could ever dream of being.

I joined her on the swing and sank my chin into my hands, elbowed perched on my knees. “I hate this.”

“You’ll grow to like it.” Her voice rang out, sweet and clear, like a field of lavender. “Your kind is adaptable. They change themselves to suit their environment. Soon, you’ll forget I ever existed.”

“Never. I’ll never forget you, Puffer. ” I stuck my chin out, daring her to disagree.

She only gave me a smile that couldn’t reach her eyes.

“Why can’t you come with us, Puffer? I don’t understand.” I was being stubborn, asking the same question over and over, but to hell with it.

Puffer entertained me more than Mom did. “I told you, love. I’m bound to this tree. Where this tree is, there I’ll be. I can’t leave even if I want to.”

I hopped off the swing to survey the tree. It didn’t look any different from the last time I checked. Just a big old tree with a canopy that spanned across half the backyard. It had a huge blackened hole in the middle of the trunk, like someone had burned it away. Nothing lay in there but dirt and insects. Sometimes, Puffer would peer out from it, her pale face illuminated by the moonlight, just to kick me out of my skin.

She now blew on my ear, making several loose strands of my hair dance. Her breath was cold, as always. “We can run away.”

This wasn’t the first time she’d suggested that. A cold trail slithered down my back that had nothing to do with Puffer’s breath. It didn’t make sense. I had never really feared Puffer. She had been my friend since my father died. If anyone could fear Puffer (apart from Mom), they’d have to be a big pansy. She was about the most harmless person I’d ever known.

That’s what I told myself, even as Puffer trailed a thin cold finger down my cheek. Her dark gaze held on to mine as a sliver of smile crept across her face.

“Think about it, Katie. We could stay together forever. Didn’t you say you don’t want to leave me? I’m offering you an alternative. We could even find your father. You told me he’d love me. We could live together, always.”

“What about Mom?”

She shrugged, setting loose a tumble of soft locks down her pale shoulders. “She’ll join us soon enough.”

“But how can we run? You said it yourself – you’re tied to this tree.”

“I’ve showed you how. Remember that dream you had?”

When Puffer first told me she could make me dream of her, I’d assumed she meant it figuratively. It wasn’t until I saw her in my dreams for three nights running that I began to understand what she meant.

In my dreams, she had showed things. Like how she had been tied to the tree, blood pouring from the wound in her chest, staining her dress like juice had dribbled down her front. She’d lain there like a bloodied faery, staring up at the sky until she no longer saw it. In my dreams, she showed me how she crept around the edges of a person, dark eyes gleaming, until she slipped into them, became a part of them. In my dreams, she showed me how the people she entered slit their wrists and waited to die.

I couldn’t do anything about the shudder that ripped through me. My voice tore out of my throat. “You want me to kill myself?”

Her lips thinned into a curve. “How else did you think we could be together? You’re twelve, Katie. Learn something already.”

“When you said I could join you, I thought you meant sit here with you until Mom caved in. Or find a way to release you from this tree. Not …”

She stared into my face, smirking. “Scared, Katie? It’s just blood, you know.”

I bit on my trembling lower lip. “Why can’t you come into me? I could take you away.”

“Do you want me to?”

I nodded. “I do.” The words made me feel more certain than I had been.

She zipped to the other side of me and perched her head on my shoulder. “If I become a part of you, you won’t be just Katie. You’ll be Katie-and-Puffer.”

I nodded.

“Are you sure?”

I nodded again.

“Now?” Her eyes were wider than before.

I turned to glance at Mom, still scurrying around the house while talking to one of the movers. Tufts of hair had freed themselves from her ponytail. She wouldn’t know – she wouldn’t care – if I wasn’t just Katie anymore.

“Just do it,” I told Puffer.

Puffer’s grin was the widest I had ever seen it.

A blink, and she was gone. Only a trail of smoke danced around me, like an elusive dragonfly. It collected itself into a mass of dark grey cloud, then pulled apart into a scattered, patterned web. Came together, pulled apart. Came together, pulled apart. All that time it whirled around me, silent and calculating.

It took me a while to realize she had entered me. She slid into every crevice of me like she knew her way around. I didn’t feel any heavier, but charged, like energy was crackling through me, spinning around my head, in my chest, right down to my toes.

This is lovely.

Now I had to get used to not seeing Puffer around, but hearing her in my head. I could hear her sighing happily as I stared down at myself, checking if I remained the same.

I looked around, went through the back doors, back into the empty basement. Everything remained the same, but I wasn’t. I was Katie-and-Puffer now, and I didn’t have to shed any blood to make that compromise.

My reflection in the basement mirror confirmed that I was still Katie, in the flesh. My eyes were darker than before, wider too, like Puffer’s. They flashed with doubled vitality.

But if Mom noticed anything different about me, she didn’t say anything. Instead, she sighed. “Katie, look at you. What a mess you are. And didn’t I ask you to pack? I have a million things to do today. Can’t you make me worry less about you?”

A mess? Was that all she saw when she looked at me?

I saw my reflection in the penknife that lay atop the carton of paraphernalia. My eyes were dark, wild, like my hair. It wasn’t a mess; I thought it was beautiful. The real ugliness lay in the things around. It seeped into me, crawled under my skin, a tumor that took root and grew. It carved lines in my mother’s face, twisted her features.

I didn’t think. All I heard was the voice in my head.

We deserve more than this.

The blade was cold to the touch.

Friday, July 09, 2010

'Ordinary Ghosts' by Eireann Corrigan


I recently read Ordinary Ghosts by Eireann Corrigan and am now googling her other books, because Ordinary Ghosts really blew me away.

