Nanowrimo 2010

I’ve known about Nanowrimo since 2005, and have made a couple of half-hearted attempts in to complete a novel in the novembers since that year. None of it amounted to even a quarter of the 50,000 words target. This year I told myself that I would do better – and in an effort to make myself commit to the task, I went for the Nanowrimo launch at the National Library last night.

The crowd there was really young – I felt ancient, even if I’m still short of 30. This nice young girl sitting beside me was there with her father! And her friends, she told me, had completed the 50K target last year! I’m amazed by the number of aspiring young writers we have in our midst. And a little embarrassed. What have I been doing all these years!

But something good did come out of being among the eldest in the group – I found 2 other writers my age and we bonded immediately, circumstances being what they were.

So now I actually have a (very small) writing group (duo).

November begins tomorrow. I’m excited!

A very scary halloween

Neil Gaiman suggests a new gift giving tradition for Halloween in his blog:

I’m proposing something slightly different.

That you give someone a scary book this Hallowe’en.

You certainly don’t have to give everyone you know a scary book. Just pick someone, or a few someones, you care about. Then give them a book this week that’ll scare their hair white.

And why not? At the very least, you can go the Bookcrossing way and put a couple of your scary books on the bus this weekend.

Speaking of Horror, I can’t remember the last time I read a truly frightening book. Perhaps because I don’t gravitate towards this genre much now. Horror was a big thing for me in my primary school days (by way of R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike). I guess that tendency leaked out of me once I grew older and found the world scary enough as it is.

But if I had to come up with a top 5 scary books list off the top of my head,

“It“ by Stephen King would definitely be there. Till today, I have a crisp memory of myself staying up at 4am, huddled in my blanket while reading that book,  and getting scared to death doing so.

What else? Maybe some of Lovecraft’s work. Even though I’ve only read a couple of his stories like The Call of Cthulhu and The Rats in the Walls, (and I always take some time before I get drawn into his writing style),  it’s effective Horror, the quiet kind that creeps up on you slowly and makes your spine tingle as madness seeps out from the pages.

Yes, yes, my knowledge of the Horror genre needs brushing up. What is the scariest book you’ve ever read?

The Magician King

The Magicians by Lev Grossman was one of the best books I’ve read in 2009.

Part Harry Potter coming-of-age tale of today’s dissolute youth, part homage to the Narnia styled fantasy adventure; the book was poignant with a hopeful-hopelessness that made it resonate deeply. I had to go on a ‘story fast’ for a couple of days after I put The Magicians down – I wanted the bittersweet taste of the tale to linger in my brain for a bit before washing it off with another one. Good books do that to me.

So while I’m really excited to find out (very late) that there’s going to be a sequel to the story of Quentin Coldwater, (out Fall 2011, according to Grossman’s blog), I’m also apprehensive that it won’t live up to my expectations.

From Publisher’s Weekly (via A Dribble of Ink):

Tina Bennett at Janklow and Nesbit has closed on a sequel to Lev Grossman’s The Magicians (Viking, Aug. 2009). Molly Stern at Viking (who edited The Magicians) bought North American rights to The Magician King. The new book picks up with protagonist Quentin Coldwater five years after the original—at the end of The Magicians Coldwater is 23—when he and his friends have become royalty in the fantasy world of Fillory. Coldwater, who is dealing with the challenges of being a member of the ruling class, embarks on a dark quest in the novel, which Bennett called “Voyage of the Dawn Treader [book 5 in the Chronicles of Narnia] as rewritten by Raymond Chandler.”

The double-edged nature of the story  was what made me love it so much. Would Grossman keep that fine balance in the sequel? Can he? Would it work if he didn’t? Do I even want to put myself through another emotionally draining book like the first one?

Still, it’s nice to know that Grossman is making progress. Hopefully that means the book will be out next year and I can judge for myself.

ilight Shutterbugs

I went for the i Light Marina Bay festival last weekend and really enjoyed it. Singapore’s turning into a gorgeous sight at night. I love how our new skyline looks, and the light installations they’ve placed around the bay make it even more enchanting.

Hello again

I guess I disappeared for a while back there.

Life called. And I responded.

But I’m back now, hopefully. And gearing up for Nanowrimo! It’s not the first time I’ve taken part, but I have a story in my head this year, and I really really want to see it come to fruition.

So if I’m not writing here for awhile, it might be because I’m writing somewhere else.