Dysquyaatent - Disquiet Thoughts on Prose, Poetry

My Humor Piece was Rejected by McSweeney's. Again.

2008-12-30T02:16:00.000+08:00

This is the THIRD time my humor piece was rejected by McSweeney's Internet Tendency. And this time, they did not even telling me what went wrong with my piece. Was it too offensive? Was it poorly written? Was there a lack of form? Nothing. And to top it off, Christopher Monk, the editor of McSweeney's paid me a token compliment saying that he might regret it someday. Yeah right.

I suppose I am NEVER going to published on McSweeney's.

But you know what they say. Getting turned down is pretty much a like a day's work in the life of the Writer. I took comfort in reading the Writer's Almanac for today, the day where McSweeney's rejected my humor piece is also the SAME day James Joyce got his autobiographical essay rejected from a publisher in 1961. The autobiographical essay later became one of the most established works of the English Literary Canon, The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. I know I am trying to gain some vicarious comfort from the Writers' Almanac, but it really, really sucks to get rejected THREE times by the same publishing house in a single year.

In any case, I have the FULL piece attached on this entry below. If you think it sucks, PLEASE tell me. I need to hear it. Your harsh comments will let me see the error of my ways and perhaps get a fresh shot at McSweeney's.

Why You* Should Get An M.M.A (Masters of Marginalized-Minority Arts) in Creative Writing

Disclaimer:'YOU' here refers to a highly selective group of 'YOU's.

So you have just obtained your first college degree. And despite the good advice from all the good people in your life, including your gay lover, doting parents, aging teachers, sacerdotal pastor and even the omnipotent God himself, you chose to get your B.A. in English. Naturally, you have no idea what is next for you or what you are even good for. But who can blame you? Spending four years to learn how to read books is not the kind of thing Burger King is looking out for to operate one of its industrial cookers. You would incidentally have better luck in getting a B.A. in Lard.

If only you knew what you now know, which of course violates your notion of common sense but sits comfortably with the Uncertainty Principle, where ∆x∆y ≥ h/2π; do you not wish you have majored in Physics now? Still, recognition of a mistake is half the battle won. The right course of action now is to consider advancing yourself by taking up a Graduate degree, and not just any graduate degree, but a degree that is specialized, in high demand and would not make your four years spent on English look like a complete waste of the country's resources.

While writing critical papers is a rigorous and torturous routine, it is one that has no market value, not to mention incomprehensible to a good ninety-percent of the country's population. Most people would therefore be in agreement that profitable writing of any kind must be able to strike a cord with the reading masses. When you are able to get people to relate to your writing, it becomes marketable, and marketability then translates into financial independence, a notion an English major might be sorely unfamiliar with, but is never too late to want to pick up. That being said, the business of writing books for the reading public is a tough business. The publishing world is getting increasingly crowded with real writers and writers really good at pretending to be real writers. In America alone, more than 275,000 new titles published in a single year. How do you know for sure that if you become an author yourself, you stand to have a chance to get published? While there is always room for yet another teen pop-fiction about how disgustingly privileged and well-endowed girls with infinitesimally low self-esteem, finding themselves cryptically in love with vampires, werewolves and llamas, you know as an English major you cannot be writing books of this genre as years spent reading classics have deprived you of any fundamental human experience and girls. So clearly, you need another direction and another goal.

A recent demographic survey from a highly reliable source revealed that minority writing is the new Fantasy. Centuries of wisdom and the latest revelation that of the presence of a minority population in America sparked off unprecedented interest in this highly invisible and preferably ignored group of people who claimed to have their own unique experience of the American Dream, or at least what is left of the Dream after the Federal Bailout of 2008. With these exciting advances in the area of marginalized minority, a Masters of Marginalized-Minority Arts in Creative Writing will put you at the forefront of new and socially relevant disciple that will give you the necessary life experience of a truly disadvantaged minority to produce influential works that will forever alter the way people view minorities.

Housed in the newly refurbished Frank Chin Institute of Marginalized-Minority, the program is intensive and extensive. Students of the MMA will spend two years specializing in the art of writing revolutionary novels and self-help books that will bring to light potentially heart-breaking issues faced by the marginalized minorities like seeing decreasingly less of themselves and increasingly more of others. Students will also get to go on immersion programs that include a home-stay period with actual marginalized minorities. The holder of the MMA is an empowered individual equipped with the relevant skills and knowledge to thrust pertinent minority issues into the unsuspecting faces of the majority. While no one will actually do anything to alleviate the problems of the marginalized minority, everyone adores reading about them and indulge in communal commiseration – think of the immeasurable good you will soon be doing.

Classes are highly selective and small, very much like how minorities are a minority in the country. Admission to the faculty is dependent on several criteria. Some of which are listed below,

i) Must be minority. Qualifications for being a minority need not necessarily be statistical, but is fairly well-indicated by yellow, brown and copper skin. White applicants need not apply.

ii) Must complete GRE. An unfortunately nonnegotiable university policy.

iii) TOEFL is optional. Inability to write or speak English well enhances the marginalized minority experience and is a much-prized trait.

iv) A statement on your minority experience. Written statements on how you are stereotyped in films or at fast food restaurants are stringently encouraged.

While the faculty welcomes illegal immigrant minorities to apply, the faculty is not responsible for any deportment that may result. The faculty in fact encourages deportment. Deportment is a fundamental experience of a minority that is not well explored or developed. Applicants who are successfully deported stand at an enormous advantage of producing works of a truly marginalized nature. Deported applicants can still complete their MMA by completing their required courses online.

Successful applicants will be notified by mail, and upon receiving their acceptance letter they are required to show up in their ethnic minority costumes for their admission interview. T-Shirt and jeans are emblematic of the mainstream majority and should be avoided at any cost by a potential holder of the MMA who celebrates the importance of marginalization.

As a minor faculty holding classes for minorities, absolutely no funding and scholarship will be offered to all successful applicants.

The Faculty of Marginalized-Minority Arts in Creative Writing looks forward to receiving you.

Director

Alènn Sjørn Yang Bârrala-Cruz

A Swedish Christmas Dinner 2008

2008-12-25T19:09:00.001+08:00

Su and Christian were gracious to invite us (Alwyn and I) over to their Condominium located at Tanjong Rhu for a special Swedish Christmas Dinner. In all honesty. I have no idea what a Swedish Christmas dinner is going to be of any difference to that a typical Christmas dinner. I just have had a gut feeling that Turkey won't be on the menu.

When I reached Aljunied MRT station, it was unfortunately pouring. While I was upset by the prospect of arriving at the dinner drenched, I sought comfort that it was at least cool. In America or Europe and Sweden for that matter, snow usually follows rain. But in Singapore, rain is as much as you get. And one would think that Singaporeans would have gotten the hang of it by now...

I recognized Cedric, Alwyn's friend from France who was invited to dinner since Sharmini could not make it. Her loss... Alwyn was really thoughtful to have Cedric over at Su and Christian's for dinner. I mean Cedric is like pretty much alone in Singapore and not to mention that this would be his FIRST Christmas spent out of Paris. He told me that he actually forgot that it was Christmas already. When he was in Paris, all the "signs" of Christmas would be present - the rapid drop in temperature, the snow, the decorations about his home and how Paris would be transformed. In Singapore, he saw none of those. He couldn't tell Christmas Eve in Singapore apart from any other day in Singapore. I thought that was a pretty interesting comment. I apologize for the apparent cultural sterility of Singapore, and I have to agree with Cedric on this part. No matter how hard the Singapore Tourism tried to convince the world otherwise, "Christmas in the Tropics" is as bad an idea as any other. NO ONE spends Christmas in the Tropics...

