'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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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!

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.

I had the weirdest dream ever. (Well, not the weirdest - I've had weirder - but you know what I mean.)

I dreamt that a few (faceless) friends and I had accidentally killed a girl. And we were figuring out how to dispose of the body when - of all people - Prof. Lazar (from EL3254) appeared and said hi to us, blithely unaware of our misdeed. And strangely enough, we were in Lucky Plaza. The top floor, where there were many little shops selling Filipino snacks and groceries.

And I have only ever been in there once, for my Southeast Asian studies fieldtrip report.

In the dream, I spotted Prof. Lazar before the rest did and cooked up some excuse about having to relief myself. So I ran and hid, but later I decided to visit every shop on the level and strike up some conversation with the shopkeepers so that they'd remember me. They were to be my alibis, you see, in case I ever had to come up with one (or more) in court.

Finally, the dream ended with the few of us dragging the body down a spiral flight of stairs that never brought us to the end.

I should be worried that I can be that scheming even in my dreams.

A case of the nihilistic woes

I left the last seminar (of English) for this semester feeling oddly ... bereft.

Sometimes, I wonder what I'm doing in university. I'm not intelligent, I'm not maniacally driven to get that A, I'm not even that head-over-heels passionate about what I'm studying. I mean, sure, it's interesting and all, how reality is all mediated experience and we can never count on any piece of information to be untainted by someone's preconceived notions imposed upon us, and discourse is the blatant manifestation of one person's experience being transmitted to another. Yes, interesting concepts and food for thought.

But to read up on such concepts for leisure? To engage the professor in profound discussions? Is it just me, or does anyone else not see the point of it all? So what if we realise that it is impossible for the media to ever tell the unsullied truth, or that we can spot what the advertiser is trying to get us to do or think by noticing the words they use, and the way they make use of visual elements to complement their texts?

Come to think of it, so what if we know the minority groups in Laos and Vietnam are repressed by the onslaught of urbanisation, and nationalistic sentiments in Indochina were rampant during the turn of the 20th century, leading to the Communist-led expulsion of the French in Vietnam, and the nationalists' movement to eliminate the threat of Communism in Indonesia? So what if we feel that America is a benign hegemon and not a rogue state because while it does run several dubious foreign policies (and that might be an understatement) and functions as a corporation-country (which is, debatably, a worrying progression), it has served Asia well in terms of economy and security? Will my comments and opinions matter either way? So what if it does?

I disgorged all this on my best friend on the bus home just now, feeling strangely lost and insignificant and generally not seeing the meaning of all that I was doing now. She identified right away, saying that I was just jaded/tired, and that she felt the same way.

The thing is, I thought I would enjoy it more than this. I had been looking forward to it, and no, it hasn't begun to disappoint, but maybe it is me who has let myself down. My peers seem to actually enjoy the seminars immensely and can articulate their opinions comparatively much better than I can.

I'm lost amongst them. What am I even doing in university?

On the way home, I tried to come up with a reason why I felt, like Gerlynn suggested, so jaded. (And that's why you tend to see me staring disconsolately out the window during long bus rides. Don't mind me; I'm just wallowing in self-pity.)

And I realised it was because I had nothing to really look forward to after graduation. You might find me worrying too much - a freshman shouldn't be fretting about something that far down the road - but isn't university a (pardon the cliche) stepping stone to a more privileged life? Isn't the whole point of education to free us - opening up more avenues in which we can make better use of our lives, open up our minds, help us achieve actualisation by aiding us in breaking the shackles that pin us to cocooned middle-class drudgery (though, of course, I won't be hypocritical and deny that it is also a luxury)? I sound ungrateful - many people would love to have access to higher tertiary education. Yes, I'm aware of that. I'm not complaining about the opportunity to brush shoulders with people my age who seem to be so much more advanced intellectually. Really, I'm not. I like what I'm learning, what I'm exposed to.

But after graduation - what then? A 9-to-5 job in an air-conditioned office, with stipulated lunch breaks, corporate hierarchies to inch around, attires and high heels (the horror!), the regulations, rules, laws, codes and oh, a million other things that culminate in the exact opposite of what my education had promised me. How is that freedom? How is that actualisation? Will we ever find it within ourselves, in others?

I'm aware of how my absolute dream is a fool's paradise. Not only is the literary market crazily difficult to break into, there is no guaranteed success even after you've successfully become an insider. Even literary agents face rejections from editors, what more aspiring writers from literary agents. Yet, I'm almost completely certain this is the only job I will do despite not getting a promotion, or a big fat bonus or salary. Everything else feels like a chore. Is this me being parochial, too unforgiving of other options, too fixated on being a writer, writer, writer?

