The Way We Are

We are

Crumpled paper,

Smudgy notes scribbled on palms,

Stoic silence that sinks to the bottom of your feet and fossilises there;

We are a word

Caught in your throat.

We are more than that -

And then not at all.

PRETTY is a lovely word (as is LOVELY)

Ex-literary agent and author Nathan Bransford dishes out some hard truths:

The thing people should really be worried about is whether they have the willpower to write a novel. That is the hard part. The setting aside of time, powering through when it stops being fun, and getting the whole thing written and edited.

I think I've said before that writing can be lonely at times. It's just you and your words. You slaving over your story. You and your own thoughts that can easily morph into doubts. You don't know if what you're writing is any good, if anyone will ever get to read it, much less love it. And because of that, you're hesitant about showing anyone your work. And then it becomes REALLY just you and your story. After a while (usually around the middle), your story starts to get tiresome, and you're not sure if you should just give up on the whole endeavour.

But then you remember how immensely gratifying it had been to complete your previous stories. And you decide to push through.

Aww thanks, Ryan!

So that's where I am now, trying to keep up my flagging enthusiasm for Neverland, keep my eye on the finishing line, so to speak.

Thank goodness for little reprieves such as these:

This has to be one of the most hilarious interviews of McFly I've seen. Alan Carr + the boys = a total riot!

This one NEVER gets old. Some people say this is a terribly display of how spoiled First World kids are, but I think they were crying about the injustice of losing what they'd earned (how much trick-or-treating do you have to do to get two bags of candy?) more than they were crying about the candy itself (though, of course, they were crying about the candy too).


And this! Another classic: Dominic Monaghan prank-interviews Elijah Wood.

I died laughing.


And to those who say Orlando Bloom is just a pretty face who can't take the piss out of himself, check out this video:

Still love him. Once my Legolas/Will Turner, always my Legolas/Will Turner!




Oops. Those eyes though!

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Sigh. Is it any wonder why the writing's going slowly?


Anyway, remember Graffiti Moon, that wildly beautiful contemporary YA book by Cath Crowley that I raved about a while back? I only just discovered her blog (how did I only find it now?!) and OMG it might be one of my favourite blogs now, along with Laini Taylor, Nathan Bransford and Maggie Stiefvater's. I mean, just look at these random gems Cath posts!


Some prose (click on the link for the full piece!):

Someone will offer you the last page of your life today. You won’t know it’s the last page. They won’t say and you won’t ask. 

They’ll be waiting for you on a corner that you walk past every day. You’ll think maybe you recognise them. It’s something about the way they’re clicking the thumb and index finger of their left hand together when they speak – you do that all the time, you’ll think. 

So you’ll take the page, they know you’ll take the page because you’re that kind of person. You say sorry when it’s not really a sorry kind of situation. You say sorry at least five hundred times a day. You counted once. It’s a habit. You don’t even know where you picked it up.  

You’ll get a strange kind of feeling when you walk down the street. The sky, an uncut blue overhead and the mist coming out of your mouth like a ghost. At one stage you might get the idea that you can suck the cold air right back inside. You can't, you’ll realise. Air that’s breathed is breathed for good. 

The paper will stay in your pocket all day – maybe along with a couple of chocolate wrappers and a piece of gum you didn't know what to do with because you couldn't find a bin.

You’ll probably touch it a couple of times during the day – feel the corner when you talk to the one you want but spend most of the time looking at the air just to the left of their ears. Maybe you’ll touch it when your boss says you messed up and you believe him.

In the end you’ll take it out and read it on the train. You’ll be coming home like everyone else, watching the blur of lights out the window, the glass between you and the night, between you and the breath of stars.

Some poetry:

You is my mad aching ship
My sad puzzled light
My honey ocean
My late night, impossible wish

I'm sure the grammatical choice ("is") is there for a reason, but I don't want to delve into literary criticism here.


And some more prose:

You’ll look up today. You’ll notice the sky. It might be streaky or blue or brushed with white buckled clouds but there will be a piece of it that seems exactly right. You might take a photograph so that you can remember.
You’ll think about the words that you love - maybe nova and opal and shadow and nest. Maybe flicker and frost, kismet or linger. Maybe bliss. Maybe kiss.

SO MUCH BEAUTY in her words. All that imagery! So tender and sweet it's almost heart-breaking. I just want to hug those words...

Like this!



MAD MAAAAAD LOVE! I wish I had her sensitivity for words. Graffiti Moon was gorrrrgeous. It's just the kind of intense, bittersweet, funny, poignant contemporary YA romance centred around two characters looking for themselves and each other that I wish I had written. Or will someday be able to write with much much aplomb.

Speaking of pretty words, there's something soothing about finding pretty art in the sinkhole that is Pinterest on a lovely blue-skied morning.

Wolf painting by chantelyoung on Etsy

a painting by Carson Ellis for Wildwood, a lovely MG book series by Colin Meloy

Obviously, Quentin Blake.