Alwyn finally arrived and I made a terrible mistake by leading us to the bus stop across the overhead bridge when we should have taken the bus service that was located right in front of the station. My mistake cost us a full half an hour. Thankfully though, like most European dinners, the dinner did not start on time. The other couple who was invited to dinner were even later than us. In any case, dinner wasn't quite ready and we were served Stollen and ginger bread. I realized there isn't a Christmas tree in the house and I presumed that the Swedish has chosen not to partake in the Saturnalian ritual.

The other couple, also known as Jason and Su Lin arrived about 15 minutes after we did and like us, they came armed with Wine. Christian told us that wine was unnecessary as he has prepared some truly potent Swedish shots known as Schnapps that will literally decimate any remnant of sobriety left in our heads. I knew I was not going anywhere till I am drunk. Not a bad thing.

We began the dinner with a Swedish celebratory drink known as Glögg - a mixture of Glögg and Vodka boiled together and mixed with Almond and raisins when served.

Swedish Christmas Dinner comprises mainly of fish, as in the case of most Scandanavian countries, fish is a staple. There were Salmon, Herring, fish roe and of course, Swedish Meatballs. When I asked Su where she managed to get all the Swedish condiments from she replied "Ikea". Of course, how could I forget that Ikea is a all-Swedish Corporation. The dinner was great particularly the Herring, thinly sliced and preserved in ginger and herbs. As we worked through dinner, we engaged, liberally, the assistance of alcohol. First we had red wine, followed by a round of Schnapps. There are total of 12 tiny bottles, each bottle enough to fill a shot glass and it must be drank in single toss. I was told by Christian that each of the 12 bottles in a pack contains different composition that are made up of different herbs and ingredients. Some were great tasting but some were completely revolting. Bäska was one of the worst tasting Schnapps and it must be drunk by any Swedish male who have reached 23 years of age. The consumption of Bäska is like a rite of passage to Adulthood. I later learnt the secret behind Bäska's revolting taste. It was Wormwood. The same plant used to make Absinthe, the world's most potent alcoholic drink, containing over 70% alcohol. Absinthe was declared a poison a few decades back, but careful distillation and an increasing desire for the modern generation to get 'high' brought Absinthe back. Christian was generous to give me a bottle of Bäska to keep.

Post-dinner conversation consist of all the amazing things that we have done in the past year. Su and I were the only ones at the table who are in the Creative Arts. And she added that she has no regrets being in the Creative Art Major. Unlike her, I did wish I majored something scientific or at least management. I guess, I wouldn't feel that bad if I have had something published this year. But it was not to be despite my best efforts to get published this year. Maybe next year's Christmas would turn out better. But the highlight of the night was sharing the places that we have been to and the people we have met.

The World is huge. And living in a tiny, tiny island like Singapore does nothing but enhances the myopic world view of Singaporeans. And I feel blessed, like totally blessed to have friends who have an expansive world view who understands that there are always multiplicitous forces working in sync or out of sync with each other.

Christmas is always a time for us to reflect. There is so much in the world, so much knowledge and so much to be done. So many people we have met around the world and so many people we have yet to meet. Singapore is a crossroad, we have the opportunity to gain access to so much knowledge and experience. It is such a pity if we choose to live within its mere confines.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Writers' Block and Block out the Writers!

2008-12-21T22:35:00.002+08:00

The New York Times on "Californication"

It’s the material that weighs Mr. Duchovny down as a New York novelist who feels alienated and adrift in a shallow, artificial Los Angeles — already a shopworn conceit when F. Scott Fitzgerald was living it in the 1930s. “Californication” does nothing to vary or improve on it.
It’s odd how some clichés never quite lose their hold. The blocked writer — an artist who is tragically unable to fulfill his greatness — is perhaps one of the most tiresome archetypes in modern popular culture, yet real writers keep reviving it. Here, it’s Mr. Duchovny’s character, Hank Moody. Possibly it’s the kind of wishful thinking encouraged by self-help books like “The Secret”: If enough writers create fictional blocked, middle-aged protagonists who are irresistible to beautiful women, then in real life beautiful women will find the real thing just as alluring.

The New York Times on "October Road",

Should you already hold the view that young writers are hideously self-regarding, pillaging the intimate emotional property of their closest friends and relations, then “October Road,” a drama beginning on ABC this evening, will do nothing to change your mind even though it seems intent on trying.

___________________________________________

A while back I have written a post about writers and how hard it evidently is to break into the publishing industry. In the past two years, two notable TV series (among many others) have chosen to focus on the lives of prolific writers. I will get to the actual commentary on the TV shows in a second, but for now, the TV series attempt to answer the question of "what next" after you become something of a force in the publishing world.

For most writers despite their massive imaginative capacities can hardly imagine what is like when they become a successful and financially independent writer. Becoming a RICH writer is a DREAM for many and it is one that is terribly, terribly hard to achieve. People tend to forget that people write primarily to want to express themselves, to create a viable outlet for themselves to channel their deepest and most undistilled feelings, thoughts and belief onto paper and share them with people who are like minded, but without the same capacity for words and expression. Strangely enough, novels that REALLY sell are novels that bear little or no semblance to real life. "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" are two fine examples proving that people don't really want to read about themselves - they want to read about others and FIND themselves written into the plot obviously about someone other than themselves.

People do not always relate to characters portrayed. They relate better to the circumstance that is described. That being said, the two shows "Californication" and "October Road" seem to me to be part of the wish fulfillment of the writers of the shows. They paint the most desirous pictures of writers to hopefully inspire writers, and also to inspire themselves, that they have always made the right choice to become writers.

No doubt, some of the lines in the two shows are beautiful, showing the writers of the shows at the top of their craft. It is the premise of both shows that is a bit of a let down. "October Road" is canceled while the fate of "Californication" is left unknown though the reviews for the show hasn't been great. So what's wrong? Is there nothing else magical about being a writer any more? The fact of the matter is that there is very little magic about writers in the first place. And I think the formula of portraying writers in a constant struggle is a far more convincing picture than a writer tortured by the glitz and glamor of his life. But the tortured writer is a trope - something this way overused and over-milked. I can see where the writers for the show are attempting to take a new direction towards, but unfortunately, self-indulgence does demand a pretty hefty price.

But I still watch them. Like the indulgent writers, I look forward to the day where I release a phenomenal best seller and step officially into the blinding lights of fame and the rich oily taste of glamor that comes with it.

"Bail Out the Writers" A Commentary on Paul Greenberg's Article

2008-12-17T23:50:00.004+08:00

Just when you thought WRITING was safe from the economic crisis, think again. The fact of the matter, WRITING as an endeavor is never safe at all. I think it is time to make it clear that it is highly unlikely that one would be the next millionaire based on writing alone.

And we are not just talking about writing novels or poetry. Remember the Writer's Strike in late 2007? Clearly, writers everywhere are not paid enough. And writers of novels are by far the worse paid.