After graduation, will my words run out?

Haiku - The Deep Blue End

Haiku of swimming (created while swimming)

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

"There are people in this world who try to hurt you, but there are also people who get hurt because you're hurt."

~ from Devil Beside You

I finally got around to searching up the lyrics for Brick by Boring Brick by Paramore, and am so impressed by it. For those who think Paramore is just another generic rock band that comes up with mere catchy songs to headbang to, you should totally check out the lyrics (and the music video) of Brick by Boring Brick.


But to save you the trouble, here are the lyrics:


She lives in a fairy tale
Somewhere too far for us to find
Forgotten the taste and smell
Of the world that she's left behind
It's all about the exposure the lens I told her
The angles were all wrong now
She's ripping wings off of butterflies
keep your feet on the ground
when your head's in the clouds
Well go get your shovel
And we'll dig a deep hole
To bury the castle, bury the castle
Well go get your shovel
And we'll dig a deep hole
To bury the castle; bury the castle
Ba da ba ba da ba ba da
So one day he found her crying
Coiled up on the dirty ground
Her prince finally came to save her
And the rest you can figure out
But it was a trick
And the clock struck 12
Well make sure to build your house brick by boring brick
or the wolves gonna blow it down
keep your feet on the ground
when your head's in the clouds
Well go get your shovel
And we'll dig a deep hole
To bury the castle, bury the castle
Well you built up a world of magic
Because your real life is tragic
Yeah you built up a world of magic
If it's not real
You can't hold it in your hand
You can't feel it with your heart
And I won't believe it
But if it's true
You can see it with your eyes
Or even in the dark
And that's where I want to be, yeah
Go get your shovel
We'll dig a deep hole
To bury the castle, bury the castle
Well go get your shovel
and we'll dig a deep hole
To bury the castle, bury the castle
(Guys x2):
ba da ba ba da da ba da

(Hayley x2):
ba da ba ba da ba ba da



It's basically about the loss of a young girl's innocence as she grows up in a society as complicated as ours. She comes to learn that the real world isn't a magical playground to discover and its ugliness reveals itself when you least expect it.


The MV has this dream-like quality to it, and a sort of gold tinge, perhaps to suggest the tinted lenses through which we (along with the main character of the MV) regard the world. The colours are vivid, surreal, and at the end where the little girl runs frantically away from the monsters in the castle of mirrors and into a six feet-deep hole, it suggests the death of her innocence now that she's witnessed for herself the ugliness present in the world.


As someone on YouTube commented, it's f**ked up, the poor child. But is it not happening, after all? Kids these days grow up so fast it's ridiculous. When we're young, we want to grow older. And then when we finally reach the age we aspired to be, we realise it's no effin big deal at all. And we'd have wasted all those years yearning for that mirage and missing out on the present. I think that's one of the reasons for our disillusionment when we reach this age. That, and our insatiable desire for greener grass. We can possibly spend our whole lives searching, and then end up realising life is only such. It's a case of okay-so-we're-here-now-what that we end up with, which honestly is nobody's fault but ours.


Not that my life's completely meaningless, or that my childhood were halcyon days compared to now, in case anyone's forming that thread of thinking now. I'm just wondering if anyone can retain and survive with that innocence that most of us have lost as we grew older. Thoughts?


Anyway, good job, Paramore.

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.

I thought I had forgotten everything about secondary school. I thought I was done with it after the O' levels in 2006.

But when I received that text message from AA a few days ago, it felt like my past was rushing up to me, a swash of memories that had taken on that rose-tinted glow you'd associate with days you can only look back on fondly and wish Time didn't have to move on.

My secondary three and four years are distinguishable by the teachers, studying (mountains of homework that said teachers loaded upon us), my classmates, and of course, writing - all of these traipsing on to the ceaseless soundtrack of Time. He was, I daresay, the teacher who was closest to the class, who made the most effort and invested the most of his emotions in us. I remember his pep talks that made us cry, that made even him cry; I remember how he would constantly remind us how little time we have to the Big O (he'd make me SO stressed out!); I remember how he joined us in the hotel rooms at night to party on our Geography Field Trip to Perth, Australia, even though he wasn't exactly supposed to, being our teacher and all; I remember him inviting us to his bachelor pad during Chinese New Year - he was one of the few teachers I know who actually did that.