The story isn't really heavy on the plot, but the character's voice carried me through the entire story, and not once did I tire of it. It's about a boy Emil Simon, whose star brother Ethan ran away after the death of their mother. Emil has always looked up to his brother and the story now chronicles the days after his brother's departure and his mother's death. With half of the family left, Emil and his father are trying their best not to tailspin. But normalcy is elusive, and the tension between Emil and his father is almost palpable, as they navigate their way through life.


Emil finds that Ethan left him the key to Ainsley Academy, the all-boy prep school they study in. As per Ainsley tradition, the key-bearer has to lay the greatest prank of all time on the school, in secrecy.

Emil's nighttime forays in the school compounds leads him to a girl (the daughter of his ex-teacher) whome he falls in love with, and eventually accompanies him on the search for his brother.

Ordinary Ghosts is about a boy coming of age in his own messy way, the way we all do, and I suppose that's what makes the narrator so compelling. He's funny, he's a wuss, he gets big-headed and insecure, and he's perfectly flawed. He's human, and I see a lot of myself in Emil, even though he's a boy. I think Corrigan really grasped his voice well, and her effort to make sure his voice stays consistent throughout the story is evident. The story flows in a Salinger-esque way, and I was pretty sorry when I got to the end, just like I had been when I'd reached the end of The Catcher in the Rye. Like Holden Caulfield, Emil Simon is an anti-hero you'd cheer for.

Thursday, July 08, 2010

Writer Nicola Morgan has some compiled an invaluable non-exhaustive list of questions to ask your characters:

What is your worst fear? And your second worst? (Likely to be part of the conflict and tension.)

What would you most like people to know about you? (Make sure it's obvious, then.)

What would you most like to hide? (Every hero has a flaw.)

What would you most like to change about your life? (Could be part of the conflict and motivation; could be sub-plot.)

Why should we care about you? (Because if we don't, we won't read on.)

What were you doing before this story started? (This informs your back-story.)

Do people understand you? If not, what do they get wrong? (Makes your character more real because it informs interaction with other characters.)

If I met you for the first time, would I immediately know what you were like or would it take a while to get to know you? (As above.)

What sort of people like you? Do adults like you? Do boys like you? Do girls like you? Why? Or why not? (Helps place your character within the real world instead of just on the page. It may also inspire some ideas for painting your character richly but subtly.)

Are you happy on your own? (As above.)

What are you going to achieve in my story? (Crucial for plot, since character drives action.)

What trivial but annoying habit do you have? (Makes character more real. Character can show this habit when angry / sad / stressed - helps you show without telling emotion too much.))

What trivial but annoying habits do you dislike in other people? (As above.)

What four (or three or five) adjectives best sum you up? (Helps you remember traits to paint most strongly.)

Are you going to die in this story?** Should you? (Informs plot and interacts with reader's engagement.)



And on her blog, writer Nik Perring chips in too:

It is really, really, really hard work. And exhausting. I mean, writing the thing’s difficult enough (and that’s after all that time spent learning how to write well, after all those stories we’ve given up on) and then the submitting, the editing. But once you’ve signed that contract it’s as though, to a point, you’re starting from the beginning again. You have to work hard to promote your book. Your publisher will do what they can but, really, the hard work’s down to you.

Don’t expect any favours. From friends or from reviewers. Of course some are lovely and only too pleased to have a look at your book and tell their readers what they think of it ... but I’ve heard from people I’d not heard from in years and years and, in contrast, some of the people I’d have thought would have been the most pleased for me have shown little or no interest at all. And, I suppose, why should they? As a writer, published or none, you’re not owed anything.

Be hopeful but be self-critical. It’s a high standard you have to reach and make no mistake, you ARE competing with the best in the business. And what makes it harder is that they’re known – by readers who buy their books and by publishers who know they’ll sell the books. But they were unpublished writers too once, you know! And they got to be where they are now by working very hard and by not giving up. And probably, by trying and failing a few times too. Remember: nothing’s lost.

My last piece of advice though, is this: enjoy your writing. It won’t be fun all the time, but you should do it because you enjoy it.

Monday, July 05, 2010

Short Story - Conversations with Death



I scrabbled around, but only collected dirt under my nails. This was the second time they had tried to bury me.

You’d think they would’ve gotten it into their heads by now. Nothing was going to destroy me. No amount of burials or sending my corpse up in flames was going to do the trick, because a part of my corpse was missing. My left thumb, to be absolutely specific.

So until they found that dry little piece of relic, I wasn’t about to go anywhere. These amateurs, they thought they knew everything. Well, I was like them once. It wasn’t until I was writhing from a well-delivered blow to my chest that I realized what I had to do if I wanted to stay alive (well, okay, not alive, technically – existent, maybe) long enough to finish up what I needed to do.

And let me just say, even though I was half unconscious from my chest wound, slicing off my thumb hurt like a bitch. I thought I wouldn’t have the strength to cut through the bone, but I don’t – didn’t – sharpen my knife for my health.

Being dead was a pain in the ass, for sure. But it was a job hazard; I understood that when I signed on to this job. Now, if only there was a way to be alive again.

But the good thing about being buried at a cemetery was that I didn’t have to spend too much effort trying to hunt down those creatures. Where the stench of death lingered was where the beasts would show up, right along with their masters – mini Grim Reapers, I called them, except they didn’t have scythes.

With any luck, no one would stop me before I managed to fry them all. It was the only way I know to cheat Death. No grim-reaper, no bloodhounds, no one to collect the bodies, no one would die.

Of course, that sounded nobler than it really was. The truth? I didn’t want to die. Not yet. Not before I’d killed Tessa’s murderer. Not before I found out the truth about who I was.

I smelled the hounds before I heard them. I’d heard that the undead smelt them whenever they came within a ten-meter radius of them, but that didn’t prepare me for the actual stench. Their breaths were hot and rotting, like burning flesh. I would know – I’d smelt rotting flesh more times than I would’ve liked.