No, it is not the publishers' fault - in fact they are doing writers the BIGGEST favor in the world by agreeing to publish our work. Thankfully the literary situation in Singapore is not as intense as the situation in America. The American publishing industry releases up to 275,000 new titles in a year. In Singapore, we'd be lucky to hit 30. Usually, no more than 10 new titles join the Singaporean literary canon and more than half of them are poetry - the most respectable art form, but the least marketable. I am not trying to be provocative, I have only the highest respect for poetry, having written a couple of poems myself and having published poets as best friends; respect however, does not translate to profitability. Prose remains as one of the top commanding medium of the industry, just trailing behind Comic Books and Graphic Novels.

Paul Greenberg correctly points out some of the problems surrounding the problem with writing in the modern age. Not are we only losing readers, we are gaining writers who have no interest in reading works of others, violating the golden rule that writers are also readers. Greenberg's point is that we now have an emerging class of writers who hardly reads but writes voraciously hoping to gain a slice of the "glamorous" life of a writer. Whatever is left of the glamor seems to washed out 30 years ago. Greenberg exercises the basic principle of economics, whenever there is a surplus of anything, the market price of that thing falls in value. Now there is a surplus of writers, in the world, and he begs for a bailout to BUY OUT at least half of the writers (meaning, paying them and asking them to stop writing, hence reducing the amount of surplus writing in the market) and save the rest of the (presumably) serious writers from the inability to write at their full potential.

I see Greenberg's point, but I don't think the number of writers in this world will decrease. Venues and medium for expression has increased exponentially over the years. Opportunities to be educated in writing has seen also a mark increase. More people are choosing to learn HOW TO WRITE great literature as opposed to learning HOW TO CRITICIZE great works of literature - although the latter art of criticism is considered by far the most rigorous of literary arts, but now, who gives a rat's ass? English Departments all over the US and the world are opening classes of writing when they should be opening newer classes to re-examine socially relevant works of literature. English has experienced a paradigm shift and most traditional structures of the literary world is not ready for this shift - which results in the current crisis of writers.

Writers, I am going to insist vehemently, must first be readers. This is one rule that should never change. Think you can write? Make sure you can READ well first.

Read Paul Greenberg's (hilarious) article below:

A little while back my daughter told me the following depressing joke:

Woman: What do you do?

Man: Me? Oh, I write books.

Woman: How interesting! Have you sold anything recently?

Man: Why, yes. My couch, my car and my flat-screen television.

A snarkier writer-father might have added, “and I sold those things to pay for your private school tuition!” But instead it got me thinking that there was a real problem here. Not just a small problem involving issues of respect between one writer and one teenager, but rather a national problem of respect where being a writer has become so widely associated with being a loser that we have become the stuff of common jokes.

My friends (as the nation’s most famous loser, John McCain, likes to begin his appeals), in these times of plummeting consumer confidence and evaporating labor markets, it is time to address the problem head on. We must now go boldly forward and bail out the writers.

What would such a bailout consist of? In the 1930s, Franklin Delano Roosevelt started the Federal Writers’ Project, under which some 6,000 out-of-work writers were hired over a period of several years to write guidebooks, oral histories, ethnographies and the like, and in the process “describe America to Americans.” The program not only kept American writers alive but seems to have helped them multiply, to the point where there are now, according to a survey released last summer by the National Endowment for the Arts, approximately 185,000 people in the United States who support themselves primarily as writers of books, plays, poetry, speeches and other literary matter. Thanks to this group, America has been described and redescribed so many times that I fear a kind of word-based Strategic Defense Initiative is taking shape above us, shielding us from harsher but more realistic foreign words and creating resentment among our allies.

I am not suggesting that a Rooseveltian approach to the writing crisis is inappropriate. Rather, we should look elsewhere in Roosevelt’s legacy for a modern solution. A good place to start would be the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. This entity recognized that an overcapacity of farms and farm produce was driving down crop prices, and that elimination of that over capacity was needed.

Overcapacity has been something generally acknowledged across the writing industry for at least 10 years. In a 2002 essay in The New York Times, the onetime best-selling novelist and story writer Ann Beattie mourned the situation of the modern writer, living in a world where people are more interested in “being a writer” than in writing itself. “There are too many of us, and M.F.A. programs graduate more every year, causing publishers to suffer snow-blindness, which has resulted in everyone getting lost,” she lamented. That Ann Beattie must now compete on Amazon with a self-published author named Ann Rothrock Beattie is proof of how enormous the blizzard has become.

So how would my big St. Bernard of a bailout dig the publishers out of their drifts? According to the industry tracker Bowker, about 275,000 new titles and editions are published in the United States each year. Let’s say we want to eliminate half of them. Assuming it takes about two years to write your average book, we would offer book writers two years of salary at the writers’ average annual income of $38,000 a year. Add it all up and you get a paltry $10.5 billion to dramatically reduce the book overcapacity.

Unfortunately, not all writers would settle for a couple of years’ salary to get out of the writing game. No sooner had I proposed this essay to the Book Review than I found a New Yorker humor piece by Andy Borowitz called “Too Big to Fail.”; In it, Borowitz outlines a similar bailout (albeit a personal one for him alone), but our ideas were close enough to make me fear that maybe I was part of the overcapacity. Unless, of course, I could buy out Borowitz.

I quickly e-mailed him and asked what it would take for him to get out of my way. “I would like $400,000,” Borowitz replied. “That would give me enough money to throw myself an A.I.G.-style party to celebrate.”

O.K., let’s take Borowitz at his word, since $400,000, according to the National Endowment for the Arts, is about what an average writer earns in a decade — more than enough time to find a better job. If we multiply $400,000 times 92,500 — half of the 185,000 Americans the N.E.A. identifies as “authors and writers” — we get a total bailout cost of $37 billion. That’s about half of what the government paid for the first installment of the A.I.G. rescue. Should you still find that number too big to swallow, let me ask point blank: Whom would you rather bail out, a writer or an insurance executive?

Of course, putting this kind of money on the table would require the strictest of oversight, and for this we could make use of a structure already in place — i.e., the long-suffering spouses and domestic partners of writers. Under the terms of the bailout, these emotional custodians would be transformed into fiscal custodians and would release funds only when a full cessation of writing activities occurred. There might be a transitional period in which a quick “think piece” or travel junket would be allowed, but all major “projects” would be stopped cold. Custodians would have to bear the burden of a certain amount of re- education during the transition period. A bailed-out writer would no doubt for many months continue to begin conversations with phrases like “I just had a great idea for a n—.” A custodian would intervene here and offer to end the sentence more constructively with something like “— new kind of delicious muffin?”

The only problem with my bailout package is the same problem we’ve already seen with the financial sector: just because you bail out a sector doesn’t mean the sector will behave itself (cf that $400,000 A.I.G. corporate retreat). Not long ago, inspired by the N.E.A., I distributed my own unscientific survey to the several hundred authors who share the “workspace for writers” I inhabit weekday mornings. Of those who replied, around 60 percent had spent more than $10,000 on their writing education, while a similar number were earning less than $20,000 a year from writing. But when asked what they would do “if given a subsidy with no strings attached that would support you at a comfortable income level for the rest of your life,” 96 percent said they would write as much as or more than they do now.

