Good Night, Good Night

Everything is a bad idea.

I thought yesterday that everything I’ve dreamed up for the forthcoming project is pretty bad, so it all looks like a giant cancer of some sort now. I’m letting that take its time to sink in. So in the meantime, I’ve cranked up the editing gearbox and we went at a pretty high pace right for a time.

2.0

I finished up with a first round of line-by-line editing yesterday. At least, I did it on paper. I wanted to get it done quickly so that I could put together some reading copy for a few unlucky beta readers. This first edit is essentially to correct the typographical errors and also to smooth out some expressions. Call it a detailed technical inspection.

I’ll be working the edits into the actual document today onwards, though I’m not sure when I’ll be finished with it. The likelihood is at least a couple of days, though to be very optimistic, I could possibly complete it by today, and to be more pessimistic, I should be done before National Day.

It’s still a long way to go, really. I’m a little glad that the school term has started because that gives me an excuse to set it aside for the time being. I want to come back to it with a mind to replace significant portions of it. The main feeling I get after going through it once is that a number of big sections sag, so I’ll be looking to remedy that. I think I’m currently too deeply entrenched in it to figure out how that’s going to happen.

Apart from that, I’m still not sure if it’s cohesive, and if it does what it’s supposed to do. It’s quite a different undertaking from The River, and so I don’t really have that experience to count on. It starts and it ends, and a bunch of things happen in between, and at one moment I was convinced that all of these things work well together, but that belief has drowned in the course of working at it. In other words, I’m looking for a sense of solidarity that in some way (pardon the puffy expressions) binds the elements together. I was sure it would fit at one time, and now it’s time to affirm that.

Oh yes, and keeping up with the habit of naming my drafts, this one is Good Night, Good Night.

Inherent Vice

Just in case you’ve missed the news, Pynchon’s new novel Inherent Vice is on sale now! [via Amazon]

d

Tweed

Editing

I’ve been editing. It’s not been fun. Everywhere I look it looks bad, though it’s fair to say that that happens to me every time I get here. I’m still trying to get a grasp of the whole thing, so that when I do a once-through I’ll be able to tell if it’s not uniform enough. It’s not really been going well. I might step away from it if I have to. I’m in no hurry, though I have to keep reminding myself about that.

Shopping

I wanted to shop for a few presents (far ahead of time) and I went on Amazon and browsed around quite a bit. In the process, I learnt about the variety of Amazon deals (okay, so I’m a bit slow to the party). I also identified a few things that I thought I could pick up, which made me quite happy. I’m just a little undecided on the presents and stuff, so I’ve yet to make an order.

On the other hand, I tried to find this set of collectible The Sandman postcards on Amazon. You see, a few years ago, they printed sets of 40 postcards and put them each in pretty boxes. I bought one of the boxes. Pretty postcards are one of those things that I like collecting, but for some reason, I thought of using them. So I used slightly over half of them over the years, and now I’m left with a diminished set. I thought I ought to get another one, but it wasn’t to be because it’s out of print and not available on Amazon anymore. If you have a heads-up on where I can get a new set for a reasonable price, do drop me a note here. Thanks.

Eleventh’s Costume

[via BBC News]

Here’s Matt Smith in-costume as the Doctor. I quite like the look of it. It kind of has a bit of the quirky charm you’d expect of an old Doctor and also the fashion restraint of a new Doctor. Very neat and clean, and he seems to wear it well. Can’t wait for the new series!

d

Another 1.0

A Year Ago

A year ago, 19th July 2008, I finished my first draft of The River at about 9p.m. It sure feels like a long time ago now, though. I didn’t imagine that I would be putting together a (vastly unreadable) first draft of Bukit Merah so shortly after that, but I did just that last night. At 12.30a.m. today, I completed work on my first draft and I think that just about completes the main task I had set out to do these holidays. Which is great because I have a month to stay away from this thing.

How Long Did It Take?

I can’t remember the exact date that I started, but the official date appears to be about the 7th of May or thereabouts, so that means I finished it in the very short time (for me, anyway) of under 60 days.