The three beasts stood a foot away from me, growling like angry engines. Their black coats rippled, and drool hung off their jagged peaks of teeth. Definitely not the ones to piss off.

The three figures behind the beasts each held up a hand, immediately silencing the growls. They were partially obscured by darkness, so all I could make out was their silhouettes. They were neither gods nor ghosts, and I’d never had an opinion about them as long as they didn’t get involved in my line of work. But it seemed that was about to change now.

I held my hands up. “Not now, guys. I’m on a pretty important mission.”

One of them raised a withered finger at me. “This is the second time we are here, nomad.” Its voice was too raspy for me to discern its gender. “You cheated the Grim Reaper.”

I smirked. I couldn’t help it – it wasn’t everyday someone came along to cheat Death. “Guilty. And I’m going to keep at this until someone offs me properly, or until I get the answers I’m looking for.” I shrugged. “Whichever comes first.”

“In death, no answer is relevant.”

“That’s a tempting thought, but…” I shook my head. “It doesn’t work for me.”

None of them replied. The cemetery was silent save for the heavy rattled breathing of the hounds.

“So I’m half-dead. You can’t claim me yet. What are you doing here?” I looked at each one of them. I would’ve taken a step closer for a better look, were it not for their bloodthirsty pets sitting between on their haunches.

“We are not here for you.”

That was when I noticed the silvery glow behind them. I craned my neck, but couldn’t catch his or her face. Shrugging, I smoothened my shirt. “Well, then. I’d best be on my way.”

“Not yet.”

The Collector glided towards me, but I still couldn’t see its face. It pointed at my chest.

“What?”

It didn’t say anything, but kept its finger pointed at my chest.

My amulet. The bone-constructed pendant with real rubies for eyes. I wouldn’t sell it for any price.

I toyed with the pendant. “What, this?”

The Collector dropped his hand. “You are living on borrowed time, nomad. It is time to let go of that talisman.”

“I’m not done hunting yet. And hey” – I shrugged – “it’s not my fault if those jokers did a shoddy job of burying my remains. Plus, I’m the good guy. You shouldn’t be spending so much energy on me. I’ll go gently into the good night once my business is done, okay?”

“Everyone dances with the Grim Reaper, good or bad.”

“Is that from a song? Sounds like a line from a song.”

“Hand it over, nomad.”

“No, I don’t think so.” I took a step back, dropping my gaze to the beasts, who had risen from their haunches and were starting to growl again. Their eyes flashed red – so quickly that I would’ve missed it if I didn’t know better.

I took another step back. And that was when the Collectors – or should I say, the imposters – gave chase.

“That was a pretty neat trick,” I called over my shoulder. “I almost fell for it.”

The hoods of their robes had fallen off now that they knew I’d seen through their ploy. Their distorted faces flickered the way spirits usually did. I used to have nightmares when I first started out.

“Seriously, though,” I went on. “Dressing up as Collectors? Taking things a step too far, don’t you think? I’d start to think you guys were getting desperate.”

I was at a disadvantage here, because while all those spirits had to do was glide, I had to do the actual running, which involved avoiding mini obstacles like pebbles and uneven ground. I had to get to the car – assuming someone hadn’t had it towed away already, or stolen my arsenal. All I needed was my silver dagger crusted with salt. I didn’t just want to dispel those spirits; I wanted them gone. For good.

Thing is, that worked both ways.

I took care not to let them come an inch near me. I’d been possessed by those filthy things too many times to learn how they worked. The trick was to get them before they got you. Easier said than done.

Especially with those amateur hunters on my ass.

For the third time in a week, I found myself pitching into a hole six feet deep, a bed made of earth. For a bunch of amateurs, they sure don’t take chances.

“No, wait! There are spirits are on my tail! You have to let me out. I have to get rid of them!” I clawed at earth. It’s harder to get out of a damn pit when you’re panicking.

The woman knelt by my grave, smiling. “We know.”

When I saw the stake in her hand, I understood it all.

They weren’t hunters. No, they weren’t out to help rid the world of bloodthirsty spirits who possessed people for the sake of living again.

“We’re just here to finish our job, hunter. Send Death our regards.” Her eyes flashed red.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

'Nothing to Lose' by Alex Flinn

I recently read Nothing to Lose by Alex Flinn, and was hooked from the first chapter. What made me pick up the book, actually, was the premise (i.e. the setting). It's not everyday you find a book that's set in a carnival, and that setting has delightfully endless potential to tap into.

The story is about a seventeen-year-old boy, Michael Daye, whose mother remarried after Michael's father died. She married a renowned lawyer whom everyone thinks is too respectable to do anything wrong - including abusing his new wife.

Michael tries to make his mother leave him, but for the financially stable life Walker provides for mother and son, his mother is resolute against leaving Walker. Michael finds himself unable to do anything but watch over his mother in case his stepfather hurts her again. She's not allowed to leave the house or pick up phone calls unless it's from Walker, and Michael hates what Walker's done to his mother, but there's nothing he can do.

Finally, he decides that his mother chose this life for herself, and therefore doesn't need him anymore. He leaves home and joins the travelling fair, where practically everyone there has a secret of their own, but the thing about the carnival that Michael likes is that no one asks questions.

But what his fellow carnies don't know is that Michael is on the run - from the law. His mother was convicted of murdering Walker, and to protect her son, she tells him to run as far as he can, so far that no one would suspect his involvement in the murder.

A year later, the truth starts to catch up with Michael, and soon everyone in the travelling fair has gotten wind of Michael's past, forcing him to leave the carnival lest he implicates them too.

