Friday, November 27, 2015

writing mood for today


I'm clearing my annual leaves for the year, and this frees up loads more time to write! Brings me back to the early job-hunting days and semester breaks in school when I had ample time to clock in 3,000 words a day while querying literary agents. Good times.

So. What to write next? That fantasy novel that's been brewing in my head for almost a year, or that magical realism one that I've already plotted out in excruciating detail? Third-person POV, or first? Write by the seat of my figurative pants or solidify every single plot and detail first? Decisions, decisions.

But first, Pinterest.




 


I guess we have an answer ;0)

Happy (Black) Friday, everyone! Don't cave in to unnecessary wants!

Sunday, November 15, 2015

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars."


I’m late to the game, but I finally caught The Fault in Our Stars last night. I’d been avoiding this book/movie because it’s not about one sick person in a doomed relationship but TWO. You know this story will only end in tears, and I just wasn’t in the mood for it.

But Ed Sheeran’s All of the Stars music video, as well as Birdy’s Not about Angels, drove me to watch it at last.




The last time I cried so hard over a movie … Shoot, I can’t even remember. Even though I might have cried six times throughout The Return of the King (because LOTR will always have a special place in my heart), I didn’t literally sob into my palms the way I had at TFIOS.

Thank you, John Green. And I know my tweet was mildly sarcastic



But really, thank you. For creating such a beautiful, tragic, but somehow uplifting story that sheds light on cancer and the battle cancer patients fight every day.


I’m generally not into books with insta-love (Twilight was a phase – we all have our inglorious pasts), because I can’t understand how people can fall so completely head-over-heels for someone so quickly. Crushes I understand – but love?


But I suppose for Gus and Hazel, with only limited time on earth, they would feel everything more keenly. Insta-love in this case is not only justified, but credible. I love how they bonded not over their illness, but over a book, and a huge part of the story follows them on their voyage to Amsterdam to find the author, Peter van Houten, who changed their lives. And their interaction felt so real, you feel like you ARE Hazel falling for Augustus.



I also really like Hazel’s relationship with her parents. It's not the "teenager wanting to be free and independent and hence rebels against the parents" trope you see in many YA stories. Hazel's parents are protective without being stifling, and they have an implicit understanding with Hazel that they're all in this together. It's so nice to see a loving relationship between the teenage protagonist and her parents for once.

After Gus's funeral ceremony, when Hazel just sat in her car, taking a moment for herself, I felt her pain. Her grief, her longing, her sudden emptiness. I missed Gus as much as she did. I missed his sweet and adorable text messages. I missed his bravado, his cocky smirk. I missed the reassuring smile he reserved just for Hazel. I missed everything about him.


But while the ending was devastating enough to bring even grown men to tears (what did you expect, right, with a love story of two terminally-ill patients?), it wasn't depressing. John Green gave Hazel – and us – closure with Gus's letter.

"Mr. Van Houten, 
I'm a good person but a shitty writer. You're a shitty person but a good writer. I think we'd make a good team. I don't wanna ask you for any favors, but, if you have the time (and from what I saw you have plenty) please fix this for me. It's a eulogy for Hazel. She asked me to write one and I’m trying, I - I just.. I could use a little flair. See, the thing is, we all wanna be remembered. 
But Hazel's different. Hazel knows the truth. She didn't want a million admirers, she just wanted one. And she got it. Maybe she wasn't loved widely, but she was loved deeply. And isn't that more than most of us get? 
When Hazel was sick, I knew I was dying, but I didn't wanna say so. She was in the ICU when I snuck in for 10 minutes and I sat with her before I got caught. Her eyes were closed, her skin pale, but her hands were still her hands. Still warm and her nails were painted this dark blue-black color and I just held them. And I willed myself to imagine a world without us, and what a worthless world that would be. 
She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she’s smarter than you cause you know she is. She's funny without ever being mean.
I love her. God, I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. 
You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, but you do have a say in who hurts you. And I like my choices. I hope she likes hers. 
Okay, Hazel Grace?" 
- Augustus Waters

 photo okay_zpsj5gwshp0.gif


*

I feel so much better now after getting this out of my system. I spent the remainder of last night completely zombified, useless with my chores, because TFIOS is one of those stories that reaches into you and wreck you from within.

Plus, John Green is such a lovely human being!


I'm officially a fan.

Next up, If I Stay. Already have it on my Kindle, along with TFIOS, so bring on another bout of the feels. Yay for YA fiction!

Monday, November 09, 2015

Singapore Writers Festival - for the dreamers and the story-tellers

Singapore Writers Festival 2015 - Island of Dreams! It was a pleasant surprise to be invited to this year's SWF. I'd only ever published one book, so the honour is all mine.

But for an INFJ, the idea of public speaking was enough to send me spiralling into a neurotic worry-fest. What if the audience gets bored, or finds me obnoxious and self-indulgent? What if I fall over my foot (happens quite often) or trip over my words (ditto) or blush so hard I start sweating (you have no idea).

But then I wrote a script, and I rehearsed it in front of a mirror countless times, and I prepared answers to anticipated questions. And then I rehearsed again. I know, I know. A panel is supposed to be spontaneous and fun, and shouldn't involve scripts or rehearsed speeches. But consider it a crutch. It made me feel better, knowing that I had answers prepared so I wouldn't flounder for one when the time came.