My file modification and creation meta data yield some other interesting facts. For example, I had finished the first six chapters (out of the eventual eighteen) by 27th May, which is, say, three weeks. I slowed down considerably at this point and from then until 19th June, I only did two more chapters, and wrote a bunch of fragments. I really stepped it up from there because by 27th June, I was about 80% done with the thing, although I didn’t know it then because I had no idea how much more I had ahead of me. So I think between the 19th and the 27th, I just went full steam ahead and gave it all I had. After this, I focused on finishing up, steering it towards the ending and putting the fragments I had down earlier to use. Ten-hour days, twelve-hour days, fourteen-hour days, et cetera. Eventually managed, so, there it is now.

Crazy Things

This is about the point where I begin to seriously doubt whatever it is I’ve just written. For one thing, it’s bound to need a lot of work from here. That’s a given. But its main problem will probably be that it’s full of crazy ideas that just come one after another. This wasn’t something I was expecting because I, uh, didn’t plan very much. It’s kind of like a children’s storybook, where things don’t always make adult, so-called real-world sense. One moment you’re in a bedroom and the next you’re riding a chicken, and just for the sake of it, in the next moment, you’re talking to a dysfunctional family of beluga whales.

I’m not sure I’m fully sold on that. Which begs the question: Why did I even bother going through with it then? Well, mainly because if I didn’t, I’d never get anything done.

Slow Poke

All of this makes me realise that I’m not really that slow in my work. I used to imagine that I was. I had this project that dragged on for years. It was an interesting diversion, though I was really going nowhere with it, but I suppose that was what gave me the impression that I was simply a slow worker. The River, while difficult to put together, didn’t actually take very long at all, if you think about it. I mean, here we are, a year from the day I actually began writing it, and it’s in some respectable shape at least. And this has been noticeably faster than The River, which really surprised me.

Though it’s certainly still not quite presentable yet.

Where To

And that’s what needs to happen from here, to hammer it into shape. I will probably have to convince myself about the overarching concept behind it, and then work out a few main targets for improvement. My guess is it’ll look like it needs more focus, some reinforcement of themes, and something to do with the nature of the characters. I’m an editing sort of person, I think. I can’t write anything too big and intricate once through without letting myself down in some ways. I reckon that going through it three or four times in detail will eventually become part of my modus operandi.

In the meantime, I’ll crack out the imaginary champagne and relax a bit. I need to pack my room. Yes, I think I’ll do that.

d

Rush

Somewhat Numb

Work, work, work, work, work. It’s left me a bit numb. I don’t greet it with a whole lot of enthusiasm, but I also don’t find myself reeling in disgust or anything either. Occasionally, I feel happy to wrap up a particular section, though these moments of gratification tend to be accompanied by brief how-much-longer thoughts a little after. It’s certainly been nothing drastic. I don’t go around wanting to beat myself up for having this job or anything, but it’s also not entirely comfortable.

I’ve noticed, however, that Bukit Merah is a strange project. As in, really strange. Funny. I wasn’t in planning on that, but it is. It hops here and there and I think it never really settles on a conventional identity of any sort. It just makes its own rules, I think. Some things that you and I think, No, that can’t be included here… Well, those things are in. They just float in and try to act inconspicuous.

It doesn’t always make the most imaginative sense, in a, uhm, hard to describe way. Like, just because you have a dragon doesn’t mean you have to make it breathe fire, you know? It’s certainly far more playful and wilful than The River, though not necessarily any less dark.

It’s a funny thing. I don’t even have any idea how it looks like. I’m just going along with it for now and hoping that in the case of an emergency, I’ll be able to patch it up later. It’s too late to try to rein it in too, anyway, because we’re almost at the end of it. Though, thinking back, I can’t say that there was ever a time where I knew I would do something like this. It’s just weird to the point of being unexpected, even to me. Yeah, I think the words ‘weird’ and ‘strange’ probably describe best how I see it right now. It’s a curious thing, even by my standards.

Well, here’s hoping that doesn’t mean it’s doomed or anything. I ought to know but I’m too numb to think.