He didn't seem depressed then. But then I wonder how we can ever tell. Is there a checklist that we can methodically tick in order to find out who isn't as blithely happy as he seems? Now that I think about it, he used to cast his eyes down after a good laugh, as though he were wondering if that fleeting moment of happiness would last. Am I thinking too hard, reading too much into his expressions, digging for a clue that wasn't? Could we have known; could we have done something? Were we too early, or too late? He had done all he could to help us attain the best scores we could get for our exams. Could we have done all we can to make him happier, hopeful enough to live on, if not for us then at least for himself?

I didn't dare to look at him. The idea of a body in a coffin, with too much makeup, is too haunting. How can you stuff someone in a wooden box like that? Wouldn't you want to preserve the best memory of him? Granted, he was cremated ultimately, but I just couldn't make myself look at him, in that neatly-pressed suit and an inch of makeup on his face. To me, he'd always be the Math teacher who tried to imitate a koala bear during the field trip to Perth, and the one who acknowledged the effort I put in to my studies.

His Facebook page has 600 over fans, the last time I checked. I keep thinking about his students, those he'd taught before (like me), those who were about to be taught by him, those who were left without him all of a sudden, walking in to class only to hear the news of him committing suicide because of depression. I keep thinking about how they must feel, to suddenly lose him like that, if they felt guiltier than I do, like they should have known. I don't know much about his family, but I can't even bear to contemplate what they must be feeling, to have grown up with him and then suddenly be robbed of him because of a decision he made one day.

He was, in retrospect, a large part of my upper-secondary years. In that way, he was a large factor in affecting how I turned out.

Maybe the past never leaves you. Maybe it clings to the back of your mind, even if you think you've moved on like your life demands you to. I wish I can remember more of him. You never truly realise how much you've forgotten until you can't remember anymore.

Be at peace, Mr Ng. You will always be loved and missed.

Beyond the Gray's interview with Suzanne Anderson, writer, was so uplifting and inspiring I had to share it:


Q: What inspires you to keep pushing forward when the going gets tough?

SA: The alternative – giving up – is worse than pushing forward. I am a strong believer that each of us is created with a purpose to fulfill in this life. I believe it is my duty to find a way to fulfill my purpose, using the talents that I have been given, and overcoming the obstacles or shortcomings I have also received. That’s the bottom line, easy answer. The more difficult answer is that pushing forward is something I struggle with every day. Some days, the productive ones, are easy. It’s a lot more difficult when I’ve given my best and my work is rejected or a resume sent out doesn’t get a reply. On those days I remind myself that success is often a game of numbers, wins go to those who keep trying over and over and over again.

Q: If you could give one piece of advice to someone else who is struggling to move beyond the gray and follow a dream, what would it be?

SA: How about more than one?

• Get up every day and take action toward fulfilling your dream. No matter how small or great, do one thing every day that moves you a step closer toward your goal. And then keep track of your progress. Whether it is an Excel spreadsheet that tracks the growing word count on that novel you’re writing, the miles you walked, the sit-ups you did, the cold calls you made, or a journal or blog where you record your progress on cooking your way through Julia Child’s French classic (yep, that’s how that movie got made!), just do it. As time goes by, you’ll be amazed at the progress you’ve made. It will also provide a reality check when you get discouraged by your lack of progress and then realize, by checking your log that it might be due to the fact that you haven’t actually sent out a resume/written/jogged in over a week!

• Share your goals and dreams with others. I have received amazing encouragement and support from my family as well as my online friends, they’ve also become a source of very useful information and even new paths to pursue.

• When the critic in your head lists all the reasons you will fail, tell it to shut up! Or better yet, give it examples of how you’ve succeeded in the past, and what you are doing right now to succeed in the future. (Which is a great reason to keep track of the progress you make in all those little steps you are taking each day, they make great progress reports to debunk the inner critic.) I also keep a growing pile of inspirational and positive thinking books on my nightstand and read a few pages every night before bed because I’ve found that late night tends to be the time when my inner critic comes out to play.

• Keep a gratitude journal. Yes, I know, Oprah thought of this first, but it really works. When I am feeling most discouraged, I’ve found that making a list of just five things in my life that I’m grateful for is not only humbling but a powerful reminder that things are actually better than I think.

• Find a way to give back. We receive so much help and encouragement from others when we’re struggling that it’s easy to forget that we need to offer the same to others. You’ll also be amazed at how much better you’ll feel … and don’t be surprised if it opens new doors. Goodness has an amazing way of multiplying.

My Writing Journey (unabridged)

I was never one of those precocious, assertive kids who knew what they wanted to be at age five. It took me quite a while to figure out what I really loved, and that was to write.