The economy slips deeper and deeper into its trench, and yet the workspace for writers seems to get more crowded by the day as refugees from other professions take cover behind what they hope will be the respectability of the writing life. The other day, as I looked down on the field of cubicles from the “resting area” on the balcony, I felt an urge to read aloud from a Graham Greene story I had disregarded in my 20s: “Are you prepared for the years of effort, ‘the long defeat of doing nothing well’? As the years pass writing will not become any easier, the daily effort will grow harder to endure, those ‘powers of observation’ will become enfeebled; you will be judged, when you reach your 40s, by performance and not by promise.” Harsh stuff. But don’t take Greene’s word for it, or mine. I’m a writer. Maybe I’m just trying to clear a little more room for myself at the workspace.

First Two Chapters of my Novella, 74% Jaundice

2008-12-14T22:08:00.002+08:00

In 2007, I started out writing a novella entitled 74% Jaundice which was meant to be a scathing story told from the perspective of a cynical Chinese-Singaporean on the 74% Chinese population in Singapore. It started out well, but I kinda lost focus along the way - and I am still trying to find it back and complete the novella.

It would be great if anyone out there can provide some radical suggestions;

74% JAUNDICE

1

I am telling you a story. That’s right. I am the one telling it and you, you are the listener. Your role is to listen to the story I am about to tell you. Why must you be the listener? ‘Cause I am the one telling it. If you don't wish to listen, you can go off and tell your own story – but do that after listening to this one. It’s good. Can’t you tell already?

Everyone has a story to tell; just that not everyone can write one. Unlike me of course – I have a story to tell. I’m writing it and you are in the process of receiving it. It’s like receiving a long text message that you need to receive, open read several times before you know the real content of the message. But this isn't a message, it's a story. Who are you trying to confuse? Perhaps, the story and the message are confused already. You’d realize that I italicized the ‘r’ word. Yes, it is ‘are’, but it is too long for me to type so I am representing the word phonically. Look it up if you don’t get the meaning of the word. Only joking. What I meant to say was I am emphasizing the word like I would if I were talking to you. Just like what I am doing now. But it isn’t ‘talk’ talk, if you understand where I am coming from. You won’t. But you can try. That’s what Wittgenstein said. I am parodying him. He likes it. I am sure. Just that he is already dead.

But then again, maybe I am asking for too much. There are so many things we can’t tell; we cannot tell anything we don’t know anything about. And there are too much we don’t really know. Unknowingness is a condition we are born with. What we can do is to pretend that we know. It is hard to tell if one is pretending or not. We have developed some pretty sophisticated ways to mask what we know and do not know. We unknowingly mask what we don’t know with masked knowingness. It is a condition, not a choice.

So, I am gonna do you solid by revealing my intentions to you. No curved balls. Then again, even with the absence of curved balls there will be things here that’ll still hit you in the face, but it probably won’t hurt as much. So take comfort in that. When was the last time you were truly comfortable? It’s a rhetorical question, meaning, I don’t really want to know. So keep it to yourself. You’re the listener, remember? But back to the question: WHY. Why am I doing that? Why am I selling myself out to you like that? We deserve the truth once in a while. We should be allowed into things that really matter to us all – like the precious time taken to read this novel when you can be doing something else (what?). Reading, is dangerous. You should be working. Reading is not working. Working is staring into a computer screen and having fingers scrambling about the keyboard. I’m having you on. That isn’t work. That’s the idea the popularized concept of what work is like. I am italicizing again, so don’t worry, there isn’t a print error. Engineering is a popularized concept. Everyone’s engineer is one who is wearing a stylishly white construction helmet and is always pointing at something and directing something. It looked so pretty till you have to dress up in overalls and come up with quick and dirty solutions to everything you do. Nothing wrong with quick and dirty solutions. It is what helps us survive. Survival is another thing we are good at. Everyday, we survive. Survival is fun. I like doing it. We should send it out in a text message en masse: Have a Good Survival. We are gonna feel so uplifted.

2

I realized I have just vulgarized everything.

It's been one chapter and I have yet to properly introduce myself. Honestly, talking about oneself is the hardest thing to do – ‘cause we are revealing the TRUTH about oneself. See how big the word ‘truth’ is in the sentence. It’s intentional. See, no curved balls. I suppose I could introduce myself the way Holden Caulfield does it in Catcher in the Rye. But that would have been trite. That book’s fifty-six years old for god’s sake. All that unreliable narrator crap is getting old – literally and figuratively. Who on earth is reliable anyway? Go ask you Dad something and chances are whatever comes out of his mouth as is unreliable as it gets. Who can blame him? Why blame anyone?

Yet, let’s do this so we can move on to the next chapter. You like that don’t you? If not, you can always read the first paragraph again. No one’s watching and there’s no one to judge you. So, let’s do this: I live on the island of Singapore. More often than not it is a ride of bore. It’s a great place to work, though we don't know what for. I guess for now, all you need to know is that I live in Singapore. Because this isn’t a tourist brochure nor is it a novel about Singapore. I am not going to include the sordidly trite details like how clean we are (we shower six times a day), how we ban chewing gum (still do baby), how we have a one party governmental system (how can you not love monogamy?) or how much great food we have here (every Japanese tourist who’s been to Singapore loves our popiah). There is however a moral obligation of sorts to say something about Singapore – yep, it’s a national duty, yes sire.

Research and the Short Stpry

2008-12-02T02:14:00.000+08:00

Here is an short statement by Abby Gen, whose story "Captivity" was just published. The bottom line is that no short story or any piece of writing can sustain itself without substantial amount of research. Like, her I PREFER to write what I learnt rather than what I know.

The Gift of Research

I began "Captivity" six years ago, on a snowy day. After finding refuge from the cold in the public library, I wandered between the rows of books, and after a while I found myself thumbing through Jacques Cousteau's Octopus and Squid: the Soft Intelligence, a funny little treatise on his love for creatures with tentacles. I did not realize I was brainstorming a new story until I went home and wrote five pages about an octopus specialist. My best stories come out of research like this. I tend to find my characters through their passions.

As a writer, I am always researching. When I am lost without a new idea, or else stuck in the middle of an unfinished piece that began well but has since died on the page, I do research. It is the other that fascinates me. My characters have interests far beyond my own experience. They were raised on continents I have never visited and subscribe to religions I know little about. As people, they are generally unlike me; I tend to write from the point of view of a blind gardener in his sixties, a teenage runaway, or the adopted parent of an autistic child. All of this requires still more research.

In the end, of course, it is my own story I tell, as all writers do. I discover mine by traveling away from myself. In reaching for the unknown—in that middle realm, somewhere between what I understand and what I have never before imagined—I feel the spark of inspiration begin to glow.

For my stories, I have studied ostrich farms, the stages of pregnancy, the lives of missionaries, schizophrenia, the history of the city of Karachi, the various types of drowning, and slugs. I have read about the Kel Tagelmust—"the people of the veil"—and the battles fought by Shalmaneser III in Syria and Palestine. I ransack libraries for information on sharks. I buy books about hieroglyphics, earthquakes, and Indian cooking. I interview aquarists. I interview twins. I stay up late on YouTube to find videos of the Nigerian delta. This research may or may not make it into the finished draft. It is the searching that matters. Through the analysis of tarantulas and giraffes, ballet and gardening, my stories are born. Some people say that you should write what you know, but I am driven to write what I learn.