The Little Prince by Woo Hee Kwon

Okay okay okay. Enough procrastinating. I'm gone. Have a great week, everyone! :0)

Sneak peek into Shiny New Idea

Where dips the rocky highland

Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,

There lies a leafy island

Where flapping herons wake

The drowsy water rats;

There we've hid our faery vats,

Full of berrys

And of reddest stolen cherries.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand.

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses

The dim gray sands with light,

Far off by furthest Rosses

We foot it all the night,

Weaving olden dances

Mingling hands and mingling glances

Till the moon has taken flight;

To and fro we leap

And chase the frothy bubbles,

While the world is full of troubles

And anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes

From the hills above Glen-Car,

In pools among the rushes

That scarce could bathe a star,

We seek for slumbering trout

And whispering in their ears

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly out

From ferns that drop their tears

Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,

The solemn-eyed -

He'll hear no more the lowing

Of the calves on the warm hillside

Or the kettle on the hob

Sing peace into his breast,

Or see the brown mice bob

Round and round the oatmeal chest

For he comes the human child

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand

From a world more full of weeping than he can understand

~ William Butler Yeats


Can you already guess where I'm going with my Shiny New Idea? I know. I can't believe it too.

haiku moment

Nobody told us
Powdered hearts scatter faster
When kept in torn pockets.

Haiku:














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

Haiku:

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

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.

Haiku - The Deep Blue End

Haiku of swimming (created while swimming)

The endless blue track,
This delightful momentum -
I don't want to stop.

Towards the end we saw only blue

We tore
Past the winds that flapped uselessly by.
We tore
Through the whistling air
That skinned us deep.
We tore
Like madmen fleeing
From faceless ghosts in their minds.
We tore
Because the world
Could no longer
Fit
Us
In.

Will we ever reach
The deep blue end?



Haiku

We sang the chorus -
Notes rose, fell, rose like lost boats
Riding the grim sea.

Thanks to Shiver (by Maggie Stiefvater, as mentioned in my previous post), my eyes have been opened to the beauty that is Rainer Maria Rilke's poems. Here are a couple of samples, two of my favourites:


Falling Stars

Do you remember still the falling stars
that like swift horses through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles
of our wishes--do you recall? And we
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars: each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play,
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall.

(Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming)


Again And Again, However We Know The Landscape Of Love

Again and again, however we know the landscape of love
and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,
and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others
fall: again and again the two of us walk out together
under the ancient trees, lie down again and again
among the flowers, face to face with the sky.

(Translated by Stephen Mitchell)

Was in a strange mood yesterday. Maybe I'm just tired of being lonely, tired of never being able to meet up with everyone at one go, tired of not knowing what to say when we're together, tired of the monotony, tired of my numbed state of mind. I want to love, to laugh, to cry like I used to, to hurt, to feel the heightened turmoil of emotions overwhelm me. Do we get so desensitised as we grow older that we hardly respond to anything anymore, that we forget how to love and hate, to feel the pain like we used to, when our worlds were smaller and everything in it swelled in significance as a result?

After lying in bed, staring at the blank wall for an hour, I couldn't stand it. Just had to get it out somehow. So I penned this. It's kind of raw, but it's the only way I knew how to put it.


What do you do
On the nights you have no-one
To love,
The nights you cling
To your pillow for warmth,
Hoping time will fill up
The space next to you?
You lie on your side,
Facing the wall,
Because that is easier
Than looking at the mouth
Of darkness,
Shadows stretched
Into a distorted version of reality,
Ready to swallow you whole.
The baseless ground shakes -
Or is that just your heart,
Trembling,
Inching towards the edge,
About to burst
Into a million tears?

It is only
3a.m.


I just want to thank all my friends - you know who you are - who have been with me for so long, despite everything. I don't do this enough, I know. But I do love you, every one of you who have shared so much - or at least, my version of much - with me.

Cold Comforts


Watch how he goes
And sit
In cold, straight-backed chairs
That still smell
Of newly-varnished leather.

He surreptitiously
Checks his watch,
Sighs,
His feet tap, subdued,
On the carpet,
And his fingers buzz a beat of their own.

Time slips by.

Outside the room,
He hears
A jumble of words and beeps,
A white-collared Morse code.
He would learn it soon;
He wants
To be in on the secret.

Note his firm handshake,
Determined to impress.
It is the strong one-two
That he learnt
In etiquette school.

Later, he goes home
And kicks off his shoes,
Checks if it has lost its shine –
It hasn’t –
And retreats to his room.
Outside,
It is too noisy to think.
Outside,
They don’t understand
The Morse code.
All they hear
Are their angry sobs and petty screams.
They are weeping
For their lives
In ruin.

Penned something for fun the other day, when I was getting all nostalgic.


Smashing Clocks

We dropped our swollen hearts
Today,
Into the box
With the toys that we used to play.
We glanced over our shoulders
Today,
And tried to count
Every second
That led us here,
Looking back
With something in our eyes
Shining like regret.
We smashed all the clocks
Today,
And grasped at loose sand,
Replayed that song,
Traced our fingers over old scars.
We took our time
Today;
We sat in silence,
Today;
We returned to that golden frame
Of yesterday
Today.


Not my best. A little contrived at some points, but whatever.