Flinn's prose is light, tight and fleet-footed, thereby keeping up the pace of the story. However, she doesn't compromise on the emotional element of the story. Michael falls for a fellow carnie, Kirstie, who is also running away from her own problems at home. And as a writer who's recently just started experimenting with writing from the male point-of-view, I learnt quite a bit about how a guy might see a girl and subsequently fall for her. Michael's more sensitive than my Drew (from Lambs for Dinner), but less so than my Jerry (from Red December Skies), I feel. Over the past year that he's on the run, he's forced to be independent and guards himself well against people, but doesn't lose the ember of sentimentality that is congruent to his protective streak over his mother.

So Michael, in the end, has to choose between returning to Miami to defend his mother or tell the truth about what happened that day she killed Walker, or stay on the run with Kirstie. The twist at the end put a smile on my face, because it was well-delivered and delightfully shocking. The decision Michael made in the end - leaving Kirstie - didn't sit quite well with me, because I'm a sucker for romantic happy endings, but Flinn delivered a hell of a novel, for sure. Even at only 200 over pages, it made for a quick but highly rewarding read, well-paced and that also made sure every scene and description was relevant.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Short Story - Open Season


He had been hunting for days now.

Nobody ever said hunting was a walk in the park, but at least someone could have informed him about the job prospects: bone-weariness and going for days on end without food. Right now, all he wanted was a burger, a beer and a long cold shower.

No. He couldn’t think of that now. He had to focus. Nothing was more important right now the hunt. The errant soul was always a step ahead of him. He had to think of a way to outsmart and outmaneuver it, bring an end to this. It didn’t help that the soul was indifferent about wasting lives in this game. The longer it took for him to track it down and send it on its way, the more people were going to die.

He had veered too far away from civilization. Was that a good or bad thing? He’d attract less attention, for sure, when he had to perform the exorcism. But he doubted the soul would show up here. Where was here, anyway? Not a soul (well, figuratively speaking) could be seen, and the only thing he heard was … the chugging of a train.

He saw the girl before he spotted the railway tracks.

He could tell if she was alive. She was just lying there on a discarded old green couch, right in the middle of the train tracks.

It struck him as strange – and he was accustomed to strange – that a girl would be lying on a couch on a railway track. So it had to be a trap, then.

Except, what if it wasn’t? Stranger things had happened, hadn’t they?

His brand of saving people didn’t usually involve hauling random girls off train tracks – not unless there was something supernatural involved – but even if the tracks were defunct now, he couldn’t exactly leave her lying there.

Gravel crunched under his boots as he inched his way over to her, hand poised on the hilt of his dagger.

She was young, perhaps in her early twenties; her skin still had the silky, elastic quality endowed by youth. Her pink chiffon dress was shredded and stained with dirt at the hem, but other than that, she didn’t seem to be hurt. Her head lolled over the armrest. She was too pale to be alive, but her lips hadn’t turned blue yet.

He tapped her arm. Too cold. “Miss?”

No response.

He felt for her pulse and discerned a faint but sporadic throb under her translucent skin.
In the distance, the chugging was louder now. When he looked up, he could almost spot the train through the unnatural mist that had descended at noon. He couldn’t tell how far away it was, but judging by the sound, he probably should get off the tracks now.

When he picked her up off the old couch, he hadn’t expected her to be that heavy. Or maybe he was just weak from so many days without fuel. But it felt almost like she didn’t want to be carried off.

The train wasn’t just a silhouette now, but an unstoppable creature of steel, belting steam and careening their way.

The girl stirred. She lifted her head and winced, bringing her hand up to her neck.

“Hey,” he said, keeping an eye on the incoming train.

“Who are you?” She swiveled her head around. “Where am I?”

“Look. I don’t have time to explain” – the train whistled; steam wafted over to them – “but right now, we have to get off this track.”

She grabbed his hand, swift and unyielding. Blinking, she revealed eyes the color of blood. Before he could react, she had heaved herself up from the couch and rammed him onto it, all in a fluid motion.

“It’s open season, hunter.” Her voice was low, womanly, but the monster was in her eyes.

She was too strong for him. He couldn’t move an inch from the couch, and his senses were screaming as loudly as the train that was speeding his way. In less than ten seconds – fifteen, if he was lucky – he would be roadkill.

“You’ve been hunting me for a long time, haven’t you?” She tilted her head coyly. “Well, here I am. Do as you please.”

Perspiration leaked from him. He struggled for his dagger, grasped the hilt.

The girl saw what he was doing and smirked. “It’s not the girl you have to kill. You do know that even if you kill her, I’ll just find someone else, don’t you? So go ahead, kill her.”

There was nothing else he could do, no weapon, no means of wasting the damn soul. Meanwhile, the face of the train had grown into a wall, ready to slam into him.

And then something occurred to him. He plunged the dagger into her side, grabbed her and leapt off the tracks, just as the train roared past him in a whirl of clattering metal and hot wind.

He waited until the metallic monster had hurtled past before yanking out the knife from the girl. “Yeah, well,” he said, like there hadn’t been any interruption at all. “I think the girl was dead to begin with, thanks to you. You were only keeping her alive to set up this trap.”

She stared down at the wound in her side. There was no blood, just tar-like substance that crept out. Ectoplasm. The sight gave him satisfaction like nothing else could.

“That’s not possible,” she rasped. “Mortal weapons don’t work on us.”
“Isn’t it? It’s a special knife, bitch, tailor-made to wipe out pesky souls like yourself. You did a real sloppy job of setting up the trap, though. You tampered with the pulse, and the girl’s cold as ice. Next time, why don’t you impress me better?”

She couldn’t squeeze in a retort in time. All around him was ectoplasm, a steadily growing pool of it. Great, he thought, not another pair of jeans stained with ghostly filth. He wiped down his dagger, and laid the body amongst the waist-high grass. Just another job, he told himself. It’s just another job.

Now, for that burger, beer and nice cold shower.

Friday, June 18, 2010

I'm approximately 500 words away from completing the first draft of Lambs for Dinner. And now I wish I hadn't written it so quickly. I had such a blast writing it!