The Gift of Research

I began "Captivity" six years ago, on a snowy day. After finding refuge from the cold in the public library, I wandered between the rows of books, and after a while I found myself thumbing through Jacques Cousteau's Octopus and Squid: the Soft Intelligence, a funny little treatise on his love for creatures with tentacles. I did not realize I was brainstorming a new story until I went home and wrote five pages about an octopus specialist. My best stories come out of research like this. I tend to find my characters through their passions.

As a writer, I am always researching. When I am lost without a new idea, or else stuck in the middle of an unfinished piece that began well but has since died on the page, I do research. It is the other that fascinates me. My characters have interests far beyond my own experience. They were raised on continents I have never visited and subscribe to religions I know little about. As people, they are generally unlike me; I tend to write from the point of view of a blind gardener in his sixties, a teenage runaway, or the adopted parent of an autistic child. All of this requires still more research.

In the end, of course, it is my own story I tell, as all writers do. I discover mine by traveling away from myself. In reaching for the unknown—in that middle realm, somewhere between what I understand and what I have never before imagined—I feel the spark of inspiration begin to glow.

For my stories, I have studied ostrich farms, the stages of pregnancy, the lives of missionaries, schizophrenia, the history of the city of Karachi, the various types of drowning, and slugs. I have read about the Kel Tagelmust—"the people of the veil"—and the battles fought by Shalmaneser III in Syria and Palestine. I ransack libraries for information on sharks. I buy books about hieroglyphics, earthquakes, and Indian cooking. I interview aquarists. I interview twins. I stay up late on YouTube to find videos of the Nigerian delta. This research may or may not make it into the finished draft. It is the searching that matters. Through the analysis of tarantulas and giraffes, ballet and gardening, my stories are born. Some people say that you should write what you know, but I am driven to write what I learn.

Abby Geni is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a recipient of the Iowa Fellowship. She lives in Washington, D.C., where she is gathering together a collection of short stories. "Captivity" is her first published story.

New Story: Writings on the Wall (EXCLUSIVE)

2008-12-01T21:44:00.000+08:00

Writings on the Wall

The sign on the door tells her that she shouldn’t enter. She gazed, at the sign, from a distance. She looked around. No question about that, people were all around, watching.

Still, still she must.

She knows she couldn’t walk past the door her herself. Carefully scrolling down the list of options in her head, she felt that it was best that she left it to someone else she trusts. Or so she hopes.

She flipped her cell phone open, found that someone and made the call.

She met him; the person she trusted, at the mall. It was funny seeing him just as it was funny seeing her out of context. Context doesn’t quite matter now, she assures him. Somehow, she feels that he didn’t quite register whatever she said. She notices the quivering on his lips and how his eyes moved this way and that in trying to understand what he sees before him which was so different from what he always knew. On the good days, this was golden, but not today.

‘Starbucks dearie?’

He nodded. She laughed a little. Seeing him act like this makes her heart melt – completely reminiscent of the first time she met him. She met him, and then she chose him, and then they shared over hours of startling passion that often left rude marks on the skin. He had done a damn good job of covering it up. She sat him down at the Starbucks and told him about the door and the sign, especially the sign that’s keeping her out. He hears her out intently and then slowly explains to her how willing he is to help her but feels that she won’t be getting what she wants any time soon.

She pondered about the logic of his words and as with most logic, from the Latin word logica, the art of reasoning goes, it makes perfect sense. But the beauty of the world is that for most of the time it runs on the fuel of illogical impulses, and she’s betting her money on it. Do it. She tells him. Surprised at the unexpected change of tone of her own voice. Old habits. He nodded. Silent and unquestioning. She puts her hand on his. This may turn out better – for both of them. Quivering lips spread into a weak smile. That was enough for her.

‘So, 7pm tomorrow night?’

He nodded once more.

He called her two days later. And told her the result. The first reaction was of anger before she saw it as an opportunity of different kind. He asked if he should scratch out what he had done. She told him not to. She would do it herself.

‘But the sign…’ He started.
‘I’d risk it,’ she replied calmly, ‘I just need to see it for myself.’

It was 10pm at the same mall she was at two days before. She didn’t know if this would work, but she knew this was something important for her to risk it out. She dressed her best, putting up, as convincingly as she can, a façade of respectability. She lurked around for a while making sure no one was around to walk in on her. She stared at the sign again. It was still there. 10:16. The lights were starting to dim, the mall was closing for the day. This was her chance.

She took a fast walk, increased it into a clumsy run and passed the sign.

She was in.

It was vacant.

She knows it won’t be for long. She headed to the cubicle marked for her. She went in and closed the door.

She made it. But her time was limited. Every second she was occupying space that was forbidden to her sex.

She took a look at the wall, the notice written just the way she wanted it:

Bunny Galanazon 6’3 Dominatrix, 919.266.7784

The reply:

Your mum slept with 3 dogs and I don’t know who fathered you!

She must admit that it was a good reply. It was definitely offensive, but offensive in a way that provokes response. She would honor him with it, she wrote:

I am the product of all 3 dogs. The Queen Bitch. Call me and I will do you up in a most carnally canine manner.

She listened for sounds, and she was certain there was none, she crept out of the male’s bathroom and walked out of the mall.

The man who wrote the first reply on the wall never called. The scribbling on the cubicle wall, through the weeks, have transformed into an inky mural of curses and compliments. None who wrote on the wall ever called her. They were too busy enjoying the mental masturbation of writing to one another on the wall of toiletry expression. It was the spectators who called her asking if the writings on wall were for real. They were.

They liked what they heard.

They met her and trapped themselves in a cage of pleasure.

My New Story: NETTINGS featured on "Singapore Treasures"

2008-11-30T21:46:00.000+08:00

I recently submitted a story to a website setup by two great Dutch ladies called Singapore Treasures. It is in their own words, a website dedicated to the little quirks and wonders of Singapore. They welcome fiction, sharings and even legends, so as long it is about Singapore, or says something about being IN Singapore.

NETTINGS

There is always a certain level of pretense in everything we do.

We wake up pretending that today would be a better day for all of us; that there’s something beautiful, great or wonderful to look forward to when really, we are clueless about how things are going to unfold in the duration of the day.
I cannot quite explain why I was feeling the way I felt except that I know that there wasn’t really a proper reason for doing so. I got up from my bed and made my way to the living room. I am alone in my apartment. My parents aren’t home and I can’t quite locate my brother. I am 23 years old this year and my brother’s 19. I suppose I could text or call him but I keep getting a dead tone. My parents won’t answer my calls either.

I go to college where I am working towards a BSc in Building. I couldn’t quite get into the School of Architecture and I have no real interest in Real Estate so, Building seems just about the right place for me. I like where I am in college, I like the idea of how I am able to tell people about how land and space can be maximally utilized with the right approaches. I wondered if building friendships and intimacies also followed the same logic – maximum utilization.