I love stories, have loved them since my dad brought me to the Central Lending Library every Sunday (back when it was still at Stamford Rd, instead of Bras Basah) ever since I'd learnt to read and my kindergarten teacher told my dad I had the potential to start reading earlier than my peers. (Maybe that was a ploy and she told all the parents that so the kids in her class would be early starters, I don't know. But let's not get cynical here.)

I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who share my love for stories, and who probably love them more than I do (goodness knows I'm a picky reader). But despite how much I love to read, how much I enjoyed English lessons and how it was the class I was most enthusiastic about, being a writer didn't occur to me until I was eleven. I had never considered the possibility of creating stories myself, stories that I would love and would want to share with the world, stories that chronicled the changes in me and the way I regarded the world.



Maybe it was because I never got sufficient encouragement that helped me believe I - like anyone who believes him- or herself capable of it - could weave an entire story out of my limited imagination. But when I was eleven, change came in the form of my English teacher, Mr Martin Chan. Now, I don't mean for this to turn into a thanks-giving post, but hitherto, I've believed that he was the one who, if you wish, ignited the flame of passion in me for creative writing. (Sorry for the horrible cliche!) He introduced me to Shakespeare, through giving us a watered-down version of Macbeth (which remains my favourite play to date), and recommended stories like Lord of the Rings (even playing the cartoon version for us) and Lord of the Flies (which remains my favourite book to date, no lie - Golding is a genius). He made us practice flash-writing, which are exercises where you write a passage where the action or emotion are the most intense. It's a drill for concise and tight writing, and after that we'd share our writing with our peers, and I felt like I learnt so much. English lessons in primary 5 and 6 were so rich.

And that was where I fell for creative writing - head-first and hard. I started with writing journal entries because then, I was under the influence of Princess Diaries, which I had started reading. I would turn up to class with a notebook under my textbook and scribble furiously about everything that was going on around me and within me.


With the Budding Writers story-writing contest that Mr Chan encouraged me and several others to take part in - along with other writing contests - I began to appreciate the craft of writing. How do you look at things the way other people can't? How can you express the way in which you look at things? How do you make that way connect with your readers? The first complete story I wrote was of the detective/mystery genre, because we were all into Nancy Drew then and plot-driven stories were easier to write. I didn't win, of course - my writing was hardly any good - but the experience of working on a story, crafting a plot, thinking of the appropriate words that would convey the meanings concisely, was enough of a prize.

When I went to secondary school, I continued writing, and wrote several trial novels, which I often begged my friends to read and tell me how they felt about it. I remember how Yvonne liked reading my diaries (I never really had much to hide, so keeping a diary wasn't really about secrecy to me) and Stace and the rest would ask me about my progress for the novel I was working on then. All through secondary school, I kept notebooks and filled them up sooner than I expected. In upper secondary, I started watching The OC and attempted to write a third-person POV series about a girl who goes to a hoity-toity school. And then the idea for When the Lilies Turn Orange (then, it was still titled An Old Scent) came about, raw and unpolished and waiting for me to tap into its reserve that was overflowing with potential and possibilities. Because of the O'levels, I only properly began working on it in JC. In the meantime, I wrote short stories, tried my hand at poetry (which will never see the light of day, if I can help it), and read, read, read, taking in ideas and imbibing various writing styles and understanding, step by step, how writing, such an arbitrary art, works.

In JC, I was swamped with schoolwork. I was lucky if I had time to think about my stories, let alone write them. So I only properly immersed myself in Lilies after the A'levels. In the three months after A's, I worked relentlessly on Lilies, so addicted to the writing process was I. I brought my notebook and pen everywhere (that was when I was into walking, and trekked all over Singapore for the fun of it), and wrote, wrote, wrote. I even woke up at 3a.m. to write till dawn broke. My dad was so worried I was losing it.

I consider Lilies to be my first official novel, one that I'm satisfied with enough to want to see it published.

Towards the end of Lilies, the idea for Bedful of Moonlight came half-formed. But despite finishing Lilies, I couldn't tear myself away from Wroughton, the private estate in which the story takes place; I couldn't bear to part with the characters - Raven, Connell, Reilly, Tate, and the motley crew. So I set Moonlight in Wroughton as well, with main characters completely disparate from Raven and Connell. This time, the going was tougher, maybe because all the research on writing I'd done while writing Lilies had left me feeling more cautious, more stifled (in a way), about approaching my work-in-progress (WIP). I was left confused, bewildered even, as to what my characters really wanted and how they were trying to go about getting it, and how they changed in the end as a result of doing so. How could I make them seem real, with genuine flaws that we can all relate to and therefore sympathise with? How can I make their motivations strong enough to fuel the story?