And instead of obsessing over how I would be perceived, I focused on what I can bring to the panel and share with the audience. Really, if ever there was a tip that might help with giving a speech, this would be it. Focus on your audience and what you can give them. People may not necessarily remember everything you say, but they won't forget how you make them feel.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

On the day of the panel itself, the two other panellists/writers, Joyce 2 (I'm Joyce 1) and Rachel Hartman, the panel moderator, Denise, and I arranged to have lunch together to get to know each other before the panel.

But since I got there way too early for our meeting (as usual), I got some pictures out of the way.

Programme booklet and my festival pass!

Because it's not a festival without some music, an outdoor stage was set up just outside The Arts House.



Plus, I bought postcards from the little booths around The Arts House, one of the venues of SWF!




Since, you know, the theme of this year's festival is "the island of dreams".

Anyway, Rachel got a little lost and went to the wrong Privé Café, and the three of us assumed she wasn't turning up because she once mentioned that too much social interaction gave her a sensory overload (introvert problems - we all completely understood).

But she found us in the end, and it was lovely to sit down for lunch with her (she was surprisingly good with curry chicken)! Rachel Hartman, if you're still unacquainted with her, is the author of the award-winning fantasy novel Seraphina. The book was ranked number 8 on the New York Times bestseller list in its first week of publication AND awarded the 2013 William C. Morris Award for the best young adult work by a debut author. HELLO. NYT bestseller upon debut? WOW. And what are the rest of us doing with our lives.

But she was so sweet and friendly and chatty, and so were Joyce Chng (who also writes about dragons and is a huge sci-fi fan) and Denise that I felt loads calmer.

As 4.30pm inched closer, however, my jitters came back.



The stage is set



Then people started filling in and getting comfortable. The mood was relaxed and the setting cosy

The audience got beanbags to laze in!



Ah yes, the fanfic. Joyce's 12-year-old daughter, Jaslyn, kind of freaked out when she realised I was the author of Lambs for Dinner. And she started gushing about how her friend loved the book so much she wrote "cringe-worthy fanfic" about it. SQUEEEEE! Cringe-worthy or not (I'm sure Jaslyn has high standards, seeing as her mom is an author - side note: I've always wanted to know what it feels like having an author for a parent), imagine having fanfic spawned from something you wrote! How cool is that!

And my primary school classmates and English teacher came!



(Sorry I didn't manage to get a shot with everyone there! Still, HUUUGE thank you for attending! You don't know how comforting it was to see familiar faces in the crowd.)

Pre-panel jitters aside, it was a really good experience. Not just public speaking bit, but also meeting young aspiring writers and fans of the books. I met those wide-eyed with hope and passion, those who had scribbled down a list of questions they didn't get to ask during the panel, those who recounted their attempts at writing a novel before they realised how hard it was or decided they were terrible at it (to which Rachel, Joyce and I say, DO NOT give in to that notion. Everyone starts somewhere. Every writer goes through terrible first drafts before they get somewhere good, or at least somewhere they want to end up. That's what the rewriting and editing processes are for), and those who were too afraid to pursue their passion in writing and needed a nudge in the right direction.

I really, REALLY enjoyed talking to them. Partly because I see so much of myself in them - they remind me of myself back when I was a 16-year-old aspiring writer too - but also because their passion and enthusiasm are so genuine and yet unsullied by reality and conventional societal expectations.

I can't stress this enough:

The world needs more artists and dreamers and story-tellers, and it is all the richer with our voices in it. Don't give up because you think you're no good at it, or because someone told you it's a waste of time, or because it doesn't reap tangible rewards. Write because you love it. Write because there is a story - maybe more - living inside you. Write because you need to be heard. Write because you want to entertain. Write because you want to inspire. Whatever the reason, you write. And you keep writing. And keep reading. You will get better, and someday you will be heard.

Strangely, this whole experience just made me all the more determined to get my next book published.

See you at the next SWF! :0)

Sunday, November 01, 2015

It's novel writing time!


So it's 1 Nov. The start of NaNoWriMo.

AM I REALLY DOING THIS?? What if this novel turns out to be the ultimate suckfest of all suckfests? The last novel took three rewrites, four rounds of edits, and a little more than a year to complete. Do I really want to go through this again??

There is nothing more daunting than a blank page with the cursor blinking expectantly at you. START WRITING. START WRITING NOW, it seems to say. And you quail in your bedroom slippers, because there are just so many paths your story can take. There are just so many ways this story can go wrong. So many ways it will drive you to tear out your hair and despair over its future.

But then you write with the end in sight. You think about the metaphorical pot of gold waiting for you at the end, and it is the only thing that keeps you going, even on days when you plod and trudge through the slush.

It's an arduous journey, writing a novel. You hold it in your hands, and you single-handedly direct the course of the story, dictate your characters' lives, determine how they will influence and transform each other. Everything that happens - every outcome - is ON YOU. Hey, no pressure.

But what even. We all know I will put myself through this anyway. Maybe not at a pace of 50K words a month, but that story WILL come out somehow, and it will take the time it needs. The first draft will inevitably suck, like first drafts always do, and maybe the second and third ones will too. But a story will be cracked out of those drafts, whether discarded or revised, and in the end it will all be worth the time and angst.


So soldier on, NaNo-ers!