ABBA - The Winner Takes It All

Messing around with youtube.com. Nice song.

My Tee Shirt and American Idol

No, my tee shirt has nothing to do with American Idol. I just wanted to talk about my tee shirt and American Idol today.

Yesterday I had to run some errands at a neighbourhood store and a bank. I was in a bit of a rush so I just grabbed a tee shirt to put on and left the house. I did not realise that I had put on my tee back to front. I only realised that after I came home. How embarrassing. I hope people thought I did it on purpose or better still they did not notice it at all. :-)

Yesterday and today, I watched American Idol - Season 6 and I had a good laugh at some of the contestants. Bad of me eh? Okay, okay, I wasn't laughing at them because they were bad but because they were funny. I was also laughing at the judges' expressions and comments. And I just love Simon Cowell. Should I feel better now? Hmm, :-) I can't wait to hear Memphis.

My Mother

I had been thinking about my mother the past week. It's sometimes like this when the 14th day of a month draws near. I miss her terribly.

I could see her face smiling up at me. I could see the courage in her eyes as she braved her illness. She seldom complained and when she did, the pain or discomfort she felt must have been unbearable because I knew she had a high tolerance for pain.

I read a friend's comment about comprehending the reason why ill fortune befalls us. Tears fell from my eyes as I could fully understand the question and the need for an answer. I had asked myself that question many times during my mother's illness and during the difficulties I had encountered in the course of taking care of her.

I had the answer once when I asked about a surgery she had to undergo. I was greatly dissatisfied with the answer I got.

Later, situation after situation made me asked the inevitable why again. I never did get any answer anymore. However, I do not mean to say that things were always bleak. There were happy times and times when sufferings breezed through for my mother because we carried them for her.

Yes, we can question why but we do not always get the answer. Even when we do, it may not be the answer that we want. We can only leave all the whys to hang on the wall for us to reflect on later in life.

Hopeful

I've finished my short story today but with only about 3,650 words. I'm short of my target of 4,000 words. I'm afraid I may have condensed too much.

Anyway, I hope to have time in the coming week to do some revision and editing before submitting the story. Hopefully, the editor has still not gotten enough submissions for the anthology yet and hopefully mine is suitable for inclusion.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Progress

Woohoo! I made it to 3200 words. Another 1000 plus words and I should be arriving at the end of the story.

On the downside, I think my progress is a bit slow. I wish I could write faster. I was unable to write the past few days because I was busy with some office matters.

I realise that when I have a stressful day in the office with all the legal jargons and stuff, I can't write fiction well when I come home. My writing would probably be filled with grammatical errors ("more than usual" would be a more appropriate expression, I suppose) and the writing done hesitantly, almost forcefully and would not create a satisfactory result.

I guess it's the right brain left brain thingy and I find it difficult to switch well when I am tired. Well, I haven't done any research on this to support what I said so this is just one of my babbles to be taken with a pinch of salt. Add pepper if you like.

Cheers.

Projects

This evening I spent a bit of time on my current short story and made it to about 2,100 words. I'm happy with the progress because I'm reaching the minimum word count of 3,000 words and I still have stuff going before the ending. However, I will have to stop writing for the night although the creative juice is flowing because I have to be my other self tomorrow and go to work like a good girl.

I have another project for tomorrow and it's not a pleasant one. I have to scape out a flattened very dead lizard from the edge of the cupboard door in my pantry. It's starting to smell already. Ewwwwww.

Lord of the Flies

I spent time reading on the web and visiting some friend's blogs so I did not have time to write much.

However, I want to make this post because the book "Lord of the Flies" was on my mind today after last night's post. I read it for literature class in school and remembered getting sick each time I read it. Sick is too kind a word to describe my nauseatic feeling.

The feeling is so strong that it put me off reading the book again even now when I am much older.

Horror and Sci-fi

I love good horror or sci-fi stories. When I was small, I loved to read Edgar Allan Poe. I also read a lot of Stephen King. And I just loved "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs which gave me the most chilling creeps.

I was so greatly influenced by these horror stories I read that I wrote a horror sci-fi for my school magazine when I was twelve. I was encouraged by my English Literature teacher who thought I was quite good in English and Literature, to submit a short story for the magazine.

However, my story must have creeped her out because she said nothing to me about it after my submitting the story to her. Needless to say, it was not published. After that, I thought she was embarrassed to look at me straight in the eyes and whenever she did, she always had that weird look in her eyes, a reflection of her thoughts about me, probably.

New Year Resolutions

I can think of only one, which is writing-related. Maybe, more will come to mind later and I'll add to the list.

Add:
2. I may try meter in poetry. (Cue for an emoticon with bulging eyes and stuck-out tongue)

1. To spend more time on my writing, whether poetry or shorts. However, I may be concentrating on writing short fictions the early part of the year as I'm targeting to do some submissions to a local publisher and I'm behind schedule on my short stories for children, which I am supposed to submit to an editor. (Local poetry won't sell well here, children's fiction do.)

The short story I posted on my other blog was actually rejected by this editor who instead took another one which I felt was more ordinary. Well, I guess they know best what sells.

I write under a different name locally. I don't know why. However, this may change later when I am able to identify myself better.