Size Seven Shoes

Starting things is easy. Finishing them... well, that's another story.  I am so tempted to abandon my novel right now. I've been plodding along at it for more than a year now, and it's disheartening how slow progress is sometimes or how bleak it is in reality that my story will ever find a decent home for itself someday. Even the email that I sent out to an acquisition editor who was previously keen on my manuscript has gone without a reply for some time now and it makes me wonder if anyone is truly keen on my novel after all.  On other matters, the year has set itself in motion by now and a somewhat new routine has been slowly emerging. It's a little hindered right now though as both my kids have fallen ill and therefore, school attendance will be temporarily put on halt as they recover. Influenza B, it seems. Rather unexpected, but I guess this is bound to happen at some point to us.  I guess I'm just glad that I seemed to have gotten away without having contracte...

 Heya! It's the New Year!  I want to say that I'd like to write more this year. Write more of my own stuff, and not just the things I have to write for work and other such related obligations. But I hesitate to say it is so because almost always when I do, it doesn't happen.  So maybe I shouldn't say anything and just write. And let things take place more organically.  Oh, I don't really know. Gahh.  In any case, I would really like to have a nicer home for my blog. I'm contemplating recreating a Wix site and dumping EVERYTHING there. Photos, portfolio, blog posts, author material, etc.  But well, we shall see.  And I'm still plodding on in my novel. Though I've delayed a good few months sending it off to the acquisitions editor whom I was communicating with during the last quarter of last year.  YES, that did happen. Indeed. I still can't believe it. But, oh, will I be too late? Aargh.  Okay, gotta go for now. I shall return soon, I promise....

Oh, hello there.  It's another late night episode, and it's just you and me once more.  Well, it's been quite awhile since I've blogged so I guess it's about time I got back into it. And it's nice that you're here to keep me company.  I've just emerged from completing a copyedit job, and I've been living so much in a world created by someone else that it's so hard delving back into the real world AND even more so, the universe I had created myself (and need to return to), both of which seem like they're always threatening to fall apart at the seams at some unsuspecting moment.  I'm literally balancing a book on my lap as I type this. It's a book published by Harper & Collins, and it's by another pretty established Malaysian author. One who seems to have recently gained some degree of attention overseas, and I'm glad for her, of course... Just that I don't know why, it makes me feel lousy because of all the things I sho...

'Twas my father's birthday yesterday. He turned 76. I often think about how many more years I'll have with my parents nowadays. Especially in this present season where it seems like Death is on a roll lately.  I fear sudden endings that I am not prepared for.  It's always extremely easy to fall into the trap of taking things for granted when everything is within reach and just right in front of you. Like I can call or message or pop by to see my Pa or Mum anytime. And so I worry that I'll not take the notion of limited time seriously enough.  But so far, I think I can say that I don't really have that much regrets.  I mean, I chose to stay in the same city and in a location close to my parents all this while. And we do meet fairly regularly. So there's that at least.  Meanwhile, it made me a little sad yesterday when Pa told me that not many people had remembered his birthday at church. I'm usually not one to remember other people's birthdays and to ...

I'm not really sure where to begin, but basically, I just want to say that I attempted a novel these few months and that I finally entered it into a contest. There's more to be told about that particular manuscript than what I'm letting on right now, but let's just leave it at that for now.  I'm mostly here just to say that I feel like I'm still recovering from the entire exercise of writing the thing. I ought to term it my 4am Novel because that was what it was in reality. Most of it was crafted at that very hour each night, and in little spare moments I somehow managed to squirrel away throughout the day, any chance I got.  It's so HARD writing much of anything at this phase of life as a mother and wife. In fact, it's amazing that I can even keep a semblance of a freelance career afloat at all. So you just imagine... with creative writing projects like the one I just mentioned sitting at the tail end of this long list of priorities, there's hardly ...