While I was sorely dismayed - depressed even - after completing Lilies, I felt a sense of relief after finishing up Moonlight. All that with a huge dose of satisfaction, of course. But finishing a story leaves you bereft, exhausted, over-the-moon, exhilarated and relieved all at once. I call it the writer's high. That's what I experienced when I first started writing, when my characters surprised even me by saying the things they said, doing the things they did, and thinking the way they did. That's what I experienced when the words flowed from me so quickly I barely had time to tap on my keys to keep up. That's what I experienced when I wrote from 9am to 3pm once (when I was in secondary school, working on High Grounds), and looked up to realise it was 3pm and my stomach was growling.

My third attempt wasn't quite as smooth. If I thought Bedful of Moonlight was a bumpy ride, Mint was a road riddled with potholes and death traps. I had the setting, I had the characters, but I just couldn't dig deep enough into them to find out where the conflict lay and where their motivations clashed. I had committed the mistake many amateur writers make, and that is plunge headlong into a novel without laying out the basic structure of it. Much as you're excited to delve into writing your next novel, you have to do what you need to, even though it's painful. You have to find out what drives your novel, and know very clearly how your character changes - for better or worse - by the end of the story. All these I have learnt from working on Mint. I abandoned it at page 166, halfway through the story. Perhaps someday I will return to it. But for now, I'm thankful for the experience regardless of the time and effort spent (sunk costs, as any economist would declare!) on it. For now, I'm thankful for what it has taught me.

So right now, while working on my current WIP, Red December Skies, and writing short stories on the days where the words just can't flow. It's a much smoother writing process for December, and though I haven't published anything yet, I believe I will one day. One day, I will dare to put my work out there. One day, I will write well enough to get a solid offer, instead of the almost-misses from literary agents.

In the meantime, I will keep writing, keep reading, keep honing my craft by studying how other writers write. After all, as Monica Wood (author of The Pocket Muse) said, Money schmoney. If you write, you're a writer.

I don't know why, but this part of an interview with Deb Caletti (author of several amazing books, including Wild Roses) made me tear up:

Why did you become a writer?
I became a writer because I love books, and I believe in their power. Even more, I love images and sentences and particular words and their beauty and humor and the way they look on the page. I like the word aubergine (even if it means eggplant), but think oevre sounds like a boiled egg. A passage in a book can make you cry, it can make you think differently, it can make you remember something from long ago. To be a writer is to connect and to play and to attempt to see clearly and understand. It astounds me regularly that feeling things deeply and writing them down is basically my job description. It is one of the wackiest and most privileged professions, if you can call it that at all. Writing is not something you do, but who you are. It’s the way I came.

Her new book The Six Rules of Maybe is coming soon. Can't wait for more awesomeness from one of my favourite YA authors.

What Disney cartoons have taught me (plus one random fact of the day)

What Disney cartoons have taught me:

1. The Little Mermaid: Men, when hit on the head, will think that whoever sings to him when he wakes up will be his one true love. And you do not want to upset octopuses, especially those that can turn you into shrivelled up nothings that live at the bottom of the ocean.

2. Cinderella: Mice and pumpkins are your friends. And before you leave on your first date, remember to leave something for the guy so he can comb the entire city looking for you.

3. The Sleeping Beauty: Again, men are foolishly attracted to girls who can sing well. And why the hell would you want to touch a stupid spindle?

4. Beauty and the Beast: A beast looks hot when transformed back into a man, so be nice to him!

5. Snow White: You have to do all the household chores if you want to live with seven short men. Remember to stroke their egos while planning your escape from patriarchal oppression.

6. Aladdin: Beware of boys from market places with pet monkeys. They lie about their identities so you will fall in love with them. (That said, I do like Aladdin.)

* Random fact of the day:
Lifeguards wear sunglasses not only because the sun's too strong, but because they won't get caught sleeping on the job.

Advertisements For Sale

The question now (a rather random one with an abrupt opening, but a question nonetheless) is whether the consumer is influenced by the advertiser or the other way around, and whether we as consumers are doomed to be held captive in the self-perpetuating cycle of consumption.