What really spurred me on was Drew's voice. I enjoyed writing from his POV, because to me, his voice was pretty distinct. So much so that I could hear him even as I go about my quotidian activities.


Advice from Greenhouse Literary Agency: How to Write the Breakout Novel

1. An inspired concept: Don’t start writing until you know you have a really, really great idea. Work out your pitch BEFORE you start writing.


2. Larger-than-life characters: A major tip is to get to know your principle characters and their backstories so well BEFORE YOU START TO WRITE that you don’t need to explain them, or invent them, as you go along. Rather, you are so well acquainted with these people from the get-go that you can let them reveal themselves as you drip forth in measured and varied ways their personalities and their pasts.


3. High stakes plots: WHAT DO YOUR CHARACTERS STAND TO WIN OR LOSE?

4. A deeply felt theme: There needs to be something DEEPLY FELT in your story that will stay with your reader after the last page is turned. Something that gives us a newly perceived truth about what it means to be human.


Here's me checking off this list. I only just came across it today, and I read it with Lambs for Dinner in mind.

Lambs for Dinner was inspired by Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse. After reading it, I knew I wanted to write a story where a character sees himself as the Steppenwolf, 'a beast astray who finds neither home nor joy nor nourishment in a world that is strange and incomprehensible to him'. In him is a duality of nature, Man and beast, both of whom are in constant enmity. The character cannot live with both of them caged within him. There are two groups of people he comes into contact with: one is attracted to the beast in him, his raw primal power; the other attracted to the Man, the one with the boundless capacity to fight for those he loves.

With this idea came Drew. I didn't have to explain or spend too much effort illustrating him to the reader. I just let his voice do the work, along with his behaviour.

I tried to keep the writing tight this time. Looking back on Red December Skies, I realised I spent a lot of words on a single issue, spent too many words layering my writing. I don't know if my writing seemed too cumbersome as a result, so I needed people to help me read it and tell me what they think.

So I tried to make every sentence and word count this time, for Lambs for Dinner. I tried to make them contribute to moving the plot forward, or revealing something about the character. And I tried to incorporate more action, less description. I figured the character's voice was more important than waxing lyrical about the stars.

I'm actually starting to plan my next novel. It's going to be an urban fantasy, involving water spirits and possession of bodies. And coupled with my recent reading diet, I had a dream - a nightmare, actually - last night, where my dad was possessed and completely changed into somebody else. He paid no attention to me, and was all dark and sinister, and my friend was about to warn me about him being possessed when she was mysteriously killed. When my Dad knew that I'd learnt of the truth, I had to run from him, along with a group of friends that my dad and other possessed people were trying to kill. Even magic circles didn't help.

Yes, it was a complicated and surreal dream. I woke myself up, with hot tears flowing down the side of my face. In short, it was a nightmare.

But hey, who cares, when I've thought of the way to get started on my Shiny New Idea, eh?

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Short Story - The Secret

People had been speculating on the secret behind those walls for years. But no one ever had any solid idea. Soon, the Secret turned into a myth. People fantasized a monster trapped in the old brick-and-mortar building down the narrow street.

But there really was nothing to it. Because I was the Secret. And there really was nothing much to me. Sure, I screamed sometimes, and threw things around. But in that quiet little alley, no one could really hear me. Right? Unless maybe I wanted to be heard.

I was tired of being ignored for so many years. It was worse now that the building had been abandoned. It used to be a school, so it never got too lonely. But after the fire, the city authorities decided the building was too ramshackle to serve any function. They were thinking of demolishing it – they probably would have, if not for some of the older residents who claimed that the building had historical value and would fight tooth and nail to stop the council from getting their paws on it.

You’d think there’d be more of us around, after the fire. Instead, the hallways became emptier. Dust settled, thickened, over the years, and I was trapped in this miserable draughty place as always. It was the worst during the colder months. Loneliness sucked even more warmth out of you, and that always put me in a foul mood.

This year, the council finally succeeded in obtaining the permit to demolish the building. The building’s troop of protectors had significantly decreased over the years, and because of my bad behavior, some of them had even decided it was best for the building to be torn down.

Where would I go if the building no longer existed? Maybe someone would come to collect me. Maybe that mightn’t even be so bad.

They sent only one man to observe the building before proceeding with the demolishment. He arrived without much fanfare, though people crowded to watch him enter the building. I observed from behind the second floor windows. (I’d learnt throughout the ages that sunlight cast an illuminating glow upon us. Some keener-eyed humans had spotted me before, and it was prudent to keep to the shadows.) I couldn’t see his face, only his mess of brown curls that appeared slightly golden in the sunlight.

Downstairs, Edna, the old lady who sold apples at five for a dollar down the street, had stepped forward to address the man from the town council.

“Those walls hide a secret, young man. I wouldn’t disturb it, if I were you.”

He shrugged. “Someone’s got to do the job.”

He ignored further finger-pointing and murmurings, and unlocked the wooden doors with a huge brass key. I remembered the headmistress used to keep it around her waist. Good old Headmistress Coy.

I decided to head downstairs to welcome the visitor.

It felt odd to have a stranger enter the building after so many years. If anyone should come through those doors, it ought to be the children of the old school, not some random man from the town council. And he didn’t seem put off by the stench of mildew and rot, or the layers dust that swirled in the slim shafts of sunlight that peeked through. That made me mad, for some reason. People had feared the Secret behind these walls, and he was ambling through as though he were house-hunting.

I let loose a keening wail, and banged on the old piano (which had survived, since the fire was put out before it spread from the second floor) for good measure. Most of the stuff here had been wrecked by now, thanks to me and my fits of anger.

The man whirled. “Someone ought to tune that piano.” He shook his head like it was a real tragedy. And then he turned to face me. “I don’t suppose you know how to, or you would have done it already.”

