April

Heres the funny thing about poetry. I hated it in school avoided it like the plague and glowered at it from the other side of the room even while I took classes analysing poetry in college. Lost in the heavy words of the likes of Hughes and Heaney I was convinced I didnt understand poetry and would never come to appreciate it.

Its a strange thing. Sometimes the things that you never thought you would love come to find a way into your heart.

On Friday evening my sensitive lungs and I waded through the haze to attend BooksActuallys launch reading of Tania de Rozarios first poetry collection Tender Delirium. It was one of the bounty of poetry collections being launched that day. What a delight. BooksActually was keeping its doors open until the dawn as it marked a global 24 Hour Bookshop event sponsored by Red Bull which gives it something in common with Sebastian Vettel. When it gets this busy its narrow aisles develop clots and you have to fight your way through human thromboses just to get anywhere. A great deal of fun.

Ill be brief about the event itself. It was cohosted by Tania and her mentor Cyril Wong. The reading was lovely and tinged with humour throughout. Tania said there was not a single happy poem in the book and having read it its true but you wouldnt know it from the energy and joy that filled the room.

As a bonus the QA session turned into a lively discussion of the arts literature and censorship in Singapore particularly with respect to queer literature. Theres a lot of it published here but youll never see it get into the mainstream or discussed in schools.

I had a good time. Good conversations good books which Ive spent the past few days reading over and over. I picked up several other poetry books that day but Tanias really resonates with me with its tales of loss and longing. If you cant make it to the bookstore itself BooksActually has a BigCartel webstore And plenty of other lovely books on offer as well.

Right. Selected photos of the event under the cut featuring cats people and a Shameless Selfie.

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Two weekends ago I attended a novel writing masterclass organised by Writing The City a project of the British Council taught by Jean McNeil and Julia Bell. It was held at the Arts House one of my favourite places in Singapore and its the first time in a long while that Ive sat down and given my fiction writing 100 of my attention without drifting off to do other things.

Like the procrastinator I am its taken me more than a week to get around to writing this at which point Ive mostly forgotten what Ive wanted to say. Whoops. It was a fantastic three days I have to say. We went over concepts that should be familiar to anybody whos been writing for a stretch of time Character point of view time and narrative Yet as a developing writer you can never discuss and explore these topics enough. We had themed writing exercises every day and we got to share our work with each other. It was a small class about 1415 people so we all got several chances to read our own work. I even read them Google Car At The End Of The World. Although I didnt read them the title because spoilers. At the end of the class one of my classmates came up to me and said I liked your story about the car. I had to ask which one The tragedy of being me.

Quite honestly I think the most valuable lesson I learned from this is that I not as slow a writer as Ive feared myself to be. Under conditions of duress I am able to put my nose to the grind and churn out writing and not just that but writing which actually satisfies me.

Maybe just maybe I wont die a terrifying death by writers tardiness during the course of Clarion West.

Writing exercise I Observation

Heavywaisted and largebottomed she stood fixing her hair while her baby played at her feet with dusty hands and knees. Something about fleshing out character with minute details.

Writing Exercise II POV

The car had belonged to the old man. It was a Nissan Sunny bought back in a year when Nissan was content to be seen as that plain and reliable friend you had the one who could be relied on to get enough sleep and file all their taxes on time. Telling a story about a neighbours neighbour from two different POVs.

Writing Exercise III Time Narrative

She cant find a dry bench to sit on and she isnt wasting tissue to do the public service of wiping them dry so she squats on one of them to eat breakfast. Thinking of an event and writing about it from one set of time points beforeafter.

Writing Exercise IV Character Event Setting

Before her shift starts Mary goes to the washroom and washes her hands twice Once after she exits the cubicle and once after shes fixed her hair. Like a party game we got a random character event and a setting. I wrote a short piece set in a story world I am currently inhabiting.

Well. All in all I met great people was introduced to great ideas and wrung a few pieces of microfiction out of myself over the course of three days. Its not a bad way to spend a weekend.

Okay weve all seen that nifty thing where Lego sent free stuff to a kid or Samsung sent a man a free customised phone with a dinosaur on it.

I never thought something like that would happen to a friend of mine but it totally did. Call it SarahLuck.

See my friend Sarah Coldheart she has a cat named Dawn. Like all cats Dawn likes perching on things. Previously it used to be the cable box from Starhub one of the two cable providers in Singapore.

Then her familys contract expired and they recontracted with SingTel the other cable provider. Their settop box turned out to be a lot smaller. Which meant that the new cattocablebox ratio was shall we say less than ideal.

Sarah made a macro to illustrate this.

As with all things containing a cat it made the rounds of Twitter and SingTels social media folks. According to Sarah they then contacted her on Twitter to ask her address so that they could send her a surprise.

Fast forward to a few weeks later. Surprise arrives. Ill just let the pictures do the talking here.

Ive got to say I might complain about SingTels service or their customer service every now and then but they did good on this one. This is the kind of social engagement that gives the sort of publicity that you can never buy with ad money. Because it needs as much heart as it does head to come up with something like this.

After all theres a happy cat at the end of the affair. Whats not to like

Thanks to Sarah for allowing me to use her photos