For starters, as a consumer myself (not a great one, but I hardly know anyone in the society I'm living in to live in a social vacuum and not consume at all), I would say that the influence of advertisements on the audience is irrefutable. It's impossible to be completely unaffected by advertising - they bombard us from all sides, offering prettily-packaged products that promise to improve our lives, offering us a plethora of identities to assume and define ourselves with. We align ourselves with the values and qualities of the products we consume. And what influences us to make our decisions are the advertisements that reach us through the various media: print, broadcast, and so on. Wait for your bus and you see a Juicy Couture advertisement, walk along the street and you see a sultry model showcasing a Fendi bag. The list goes on. We go about our lives with these as part of the scenery, so accustomed we have become to advertisements as a result of its relentless ubiquity. Quite possibly, as a result of this, we have become immune to them, or at least weary. I know I have. It's tiring to see models posing with a bag, or a faceless voice on the TV extolling the merits of a certain good, when it's not the only one in the market. Product differentiation has become such a vital part of selling a good that one can't help but wonder if there really is a difference between choosing one brand over another, when essentially the same type of good is being sold.

And what annoys me the most is how people think they are asserting the identity(s) they have carved out for themselves - given the wide range (or is it really as wide as we think?) to choose from, that advertisers offer us - when everyone basically dresses / eats / watches the same way, the same thing. On a personal level, girls everywhere I see wear shorts and gladiator sandals or leggings/jeggings and high-waisted skirts offered by a certain brand offering all-cotton clothings. Someone commented somewhere that women are the - and I quote - 'biggest herd-mentality consumer lemmings'. And I have to agree, indignation aside. Because these advertisers prey on our vanity, our constant desire to seek something to enhance our looks, make us more attractive, therefore improve our lives (I'm not sure how those are linked, but apparently that's how it is supposed to work). We grab our girlfriends, go shopping, queue in line at the dressing rooms, checking out accessories along the way, buy a dress, get excited about our new purchases (shopper's high) - life is good. And then weeks later, we decide that we're bored with our wardrobe and want something else to improve our lives, make us stand out. And the cycle repeats itself.

I'm not saying shopping and vanity are condemnable. No, to be vain is only human, and shopping is a great way to bond (or so I'm told). I just don't understand what we are supposed to achieve by doing that. I'm wondering if it's the society that makes us turn to an external agent to improve the quality of our lives, or if it's within us all along to constantly seek something better. But not to digress, it is because of this human psyche that advertisers are able to make a profit out of us. So is it us who sustains the consumer-advertiser dynamic, or the advertiser that makes us feel like we need to look elsewhere to fill up that internal vacuum (just to dramatise things a bit). Maybe it's fifty-fifty. It's a rather sit-on-the-fence approach, but I feel that it's a case of 'one can't live while the other survives' (sound familiar?).

Advertisers have to take their cues from us consumers. Without them, they wouldn't know how to persuade us to buy their products, and therefore how best to package them in a way that would entice us to buy their stuff. It's a rather chicken-and-egg conundrum - is it the consumer who first shows the advertiser his desires and his needs, or the advertiser who tells the consumer that, hey loser, this is what is lacking in your life, and this is the thing that can save you? Is it possibly even a more insidious case of upper class domination, wherein the dominant class(es) present the 'ideal' life that we should all want, all strive to attain? If that is the case, then we can't blame advertisers for preying on us so ruthlessly, almost unscrupulously, because we were willingly coerced by the dominant elites to want that sort of lifestyle - luxury cars, big house with temperature-control and state-of-the-art kitchen mechanism, LV bags and access to the trendiest clubs (I always thought that phrase sounded the very opposite of what it tries to sound. I mean, 'trendiest clubs'? Lame). It's not the advertisers' fault we are exercising herd mentality and consume their goods blindly, thinking that we are being unique but in fact looking and behaving just like everybody else because we are afraid of breaking away from the pack. And even if we did break away by dressing or behaving differently, it's just to seek attention by screaming, Look at me - I'm different, I have a more unique idenity, I stand out more! I'm not saying it doesn't work either way - I'm just saying that I feel it's pointless to put that much stock into identity-construction when all we're doing is re-presenting the identities and qualities that advertisers already have wrapped up in pretty boxes for us.

So are we doomed to being prisoners of this endless cycle of want? Not necessarily. I hold out on the hope that we won't, because of the weariness that might settle upon us eventually. Then again, advertising constantly evolves with market sentiment and trends, so advertisers can always find new ways of exploiting our desires and our weariness itself to sell us another product. I guess it depends on whether or not you're a cynic. But for now, every time I see an advertisement, I try to make a connection between what is presented to me - the qualities that the good is supposed to embody - and the intention of the advertisement.

Just my two cents' worth.

Literary Agent Nathan Bransford posed a couple of questions today: If you had a chance to dine with any author, who would it be? What do you think made Twilight so popular?