It took me a while to realize he was addressing me. “You … you can see me?”

He cocked his head. “Why wouldn’t I be able to?”

“Because you’re human. You’re – you’re alive.” I said that with no small amount of jealousy.

“And you’re … not?”

“That sounded vaguely patronizing. Do I look human to you?”

He nodded, like I had confirmed a notion of his. “So you must be that poltergeist.”

“Am I.” People had terms for everything these days. “And what exactly is the job of a ... what was that?”

“A poltergeist? Basically to be a general nuisance to everyone. They scream, they wail, they throw things, damage them – they do all that when they’re not even supposed to be around anymore.” He shrugged.

That didn’t sound too nice.

“But I can’t help being around. And this is the only place I can be.” I pointed an accusatory finger at him. “And aren’t you supposed to be afraid of me? I am a ghost, after all. People call me the Secret.”

“Only because they’ve never dared to enter this place. They’ll find that all they’ve feared is a pestilential ghost who’s got a horrible voice and can’t tune a piano.”

I banged on the piano. The notes jarred and reverberated around the room. Even I winced.

“I can’t leave this place.” It surprised me how forlorn my voice sounded, so I banged on the piano again, though not quite as hard this time. “So you can’t tear this place down. I wouldn’t know where else to go.”

“You could come in here.”

“In where?”

He jabbed his thumb at his chest.

I laughed. “That’s a rather pitiful way to woo a girl.”

He rolled his eyes. “You flatter yourself. I’m making you an honest offer. I’ve got three souls in this body now. They came pretty willingly.” Shrugging, he added, “It’s your choice,” before going over to scrutinize the old grandfather clock. He stared at the grimy glass case with his back facing me. I knew he was waiting.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What’s the catch?”

“It might get a little cramped, being in a body with three other people – sorry, I mean souls. But you’d be able to do things again. Human things.”

“And you are in there somewhere?” I gestured to the body.

“Naturally.”

I didn’t see what was so natural about that. But think about it – another shot at being human again! Not technically alive, but as alive as I could probably ever get. No more being stuck in a cold, empty building, wishing for some noise and warmth and laughter. I could even taste one of Edna’s apples.

“How do we go about doing it?”

The man turned. “It’s a simple procedure.” Nodding at the clock, he said, “We wait for the clock to strike twelve. On the twelfth note, you place your fingertips on mine, and think of the most delightful memory you’d take with you to the end of the world.”

“That’s it?”

He nodded.

We were minutes – no, seconds – away from twelve noon. I bid a hasty goodbye to the people crowding outside the windows, and took a step towards the man. My eagerness must have made me seem desperate, but I didn’t care anymore. When I became almost human, nothing else would matter but the taste of an apple, the kiss of the sun, and feel of my feet on the ground. I stared at the clock. The pendulum couldn’t swing fast enough for me.

Finally, at the eleventh note, he closed the gap between us. He smiled, lips stretched across his face, as he held out his hand. My fingers shook and I pressed them, like vapor, against his.

I oozed into his body, starting from my fingertips. It felt like a long ride through a narrow, stuffy tube. There was hardly any air, but I began to feel the throb of warm blood around me. It was the headiest sensation I had experienced in a long, long while.

But I soon realized he was lying. Those souls hadn’t entered willingly. They wouldn’t have if they’d known what it was really like.

Because there weren’t just three other souls in here. In here, it was a mass of noise and wails, clawing fingers and helpless gazes. And I couldn’t tear out of these walls, anymore than I could the walls of the old building.

It was a new hell I had stepped into.

“Haven’t you wondered why none of the children who’d died in the fire showed up eventually?” The voice was a deep rumble that boomed all around me.

I peered behind his eyes, the only windows to this flesh tower. He was grinning at his reflection through the dust-caked mirror on the mantle.

I should have known. I should have known better than to believe what those people said about the Secret. They knew nothing.

They thought I was the Secret, when the real Secret was him all along.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Short Story - Bright Yellow Eyes


We waited for the storm, but it never came.

Instead, we were stuck with clear skies with stars winking down at us. The air was balmy, a skin I needed to tear free of, and every street was ablaze with orange lights.

It was the sort of nights we hated. Because everyone was wide awake.

Well, technically, not everyone. The children were still sent to bed at ten o’clock, latest. Adults, though – them of the vacant stares and cynical twist of the lips – they stayed up as late as they could, indulging in the freedom they thought night offered them.

Priffin and I bided our time. It didn’t take very long, usually, to grab one of them. We didn’t like calling attention to ourselves – it just wasn’t our style. Get in and get out, as they say. I’d even go so far as to label ourselves compassionate hunters. (Although Priffin disagrees, but he does concur that what had to be done must be done.)

We’d been waiting on the balcony for some time, taking our time to choose the least conspicuous one for the night. Downstairs, jazz music from the al fresco restaurant would have put me to sleep if I could sleep. It was too oily, too smooth, for my taste. But Priffin loved it, preferred it to the thumping hip-hop that I listened to.

“I see it. That one, over there!” Priffin hissed, getting up from next to me.

I yanked him back into the shadows. “Be careful!” Then I craned my neck in the direction he’s pointing. “Which one?”

“The young one in the red dress.”

The young ones always put up a struggle, but the kill was almost always worth it.

“Too obvious. She’s wearing a tight red dress.”

Priffin turned his yellow eyes on me. They flashed like a warning sign. “So?”

I sighed. He had so much to learn. “So, it means she’s the sort who enjoys attention, even seeks it. Such kinds don’t make for good prey. Too many people will notice.”

Priffin pouted. “Fine.”

I took a second look. “The one with her will make a better choice.”