There is no school today. I went back to my bed and laid down for a while. I took a look at my cell phone and checked if I missed any calls or text messages. I missed nothing, unfortunately. I laid on my bed for a while longer. I couldn’t tell how long I laid, and I didn’t want to know. I got up again, once again pretending that there will be something happening and something worth doing by my getting out of bed. I headed to the bathroom and pissed. I caught sight of the razor and was reminded of what I should have been doing. I am in competitive swimming, which means it was necessary for me to shave my legs and underarms daily. Hair of any sort has the potential to slow a swimmer down by a couple of milliseconds. And those milliseconds could determine a lifetime of fame or embarrassment. People who want to keep their hair get into those expensive pretentious looking full body Speedo suits that makes them look like cheesy aliens from the cheesier alien movies from the cheesiest era of human history. I don’t need no body suits, I just needed to get hair off.

I ran my fingers over my legs. Smooth. I have done something right today. It was a pity I couldn’t get to swim today. I haven’t swum for the past four days in fact. I couldn’t.

I went into the living room and turned the TV on. The same message was on TV, and the news presenter was repeating the same stuff she did four days ago. We are all advised to ensure that the netting of our houses were secure and make it a point to check on them every day before we go to bed. I heard the message several times, but I couldn’t remember if I checked the netting. Maybe I should do so now. At least it is something important that I can do. I am following orders for once. I wish mum was here to see this. I went up to the windows of our living room and checked the green colored netting. I ran my fingers over them and there appeared to be no noticeable holes on them. Which means, they were good and I am safe. I went to the kitchen and then my room, and my parent’s room and my brother’s and did the same thing. No major holes whatsoever. I did notice a near empty glass of water in my brother’s room. The stains on the glass tell me that he hasn’t touched it for days. I chose to leave the glass alone.

I checked my cell phone again. Nothing missed. I headed back to the living room again to watch TV when the house phone rang. I jumped. I jumped like how one would jump after not jumping for a good number of years. I froze for a moment, allowing my ears to get used to the sharp sonorous ringing sound before I answered it.

“Hello?”

My voice sounded deep and hoarse. I was a little embarrassed at how I sounded and I hope whoever at the other end of the line won’t freak. It was my mum. My mum was on the phone.

“It has not gone well Darrell! It has not gone well!” The unusual hysterics in her voice scared me.
“What hasn’t gone well? What are you saying?”
“Felicia Darrell! She has succumbed to it! David, oh god! David’s distraught!”

Felicia? Felicia was my brother’s girlfriend. They met when they were in junior high. She has succumbed? Does that mean she’s dead? Surely that was implied. I didn’t ask. It would sound odd.

“And David?”
“David’s like, he’s crying and he won't stop crying! Your dad is with him trying to calm him down.” I could tell she had been crying too.
“OK, what now?”
“Darrell, I need you to listen to me. Get out of there and come over to the Center now.”
I shuddered a little. “No Mum, don’t you think that is even more dangerous?”
“Haven’t you seen the news? Wear white long sleeved clothing with jeans and a cap. There are special designated pick-up points near where you are. All you need to do is to get there! Darrell! This is important! I need you to listen to me. The Center is completely safe. You, on the other hand, are sitting at the eye of the storm.”
“No Mum, it’s safe in here. Really it is!”
“What’s the matter with you? There? Safe? It’s not safe! Why did you think we all left? Felicia thought it was safe in her home too and look what happened to her! David risked his own life when he went to get her out of her home, thinking she might stand a chance. But no! No!” My mum went into crying mode again.
“OK, OK, give me sometime OK?”
“Hurry! Oh God, please hurry!”
“I will see you Mum. I will see you.”

The air of silence feels heavier after I replaced the phone receiver. I was in a daze for a while. Unsure of what exactly I said and what has gone on in the conversation I had with my mum. Mum, Dad and David are all at the Center. The Center.

I looked at the mosquito nettings that were in place. Surely there’s nothing wrong with that. I went to the kitchen at stared out of the window. The sun was blazing outside. It was a perfect weather to swim, but also a perfect weather for the Ades mosquito to breed. The number of Ades mosquitoes increased exponentially four days ago. People, meaning scientists and analysts could find no reason for the sudden explosion in the number of mosquitoes. They claimed that that the sudden weather change provided an optimum condition for the mosquitoes to breed and multiply. But that was the farthest they got. All they knew was that mosquitoes were everywhere and are infecting people with Dengue hemorrhagic fever. We were all advised to put mosquito nets round any openings of our houses to prevent the mosquitoes from coming in and get rid of any stagnant water source that will potentially serve as a breeding ground for the Ades mosquito.

I continued staring out the kitchen window. Unsure of I what I should be doing. I felt an itch on my leg and I reached down to scratch it. Scratching only made me feel itchier. I bent down to take a look at my left leg and saw a reddish bump standing out clearly from my leg. I scratched it again, feeling a little sick. I felt a dull numbness course through my body. The same numbness I get minutes before I get ready to jump into the pool at the swimming competition.

I went into my room. Shut the door and turned down the temperature of my air-conditioner. I continued scratching till the patch threatened to bleed. I laid down on my bed and pretended once again that everything was going to be OK.

PS: In case you guys think I am writing about myself, I'm Hydro-phobic. I haven't swum in 8 years - but I do plenty of people who love swimming. Lesson: You DON'T always need to write what you know.

Writing and Its Problems

2008-11-30T21:37:00.000+08:00

Michael Schiavone writes,

"In her short story, "How to Become a Writer," Lorrie Moore states: "First, try to be something, anything, else." For ten years I've been "seriously" writing fiction. I've won a few contests and have been published in several literary magazines. My fiction has earned me close to five-thousand dollars since January. I even have an agent with a New York City zip code. And, sometimes, writers actually pay me to read and critique their stories. Basically, at thirty-four, I now have the street cred I longed for a decade ago. You'd figure this very moderate level of success would inspire confidence, yet I continue to suffer the same fear, doubt, and insecurity which plagued me as an unpublished writer.

No question makes me panic more than what do you do? I absolutely die inside. I'd rather address my irrational fear of being followed (I always run up stairwells for this reason) than announce to a stranger that I'm a writer. The shame I endure should be reserved for ticket scalpers and animal abusers, yet I feel like a sleaze when I confess to being a writer. Remember that five-thousand dollars earned income I mentioned above? Well I've spent that and more on contest fees, workshops, and postage over the past decade.

The bottom line is I choose to write. My friend, Ben, is an engineer. He once drunkenly told me how embarrassed he was to tell women what he did for a living, how dorky he felt handing over his business card. "Are you kidding me?" I shouted. If I were an engineer I wouldn't shut up about how smart I am, how useful I am to the modern world. At least he could say what he did in one word and move on. For me it's a goddamn exposition, a thick, hearty trail of BS.

I know people who love writing, who work at it every day without fail. For me, writing is a love-hate relationship, always grueling; I downright resent the process. But, again, since I choose to write I really have no justification for complaint. The soldier in Iraq doesn't want to hear about my feelings of inadequacy. The little bald girl with cancer doesn't need to hear about my being misunderstood. So whenever I wallow in self-pity (hourly), I try and return to Rilke's Letters To A Young Poet:

"There is only one way…Search for the cause, find the impetus that bids you write…Above all, in the most silent hour of your night, ask yourself this: Must I write? Dig deep into yourself for a true answer. And if it should ring assent, if you can confidently meet this serious question with a simple. ‘I must,' then build your life upon it…Your life, in even the most mundane and least significant hour, must become a sign, a testimony to this urge."
To answer Rilke's question, I do in fact feel I must write. Sure, the world will continue to spin if I don't, but inside I'd crumble. And I know this only because time and again I've looked for ways out, loopholes. New jobs eventually bore me, exotic locales get stale, vices turn their back on me. Ironically, all these attempts to rid fiction from my life have only made me a better practitioner. The struggle, unfortunately, is an inherent part of the process. Not one writer, even the ones whose work I despise, have it easy. I need to remember this.