I don't know how he can just limit us to just one, because there are several I can list off the top of my head now. Maggie Stiefvater, Deb Caletti, Christie Hodgen and, of course, Sarah Dessen. I didn't list Megan McCafferty even though I love her for creating the Jessica Darling series, because Megan seems smart to the point of intimidating. She graduated from Columbia and her writing reflects it.

You'll notice there are hardly any male authors. I'm not being sexist, really, but I can't really relate to the characters created by male authors. This is not a generalisation, of course, but so far, for me, characters created by female authors are more relatable.

And as for what I think made Twilight so popular, it is probably the age-old idea of a forbidden romance. Because you see, people are more in love with the characters (namely, one of the male characters, or more) than Stephenie Meyer's writing. I'm not critic, but I'll say I've read authors who write better - though Meyer's improved a lot ever since New Moon - than her. But who doesn't love a good love story, after all, especially a forbidden one between two species, one of which is inhumanly (literally) good-looking?

So those are my two cents' worth. Have a great day ahead!

'Drift House - The First Voyage' by Dale Peck

I'm currently swept up in this children's fantasy titled Drift House: The First Voyage by Dale Peck, who's a reviewer and critic apart from an author. And can I just say that he's definitely qualified to critic other books, given how well he writes. There is, to coin a cliche, never a dull moment in Drift House (I apologise for that cliche!). It's packed with plot and it's just a rollicking ride.

In Drift House, three children (Susan, 12, and her two younger brothers, Charles and Murray) who are sent to live with their Uncle Farley. But one day (oh, gosh. "One day" - narration at its poorest. Another apology!) his house is swept away onto the Sea of Time. The children find out that the House is actually a transtemporal vessel that can travel through time. But the plot thickens when they find out that the House is headed for the Great Drain, a huge vortex in which there is no way out for one if he should be sucked into it. A mermaid called Diaphone appeals to Susan to help save her sister, who has been caught by the Time Pirates. But little did they know (really, I'm truly sorry for the cliche-laden post today) that making Susan rescue Ula lu la lu was part of their grand plan to stop Time by locking the doors to the Great Drain. The mermaids hold one of the three keys to the Drain, the Time Pirates another, and the other by Pierre Marin, an explorer and a scientist (he studies the effects of Time and is a human representative on the Island of the Past, where one of each and every species that ever lived resides).

Yes, so basically, the inhabitants of the Drift House were tricked by the mermaids to obtain the key from the Time Pirates and then the one belonging to Pierre Marin (which is in Uncle Farley's possession), so that they can lock the Drain and cease the flow of Time.

Like I said, rich in plot. And I love the setting and his writing style. Some children's authors tend to talk down in their stories - they think that just because they're writing for children they'd have to employ child-speak. Or teen-speak if they're writing YA. It annoys the hell out of me. But like Trenton Lee-Stewart, the author of The Mysterious Benedict Society series, Dale Peck doesn't see the need to talk like a child to appeal to his audience. His writing style is upbeat, like Eva Ibbotson (author of Island of the Aunts, Which Witch?, The Secret of Platform 13, Dial-a-ghost, and many others), and rational, like Lee-Stewart's. And the setting - it's out at sea! Who doesn't like a story set out at sea? Even for The Mysterious Benedict Society, my favourite so far is the second one, The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey, because it takes place aboard a ship. There's just something about the sea that makes for a good setting for a story. Maybe it's the novelty of it, or the immense potential for drama and adventure. Either way, I'm thoroughly enjoying Drift House, so much so that I've borrowed the sequel to it.

Other Books I'm Dying to Read:
1. The Six Rules of Maybe - Deb Caletti. I love every one of her books. 'Nuff said.
2. Linger - Maggie Stiefvater. The sequel to Shiver will be out in June this year. Can't wait! Shiver was so awesome (curious? read my post about it, if it helps) it made Stiefvater one of my favourite authors alread.

By the way, I am so enjoying Down With Love (every Saturday, 9pm, on Channel U). It just gets better and better with every episode, if that's even possible, since the first episode was already so fantastic. This drama totally shows the other side of Jerry, the cute funny side, and I'm loving him all the more (if, again, that is even possible). Everything about him puts me in a good mood.

Spent yesterday with my dad. We took a pretty long spin around town, with the rain pouring outside and the radio on (oldies). Another memory that I'll treasure. Dad told me about his childhood, among other things. He said the reason why he felt the need to take a picture everywhere he goes is because when one day, I'm not by his side, at least he'll have the photos to keep him company. I couldn't stop the tears from falling eventually.