He didn’t wear a suit, or even a crisp shirt, like the other men present. All he had on was a mangy grey t-shirt and jeans. He probably had no idea he was going to end up in an al fresco restaurant with the girl in the tight red dress and fake lashes.

He was strong, yes, but of course they were always no match for us. He would put up a struggle, but nothing that we wouldn’t be able to handle. Such men had few friends, too, and had a tendency to disappear for long periods of time. Nobody would realize he was gone until much later.

Next to me, Priffin inched over to the railing to get a better look. It made me nervous, how flippant he was about being undercover. I had yet to teach him everything I knew, but the first thing I told him was to never leave any footprints (quite literally) behind. He might have needed another lesson to drill that into his head.

The man had no car, which confirmed my theory. Such men were the low-key sort that no one would miss very much if they were to disappear out of the blue.

We waited until he had packed the girl into a cab (she didn’t look too happy about that) before sliding back down the stairwell.

He had his hands in his pockets as he walked down the street. His hair was messy, but he didn’t bother straightening it. The air was too still – I hated it. If Ylanna was here, she would have been able to stir up some wind, or even bring the storm that was supposed to come. But as it was, she was a little preoccupied at the moment.

So I could only make use of what I had – which, frankly speaking, wasn’t much. The lights were too bright, the air too still, and where we were walking, it was too quiet. Anything could give us away. I had to remind Priffin not to slobber too loudly. His hunger was getting out of control.

We rounded a corner bookstore with a huge sign that screamed of a clearance sale, and then … ended up back at the restaurant.

He stopped. I stopped, held out a hand to stop Priffin.

When he turned, I drew myself and Priffin into the shadows.

“You can show yourself, you know. It’s not like I haven’t been waiting for you.”

There was a smile in his voice that almost lured me out, but I held my breath and stayed where I was. He was bluffing. No one knew of us.

“I know of your kind. You feed, and as you grow stronger, you take shape. And finally, you ask for a soul, for what is a vessel without a soul?”

People were staring at him, talking to himself, but he paid no heed. Instead, he looked in my direction with his hands still in his pockets. I shut my eyes, squeezed them tight.

“I can make a bargain, if you’re interested.”

He strode past me, knowing I would follow. I was roped by his musky scent of wood smoke, and was on his heels before I realized it. I didn’t know whether to hate myself for falling for his ploy, or to excuse myself. Priffin growled soft enough that only I heard. I didn’t know if the man did.

We arrived at a dark corner at the end of an alley. Alleys were my favorite.

I didn’t take off my hood even as I stepped out to face him. He seemed as unsurprised by my appearance as he was by my existence, which certainly intrigued me.

“You said you can make a bargain.” I kept my voice low, so he wouldn’t recognize it if we met next time. (Would there be a next time?)

He nodded and pulled out a silver dagger from his pocket. “The beast is mine.”

I looked down at Priffin, whose eyes widened. He stared up at me, not making a sound, then turned to growl at the man, “I’m not going with you.”

“It’s not your place to speak, beast.” He didn’t even spare a glance at Priffin.

I stuck out my chin. “Why Priffin?”

The man shrugged. “I have my reasons. Deal?”

I considered. Priffin was a small price to pay for someone’s soul. I wasn’t particularly attached to the beast, anyway, and I always had to share my kill with him. But he was my responsibility, after all.

“Not until I understand what you intend to do with him.”

“He’s just a brute. It doesn’t do you good to get too attached to him.”

I didn’t back away when he loomed closer, dagger in hand. A flint of moonlight glowed upon the dagger. I wasn’t afraid, even though I knew what that dagger could do to an incomplete vessel like mine.

Priffin was clutching the hem of my robe. A whine slipped out of him.

I didn’t feel the scream of my skin until the man was right before me. His breath burned as the dagger twisted. I sank to the ground even before I could make a sound. Priffin fled. Damn brute.

“You should take a leaf out of his book,” the man said, staring after the beast. “He only follows whoever has blood on his hands. He’s no compassionate hunter. I thought someone of your caliber would realize that.”

I could feel myself wrenched from the vessel. My hard-earned shell. How could I have lost it in a moment of compassion? Compassion was for humans. I should have known better.

Next time, I thought as I slithered down the nearest crack in the sidewalk. Next time, I’d build a vessel strong enough. Blood on hands and bright yellow eyes.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

And my favourite agent-blogger Nathan Bransford spares us a few tips on creating real character voices.


Voice is one of the most difficult writing terms to define and pinpoint. We might know it when we see it, but what's voice made of, really? You hear so often that agents and editors want "new voices" and "compelling voices" and voice voice voice. So what is voice? How do you cultivate it? And how many rhetorical questions do you think can I fit into one post?

Voice, at its most basic level, is the sensibility with which an author writes. It's a perspective, an outlook on the world, a personality and style that is recognizable even out of context. You could drop randomly into a David Sedaris story or an Ernest Hemingway novel and probably guess the author within a few paragraphs because they have strong, unique voices. An author's voice is often imitated (think: Tolkien), but a truly original voice can never be duplicated.

So what makes a good voice? How do you cultivate one?

Among the essential elements:

Style: At its heart, voice is about style. And not just style in the sense of punctuation and how the prose looks on the page (though that can play a role), but style in the sense of a flow, a rhythm, a cadence to the writing, a vocabulary, lexicon, and slang the author is drawing upon. A voice can be wordy (William Faulkner) or it can be spare (Cormac McCarthy). It can be stylish and magical (Jeanette Winterson) or it can be wry and gritty (Elmore Leonard). It can be tied to unique locations (Toni Morrison) or it can be almost wholly invented (Anthony Burgess). But whatever the flavor of the writing, a good voice has a recognizable style.