We Are The World

The CPDRC inmates are back with a Michael Jackson tribute.

d

Work, Friends

The Fast And The Furious

I’m sure I made mention of this several times already, but I’m sort of approaching the final lap of things for the first draft, so I’ve essentially stepped it up a gear and that has seen the (planned) return of the 80-hour work week. I’m close. I know I am. I’m getting a very clear idea of how this will all end as I go along, and I also have a target length in mind (based on a feeling of how long it ought to be). Everything I do now I do with the intention of contributing to the completion of the project. I don’t want it to expand. I don’t want it to stray. And that, I think, is what the target length is good for.

It’s been a bit taxing, but with the end in sight, it’s not all that bad. I get the feeling that I’m at some tipping point. I can smell completion. The images I’ve been getting have been affirming this gut feeling, and now I want to latch on before it slips away, capitalise on this. It’s a bit like chasing after a football title, when it’s only the middle of the season and you don’t have a substantial lead but your momentum is good and your team looks sharp and you can catch a whiff of the title already. Full speed ahead, full speed ahead.

There is an ancient Chinese proverb that goes, One must hold onto the antlers of the Qilin having scaled its scales. It means that you have to take advantage of the curve the moment you’re on top of it.

Okay, I made that up.

Counterfeit

I have a friend who of late fears neglecting her friends, so she made it a point to put together some package for a bunch of them and had it delivered, recognising that it was a selfish thing to make herself feel better. Funny, I had that feeling about her long ago, that most of my interactions with her seemed to be based significantly in that self-assurance factor. I suppose we all fool ourselves in some ways. Still, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Oh, I imagine it’ll be sorted out. Somehow. Eventually. We live, we learn, we poke around and figure things out. That’s the way it goes.

On The Other Hand

Can I just say that Wednesday was a lovely day for friends? I heard from Li Yue, Gao Jie, Shi Jia and Tammy (in that order), and it is quite great to see that they’re all doing well. I realised too that I don’t have many friends as unrepentantly chatty as I am, but Shi Jia is one of them and now that I know that I can bug her with no sense of shame.

d

Tour De France

Maillot Jaune

Lagging behind coming into the week, he bursts onto the scene and takes the first stage of the week with aplomb. This is something of a minor milestone in the arduous tour considering how important it is to take the lead going into the mountains. Something of a psychological edge if you will.

He hits the mountains hard and fast, with enough power to put a comfortable distance between him and his nearest competitors. Yes, indeed, he’s doing very well on our first day in the mountains. Lots of power and determination, this is a remarkable sporting performance. He’s coming into the last bend… He’s turning far ahead of his opponents, and he’s leaving them in the dust! And he crosses the line! Taking the stage and returning the yellow jersey!

Third stage of the week, a speed trial. We have here a tremendous team effort on display. They are doing their best to fend off the competition, but it looks like a difficult one. This is going to be close… This is going to be close… In the lead, no, second, no, in the lead again, and across the line! Just narrowly! Going into the next stage still with a good lead over the second-placed rider.

Another difficult course today, with many steep slopes to scale. Here we see him doing well early on in this stage. He’s coming up fast. He’s pulling ahead. He’s… No, he’s slowing down, slowing down! Oh no! They’ve caught up with him. It seems as if he’s burned out or something. He is still maintaining a good pace, though, and a podium finish for the stage looks like it’s on the cards here. He’s struggling, but he’ll make it across with an adequate result to stay in the yellow jersey on the fourth stage of the week.

The fifth stage of the week should be a walkover for him now. But no! Reports say that he’s picked up a back injury early in the stage, but he’s still continuing. He doesn’t want to be disqualified now, no! Trooping along far behind the rest of the pack, he loses sight of the leading party far too soon. He grits his teeth and makes it past the finish line, but he’s no longer the leader of the race as we head into Saturday’s stage.

How will her fare this morning, on a difficult course while still recovering from his back injury? It looks like he isn’t pushing too hard today. He’s going to see how it goes and avoid being too ambitious. He just wants a decent result, and it looks like he’ll get it today. It puts him back within touching distance of the current leader, and I’m sure that’s all he could have wanted out of today.