Remember when I said uni was kind of slack - at least, slacker than jc? Well, it still is slacker than jc (hitherto, jc has been the craziest time of my academic life), but the work is definitely piling up.

I realised it's thanks to my two requirement modules (SE1101E - Southeast Asian studies - and SSA1203 - Singapore, Asia and American Power) that my days are more filled with schoolwork now. For each module, I have to write three papers. Add that to my EL3254 (Media, Discourse and Society) paper and presentation, as well as my EC1101E (Intro to Econs) tutorials and online graded practices, I'm a heck lot busier than I'd been last sem. And this is only 4 modules. Imagine if I took 5, like I was supposed to. (Which brings me to contemplating about next sem, where I have to take 6 modules, to compensate for the 1 module I didn't take this sem ... no, stop. It's too depressing.)

So I'm down with three papers (two SSA1203 and one SE1101E), and am working on my next SE1101E paper, which is due 2 March. I know, you must think I'm crazy to be stressing out so much when the deadlines for most of my papers are still a long time away. But I'm the sort who'd manically try to finish them all the minute I'm told what I'm required to do, just so I can avoid the mad rush towards the exams, where then I'd have to study for the exams and work on my papers. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Yes, so right now I'm riffling through online books, researching about the Mekong river and how it contributed to the construction of a collective identity (that was quite a lot of alliteration right there) of Vietnamese people before independence in 1945. The essay required us to explore how a place or a form of technology culminated in the formation of a collective identity of the people in a Southeast Asian country before or up to the point of independence. 1250 - 1500 words, at least one source about the place or technology, and at least two sources about the place, have to be academic.

The thing I don't quite understand is, what's the difference between before independence and up to the point of independence?

1300 words. Despite working on the paper the whole day yesterday, I've only managed to crank out 393 miserable words. This is unbelievably depressing. And what really makes me want to kick myself is that I've forgotten everything about the Mekong river that I studied in jc. That is, if I even paid attention. I don't remember listening in lectures when the Mekong conflict was being explained. See, that's what you get for being so disinterested.

Two and a half more months. Two and a half more months before Reading Week and the subsequent exams. And then no more horrible papers to write.

But then, of course, there is always next sem. Joy.

JD Salinger has passed away on 27 Jan 2010 at the age of 91.



I have only ever read one of his works, The Catcher in the Rye, and it's one of my favourite YA books. No-one has ever painted the disillusionment towards life in a young, optimistic heart as well as him. Holden Caulfield's cynicism stems from the opportunities he thinks he is denied, and the pretentiousness of the people around him. Nonetheless, it is obvious he is always ready to believe the best in people, and the world. It's tough to portray that through a character's actions and his voice, but Salinger nailed it, creating a hero readers sympathise with and root for.

Salinger, I read, was a very reclusive writer, never gave interviews or the like. I just wish he'd written more about Holden; I was so sorry when I got to the end of the story. Salinger's awesome, even better, imo, than Jack Kerouac (at least, comparing The Catcher in the Rye and On the Road).

On a different note, literary agent Nathan Bransford asked this question: How Did You Come Up With the Idea for Your WIP?

The thing about Shiny New Ideas (phrase coined from writer Erica Orloff) is that as a writer, you want to know how other writers get inspired, but can't explain it yourself either when others ask you. You shrug and say, "Everywhere, I guess."

For my stories, as Triv commented before, most of the conflict internally - literally. Most of my main characters are mentally disturbed, or at least detached from reality, because I think mentally disturbed people make good material for stories. I am interested in how some people retreat into a world they've created for themselves (is it a defense mechanism? or a delusion of grandeur that stems from a need to fill an emotional void? and so on) and how they straddle the line between detachment and insanity.

Red December Skies started as a setting (Marina South pier), then the character of Jerry, who was inspired by Lei of Meteor Garden. And then the problem of the protagonist, Ethel, just developed itself, and that's that.

I'm at Singapore, Asia and American Power lecture now (yes, multi-tasking as usual), and Prof Hamilton-Hart's telling us how NUS has, since its conception (or should I use establishment? oh, my diction's screwed today), adopted an American-style curriculum. Apparently, SM Goh had the vision of NUS as the 'Harvard of the East' (the point: instead of 'Oxford of the East').

Anyway, this semester is proving to be more hectic than sem 1, even though I'm only taking 4 modules. So. Many. Papers. To. Write. I don't even want to contemplate next semester, where I have to take 6 modules to compensate for the 1 module I didn't take this sem (I think I explained before that I dropped my NM module last minute because I decided to change my Minor from that to Econs).