Personality: A good voice has a personality of its own, even when the novel is written in third person. There's an outlook that is expressed in a voice. It's a unique way of seeing the world and choosing which details to focus on and highlight and a first draft of how the reader will process the reality of the book. Think of how CATCH-22 captured the absurdity of WW-II by boiling down irrational rules and presenting them at face value, or Stephen Colbert's TV character, always seeing things and arguing from an invented perspective. There's a tone to a good voice, whether it's magical (J.K. Rowling) or slightly sinister (Roald Dahl) or hyper-aware (John Green).

Consistency: A good voice is consistent throughout a novel. It may get darker or lighter or funnier or sadder, but it doesn't suddenly shift wildly from whimsical to GRUESOME MURDER. (Unless, of course, the voice is capable of it). A good voice is never lost when the plot shifts.

Moderation: Even the strongest voices don't over-do it. Voices are not made up of repeated verbal tics ("You know," "like," "so I mean," "I was all," etc.) but are much more nuanced than that. They are not transcribed real-life dialogue, they give the impression of a real-life voice while remaining a unique construct.

Transportation: A good voice envelops the reader within the world of a book. It puts us in a certain frame of mind and lets us see the world through someone else's perspective, and provides not just the details of that world but also gives a sense of the character of the world. Basically: see J.K. Rowling.

Authority: From Bryan Russell (aka Ink) (full comment below): "For me, one of the absolutely key elements of voice is authority. With a great voice you know the writer is in control, so in control that the writer vanishes and you see only the story... A great voice carries you through the story, compels you through the story. I think all great voices have that... There's a sureness to a great voice. The words are simply right and the rhythms of the prose are buoyant. You won't sink, not with these voices."

Originality: Above all, a good voice is unique and can't be duplicated. It is also extremely contagious. And this is the hardest thing about starting off a novel: we have thousands of authors' voices swimming around our heads, many of them quite powerful, and they are only too happy to take up residence in our current Work in Progress. But that's okay! Don't sweat it if it doesn't come right away: We all have to find our voice, and one of the best ways to do that is to just write, even if what you're starting with is derivative. You may need to keep writing until you find the voice. Just remember to revise revise revise the opening in said voice once you have it.

Authenticity: And this is the key to finding the voice: your voice is in you. It's not you per se, but it's made up of bits and pieces of you. It may be the expression of your sense of humor or your whimsy or your cynicism or frustration or hopes or honesty, distilled down or dialed up into a voice. We should never make the mistake as readers of equating an author with their voice, but they're wrapped up together in a complicated and real way. We leave fingerprints all over our work. That part of you in your work is what makes it something that no one else can duplicate.



Thanks, Nathan!
Author/Editor Erica Orloff (I am dying to read her Magic-Keepers series, but I can't find them anywhere in Singapore!) has some writing tips and experience to share.


1. Write a million words.

2. Write a hundred short stories and master that, but don't be afraid of the novel. There are some writing lessons you just have to learn by writing one, including pacing.

3. Don't think about publishing. Wait until you've done 1 and then 2, THEN worry about it.

4. You are going to waste a few years when you had NO kids and all the time in the world . . . why weren't you writing so much then when you didn't have so many pressures? Kid, partying in Manhattan is fun, but you know . . . write a little more.

5. Despite what I am telling you in #3, learn what you can about the industry.

6. All this crap you're going through and are going to go through? You'll end up using it for your novels.

7. That crappy romance you tried to write and quit on page 81? It was because you never really had your heart into writing it. Only write what you are passionate about.

10. Never, ever, ever feel guilty for indulging this writing bug you have. Someday you really will earn a living at it. Guilt is a wasted emotion.


Thanks, Erica!
7pm, 18 May 2010: I am done with the first draft of Red December Skies! Word count: 71, 700.

That totals the writing period to about six months, since I started it around November. I remember hiding in a stairwell, writing it while waiting for my Philosophy exam to start. (Hey, it was Philosophy - and it was an open-book exam.) I banged out the last hundred pages this past week, straight after my exam (so that's an average of ten pages per day, approx). Writing seriously demands discipline. You can't edit a blank page, after all, as Jodi Picoult says. So the three-hour-a-day concentrated writing sessions really helped a lot.

And now it's done!

Well, of course, this is only the first draft, and I've got LOADS to edit. I just hope it doesn't seem too fragmented or draggy. This is my first attempt at alternating between two voices in the first person point-of-view. I felt weirded out writing from Jerry's POV initially, because first off, I don't know how to think from a guy's point of view. Guys are an alien species to me, as far as I'm concerned. So all I did was try to tone down on the imagery and insert more action, less talk, in my prose for Jerry. Another problem is that because I'm writing in Jerry's POV, I have to, like, be in love with Ethel. It's weird to be gushing over a girl (not that I made Jerry gush - still, it's weird), or at least noticing things about a girl that I expect guys to. Writing from Jerry's POV has made me consider things about him that I didn't know I had to know, and I love how that pushes me to dig deeper into my characters.

Next up: Lambs for Dinner. I'm addicted to writing in alternating POVs. I never knew it was that much fun to delve into both the heads of my main characters!

Done with the brief update. Now I'm off to do some intimate character sketches (get your minds out of the gutter). Later!

Thursday, April 29, 2010


Look what I found in my dad's Pictures folder!


That's me at some inconceivably young age. I didn't even have teeth. And my dad told me I'd always squeal and laugh when he tossed me onto the bed and I landed in the middle of the pillows.



That's when I was two, I think. My dad said I was in the middle of looking through a photo album when he softly called my name and I looked up. That's when he clicked the shutter.















I can't even remember this. But my dress matched the window display, for some reason.

















That's when I was about five, maybe. I was nuts about that pair of shades.








My eighth birthday! That was when my dad bothered buying me a cake. Later, he told me, there was one year when I smeared cake all over the floor. Nobody bought cake for me after that.







Obviously, that was taken during Chinese New Year. I don't wear that at home on normal days.