I don't suppose I'll be comfortable introducing myself as a writer until I have a New York Times Bestseller, until I'm on Oprah, until my work is adapted for the big screen. Only then might I express myself to others with aplomb. In the meantime I'll keep writing because I still don't know what else to do."

Schiavone's premise is simple: being a writer is never an easy thing. Telling people that you're a writer is something way harder. Let's just say that for what it takes, Schiavone's still American and he is living in the country that came up with the term "New York Times Bestseller" and has some of the BEST writing schools. Modest? Yes. Inconsequential? Hell no. Try doing that in Singapore and you'd be lucky if you can escape with the remaining shreds of your dignity in tact.

In a society where just about EVERYONE is an engineer, doctor or a lawyer, it is plainly suicidal to be a writer. It has to be absolutely the worst possible thing to be. If you have to go artsy, be a filmmaker or a dancer of a violin player or even a eccentric artist. Singaporeans have no love for the Written Word, they go for instant gratification and reading is simply not something that promises an instant fix. They want to be told and shown. Making sense of things is a far too difficult task. It does not help that early Singapore works really sucked. Most of them bordering on the same problem with Singlish and kitsch jokes about the inability of Singaporeans to express themselves clearly without dabbling into scraps of Chinese and Malay. In short, works that are hardly worth the money on the price tag. I feel embarrassed reading such works and I wondered how is it even possible for these things to be published in the first place.

I do share Schiavone's sentiment that it is better to be an engineer rather than to be a writer. At least you are doing something functional to society. I am not going to say that a writer is useless, just that his usefulness is truly debatable and in a society that has seen practically no success in writing, it is pretty hard for anyone to want to take you seriously. I don't blame them. I have not seen a Singaporean writer who just made his first million. He should be celebrating with a drink if he gets to see his book on the bookshelf of a bookseller - and he should expect no returns, 'cause hardly anyone would buy it anyway. It's a miracle that publishing houses in Singapore are still running. Makes me wonder what on earth do these guys run on.

I want to think that I am one of those people who write because they have to. I have my Thomas Becket moments where there are moments that I write because I want people to know that I can write. I am not proud of this, but let's just say, it's one of the key motivating factors that keeps me retuning to my desk, open the Word Application and the file and begin typing away into the night.

The Doer must suffer. The Writer must suffer* as well. You just need to decide ultimately, like Schiavone says, if it is all to worth it. For Singaporeans, the task in more momentous - we cannot appeal to Singaporeans, we need a global readership for our globalized city.

* There are varying degrees of Suffering here. Some suffer physically, through direct blows to the head. Some suffer emotionally with daily ontological complications leading to psychosomatic depression and anxiety. To some suffering means having to move the fingers across the keyboard when one can be out clubbing and doing tequila shots. In any case, writing causes some form of suffering.

Immodesty of the Short Story (or the Flagrance of the Novel)

2008-11-30T21:35:00.000+08:00

Hardly a day passes for me without reading the New York Times online. LIke the New Yorker, the writing is lucid with equal mixture of anger and humor - humor angrily expressed and anger humorously delivered. It must come as no surprise that before I read the Headlines (ironically) I go to the Books section first to check out my next purchase. Yes, I read the reviews, the synopsis before heading down to Kinokuniya or Amazon to get my books.

I love Kinouniya. I love the selection there. Yet, it always gets to me whenever it carries only the 2nd and 3rd volumes of any trilogy. I am talking about Philip Roth's Zuckerman Trilogy and dear Kinokuniya only has the latter two volumes. Every. Single. Time. Amazon will be glad I'm quite ready to consider it.

But I digress. The other thing that always gets my attention is the Opinion column on the Books Webpage where a couple of authors will share some interesting insight about a particular problem that is plaguing them or a particular phenomena that they find either gratifying or disturbing. I came across such an essay just moments before I wrote this blog post.

The author's Steven Millhauser, and like countless others who wrote many a defense for poetry, Millhauser has written a defense for the short story. Millhauser has chose not to write purely on the virtues of the short story, rather he chose to examine why the precious gem of literature, the short story was ignominously sidelined compared to the novel. Millhauser is of course, writing against a phenomena that is all to familiar with readers. Novels stand at the apex of genre of literary writing that is commonly consumed and appreciated, following by the short story and finally poetry. I am tempted to put Critical Essays AFTER poetry, but I assume where one would place it really depends on one's place in the literary world.

It is safe to say that it is almost the end for Poetry - an artform that is respectable and even honorable, but not exactly widely read. Short stories are more widely read thanks to mogul publishers like The New Yorker and McSweeney's. Novels, of course, dominates the landscape of Literature. Millhauser, therefore was right when he wrote,

"What the novel cares about is vastness, is power. Deep in its heart, it disdains the short story, which makes do with so little. It has no use for the short story’s austerity, its suppression of appetite, its refusals and renunciations. The novel wants things. It wants territory. It wants the whole world. Perfection is the consolation of those who have nothing else."

Any self-respecting English major would know that rise of the novel coincides with the rise of Industrial England. And the novel's voice comes at a time when individuality has found its voice. The novel is the voice of individualism - it plays out, in detail, every projection and thoughts an individual has, including the various ideology operating within the individual's subconciousness that gives our English Ph.Ds a chance to produce something for their doctoral theses. The novel is therefore, the epitome of ambition - it contains the ambition of the writer, the reader and the critic, everyone has a stake in the novel and its ability to encompass the world into its prosaic boundaries. But where does that leave the short story?

Millhauser argues that the short story has all the ambition of the novel, but neatly disguised with it smallness. It is humble but its ambition opaquely masked behind its "fraudulent modesty". Millhauser went a little emotive towards the end of his essay, but his idea is apparent. The novel with its physical largess tries to encompass the world, it tries to deliver a world to its reader. In other words, it tries to do too much, and sometimes the task becomes daunting and impossible to complete. Yet, it must, for that is what everyone expects of a novel. Millhauser argues, that the futile attempt of the novel is both its strength and its weakness. The short story would never dare to admit that is has encapsulated the world. It is powerful because it acknowledges the impossibility to do that. It gives us a taste of what the world actually is and leaves us there, giving us that inconclusive conclusion forcing us to recognize that there is too much and what has been captured in the short story is but a saturation, an essence of the larger Possibility beyond the words of the page. Like poetry, it takes joy in reducing the speakable in the least number of words, each word carries an enormous significance that adds up to the story.