The last stage of the week, and we are just over halfway of the tour. At this crucial point in the tour, he will want to overhaul the leaders and go into the next week wearing the yellow jersey. He’s not going to do that with the pace he’s started with. But no, he’s ramping it up. He’s going for the kill. Incredible power! He must be on drugs or something! He’s putting in his biggest day yet! Look at the distance between them! He’s going ahead! He’s crossing the line! And I really have to stop screaming into the mic! Success! He pulls ahead of the leaders by a mile! What a show!

And that, really, is how the writing week has been. A relatively okay first half, an injury on Friday, and the biggest day I’ve ever put in yesterday. Phew. A total of just about 10,000 words in the week.

Returns

My Amazon order arrived on Saturday, and one of the books is damaged. That made me quite upset. Returns are possible, but I keep getting the feeling something will go very wrong with the returns. Oh well, I suppose I can only make do. At least I got Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Scrapbook just fine.

d

Potential New Species

A Bit Slow

I was a little slower than expected yesterday, but I’ve still managed to clock about 5,000 words so far this week, so I’m more or less unfazed. And I suppose I can pretend that the awful weather has been too distracting for me to work in, and I can compound that with the fact that I woke up feeling quite sore (exercise), but it doesn’t really matter, does it?

Funny though, I’ve been going consistently faster than my usual speed that it now seems odd whenever I fail to hit top gear. I think I should temper expectations somewhat to ensure that I don’t get frustrated when I hit a slow patch.

Weather Woes

In any case, the weather really is quite horrible. I think I’m heading out today to see if I can hide somewhere cooler.

And it also makes me all a bit lazy, so I’m cheating and what follows are a few links.

Yes, Brand New!

Pictures of potential new species. [via National Geographic] The katydids, in particular, look beautiful.

Homeless Sims

Alice and Kev is the blog about a homeless family in The Sims 3. [via Alice and Kev] From the intro:

This is an experiment in playing a homeless family in The Sims 3. I created two Sims, moved them in to a place made to look like an abandoned park, removed all of their remaining money, and then attempted to help them survive without taking any job promotions or easy cash routes. It’s based on the old ‘poverty challenge’ idea from The Sims 2, but it turned out to be a lot more interesting with The Sims 3’s living neighborhood features.

I have attempted to tell my experiences with the minimum of embellishment. Everything I describe in here is something that happened in the game. What’s more, a surprising amount of the interesting things in this story were generated by just letting go and watching the Sims’ free will and personality traits take over.

Stamp

Will someone buy me the lovely Dave McKean-illustrated stamp set? [via Royal Mail]

d

Friend Boost

Card

I think it must have arrived the day before, but yesterday, my dad checked the mailbox and there was a postcard for me. It was from Chee Gake, who is in the States now. For some reason, looking at the elks on the postcard and the scribbles behind it just made my day. I put it neatly in a corner of the bookshelf where it sits beside an assortment of other things. Thank you, Chee Gake!

And A Bit More

Apart from the postcard, I also heard from Tammy and Gao Jie, which too made it all a very happy day, particularly in replying to them. I think because I’m just too chatty by nature.

And on a day-to-day basis, particularly because the holidays this time have been somewhat lonely, talking to Jolie has been great too.

So, yeah, what would you do without friends, you know?

2K

I did slightly over 2000 words yesterday, which is rare when I’m not upset about anything. I suppose it was just one of those unusually productive days. I’m sure today won’t be anywhere near as productive. Still, good to get 2000 down. I’m thinking it’ll be approximately 60,000, though there’s not actual target to reach.

Google Chrome Bento

Anna the Red, if you know, makes very pretty bento boxes. Apparently, someone from Google contacted her to do a Chrome logo bento, so… that’s what she did. And like most of her other stuff, it looks really spiffy.

[via Josh Spear]

Back to work.

d

Holiday Half-Time

Last Week

Was a great week. All things considered, it was a pretty good week, with the first submission going out, a nice trip to the zoo, a visit to the museum, and an excellent shopping trip that was only slightly marred by the amount I spent and the fact that I didn’t find everything I wanted to find.

Oh Shopping

Speaking of which, I got quite a few things, including a notebook and some presents, but I had also planned to get about three books for about 50 bucks. I fulfilled that, and this is what I got:

1. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
2. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
3. We Never Talk About My Brother by Peter S. Beagle

The Peter S. Beagle book I bought under the recommendation of someone. The Bell Jar is the new edition for the 80th anniversary of Faber & Faber, and I got it because I thought it was really pretty and I didn’t have any Plath on my shelf anyway. And I’ve been wanting to read Blood Meridian for a very long time.

I know I said something about adding Faulkner to my shelf, but there just wasn’t anything I wanted at the bookstore that day. Some other day, then.

The thing is, though, I saw this Hiroshi Sugimoto book that I just had to have.

So I got it.

That set me back a hundred dollars. I wasn’t expecting it. A complete ambush. It didn’t bankrupt me or anything, but I really wasn’t expecting to spend that bit.

Duty Calls

And now, I’m afraid, this week must be a week of work, and the next week too. And the one after that. I’ve more or less exhausted my holiday budget with that shopping trip. That means no more books, no more games, no more anything. Actually, that should be okay. I get by quite easily without any of these things. I do owe Jolie a present, so I’ll stick with that.

But we’re only halfway into the holidays, and I suppose I will do best distracting myself with work.

It’s just as well that Bukit Merah is halfway as well. I’m hoping to get down a first draft by the end of the holidays, although that looks a tad unlikely. I’ll try, though. That said, it’s become a bit difficult to write. I’ve started to revert to my old style of filling in pockets where I can, because it’s not exactly been the point A-to-point B thing that I was managing for the first half (where I basically just wrote in a linear fashion, proceeding page by page). I think it has to do with being in a different stage of it, and also being more certain about the things I need to see at specific junctures.

Although I imagine the biggest reason is probably fatigue, but I think the experience of writing The River will probably serve me well as I head into the second half of this.

So, back to work, then, as I’m sure is the case for many of you.

d

Press Start

It’s A New Month!

Which goes hand-in-hand with today’s post, but in the meantime, this sentences here is to tell you to flip your calendar.

All Packed Up

With the results out and none too disastrous, I took some time to pack up the notes and textbooks yesterday, so my desk looks slightly neater and the shelf is now empty waiting for the new term. Probably should have done that a couple of weeks ago, but I kept having my mind on the results, so I just didn’t dare to touch it for a while, almost as if I would jinx them or the like.

Present

That packing up reminded me to splurge, since my results weren’t too bad. Of course, you know that this sort of thing works either way, and I would have told myself to cheer myself up with some spending if they were bad. I’ve been picking a present. I was thinking of the Planet Earth series on Bluray, though the idea of getting a couple of rare photography books has also surfaced. I think in the end, I’ll go for the combo of the documentary plus Nick Brandt’s On This Earth: Photographs From East Africa [via Amazon]. Someone pointed me to the book yesterday and I have to say that the few low-res shots I’ve seen from it  look spectacular.

Still thinking about it, though, mostly because I reviewed my spending for the past month and it’s clearly a little higher than I would’ve liked.

June!

Yes, apart from all that clearing up and rewarding of myself, the arrival of June will hopefully coincide with other “new beginning” things. I stopped at about 50% for Bukit Merah yesterday, and I have to admit that the last couple of days haven’t been particularly fruitful in terms of writing. All been rather workman-like. So I reckon that this is a good place to take a substantial break before diving in again.

In the meantime, I’ve designated June as submissions month, and seeing as to how I haven’t got too many baskets to put my eggs in (yeah, there goes your daily awkward expression), I figure I’ve got to make them count. At the same time, I really think it’s not healthy to obsess over The River much longer, so it’s really time to take the plunge and hope for the best. I don’t know how to go about this, especially given the perhaps slightly unique local scene, but there’s a certain now-or-never to this, and I’m not going to sit around asking silly questions anymore. Bah, you only live once, right?

Certainly not quite as comfortable as sitting in a chair banging out the words, but there isn’t a way around it. It feels kind of like waiting for a job interview, in fact.

I haven’t got a plan of action yet, but at the very least I’ll be needing to clean up a couple of spots in the submission version, and I’ll also have to go asking for some guidelines from anyone who might even be mildly interested in this. If nothing else, that’s some kind of start, right?

d