I acknowledge Millhauser's claims and having written a couple myself, know it to be true. It is almost impossible to wrap up a short story neatly. We often end at the point where we settle for a compromised ending, leaving the readers to work out the possibilities that follow after. The only problem I face is that the character always seems underdeveloped, which is to me a problem. I believe in creating a full character, in walking with him/her through the multiple circumstances and watching him/her grow and mature. True, there are stories out there that are inconclusive and should remain inconclusive. But, the Modern Man wants to lose himself in a journey, into a new dimension with characters he can relate to or recognize. The short story creates memorable anecdotes or characters, but it doesn't give the Modern Man the desired escape. We leave the short story admiring the writer, noticing how smart and talented he is in pulling it off.

But, Literature is not always about the craft of the writer, it is also about how his craft incorporates us into it.

There will always be room for the short story, but the novel will get the reservations first. Depressing, but well, true.

STORY: Washing Powder

2008-11-30T21:34:00.000+08:00

Incidentally, did you guys know that Singapore Literature Prize Nominee Aaron Lee actually reviewed by short story "Washing Powder" last year?

In honor of his nomination, allow me to share my story that he reviewed. His comments follows right after my story. Enjoy.

WASHING POWDER

It was just the washing. And what goes into it. Between the low-suds washing powder and that hateful liquid detergent. Nothing cleans like powder: incomparable washing power compacted into a tiny sphere that mixes with water and produces this nice whitish liquid of saturated cleanliness. Surely this comes natural to every person. No, apparently not. No, it was just the washing.

Start of the day would be putting on a nice floral skirt matched with immaculate white shirt, finished with a spiffy white jacket. She combed her hair straight. She Looked at the mirror. She paused for a bit. She began tying her hair into a bun and fixed a clip on it. She looked at her reflection again. A little too severe, she concluded, but figured it was for the better.

She walked out the room in time to see her husband coming out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped round his waist. Time has taken its toll – what was once a hard tanned body is now softening up, like a baby’s. He grinned stupidly at her. She smiled weakly back. She told him that she won’t be working on Sunday. They could spend some time together. He nodded. Like a puppy. A puppy with puppy fat. She chuckled at that thought.

She reported to work, she was lucky not to have spent the night at her workplace. She wasn’t placed on night duty. It was about time too. She was on the night duty roll for the past one week. It was that time of the year. Lots of people were coming in, few were checking out.

___________________

Maybe he didn’t really understand. Low-suds powder is the most sensible and logical option. It takes a woman to understand. What can men do? What can they do but moan and throw up on you when the time comes. He was insistent that he was right. He knows washing more than she does. Times have changed, we are moving into a new era, why was she still stuck in the past? She wasn’t stuck in the past. What was wrong with using low studs? What was wrong with washing powder? He stared at her incredulously. He departs shouting: Why was she raising her voice over washing powder? If it was so important to her, she can use it all she wants, not like he cared. Mumbling: which freak concerns herself so much with washing powder anyway? It’s just powder. She hears him.
___________________

She took a good look at the record book. There were several movements today. People transferred from one location to the other. There were a lot more transferred to the prime location today. She looks at her watch and looks up: it was her turn to stay for Night Duty tonight. She looks at her colleagues who smiled and nodded at her before rushing off to attend to a call. She adjusted her coat to the increasing cold. She looked at the record again. It was going to be a long night.

The phone rang. She reached for it. She eyes moved left and right as she took in the details the caller gave. She hung up and ran to the designated room. Her other colleagues were already there, each trying to do her best to prevent the worst from happening. She took a quick look at the information flashed on the screen. She weighed her options. It was out of her hands. She shouted for her subordinates to call her superior. It was out of her hands. This was the sixth one in the same week. She felt this dull throbbing in her gut. She hasn’t been able to get rid of this feeling since she began work. She looked into his eyes; reflecting like mirrors.

___________________

She stood rooted. He was already in the living room turning up the TV volume in an attempt to shut her out. It was just the powder. She knows this, yet she cannot explain the uncontrollable rage in her welling up forcing her into action. She felt her face – it was hot to touch. She was flaring up. She grabbed the four pound liquid detergent bottle, walked to the living room and flung it at the plasma TV. Regret, anger and sadness hit her the very moment the bottle left her hands. The bottle took a trajectory before smashing into the face of the plasma TV. The ferocity of impact threw the TV off its balance and it smashed into a gooey mess on the floor. The impact, the sound and the state of his precious plasma TV on the floor completely bummed him. He stared at the mess on the floor before turning around. She looked back at him with angry eyes tainted with tears of regret and relief.

___________________

It is not that we didn’t try. We do. All the time. There are forces out that the move beyond our sphere of control. But of course we can try again tomorrow. Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow. It is good that we live this deluded belief that whatever it is, it will be better tomorrow. She filled out a portion of the form and handed it to her superior who took it without looking at her. It happens, her superior said. Not like this is new to you, right? She didn’t answer him. She gave a brief nod and went on with her task. It was lunchtime, but she hadn’t the mood to eat. She sat down. Phone rang. More bad news. And it goes on.

___________________

He stared at her with an impossible mixture of disbelief, anger, sadness, guilt and incredulity. She stared at herself and saw nothing but a twisted image of herself festooned with fragments of what she thought she was. She met his glare. He doesn’t speak. His glare was deafening. She looked madly around, looking for an explanation. There is none to be found – not in shattered self or in the mess she calls home. This was supposed to be a beautiful day. She staggered out of the living room and back to the kitchen. Yes, she had to return to the washing. Of course, that’s it. She needs to do the washing. Why didn’t she say that?

He was saying something at last. She couldn’t hear him. She looked around again. Where was the low-suds powder? She saw him approaching. She looked at his eyes. The same reflective eyes that she found herself staring into so often from the past seven years. She threw a bottle of liquid detergent at the TV. Why? Who was to blame? Liquid. Suds. Eyes. Where is our tomorrow? Where is my tomorrow? He was coming close. Face angry and bewildered.

She looked around again. Nothing to be found.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

She ran. And out of the kitchen window she flew.

___________________

You OK? A colleague asked. She was just feeling worn out. She was losing the ability to keep herself happy. It seemed so simple, but where can happiness be found? In the pay you are getting of course! Her colleague said laughingly. She looked at her. You are a Staff Nurse! What can be making you unhappy?! She looked away. More than you’ll ever know.

___________________

He stared at the emptiness in front of him. Numbness spreading, coursing through his entire being. She was there a moment ago. And then… He never felt such silence in his life. Where has all the noise escaped to? In a snap, he ran to the window. He looked down. She was there, in a pond of incarnadine. It had to be her, though all semblance have been lost to the gravity. Neighbors from his block and the block across were all looking at her and then at him. Horrific eyes. Accusing eyes. You pushed her the eyes said. His heart sank with fear and misery. She was gone, but he’s still there. He moved back from the window. He walked slowly away. Hands over mouth, covering the madness that was about to escape from him. His eyes wet. He stood still. Lost. He trembled on the spot before sanity returned. He picked up his cell phone and made a call. It was all over.

___________________

They all came to the wake. Nurses from the hospital who loved her for her leadership and her dedication. The news of her suicide was kept from the press. No one really needs to know – it was bad for the hospital and for the nurses-to-be. He knows the rumors, that he drove her to it. Maybe he did. Maybe he did not. Did it really matter now? For what it’s worth, he found more reason not to use washing powder.

Aaron Lee on "WASHING POWDER"

I enjoyed reading this short story. The author is a thoughtful writer with the ability to structure a plot skillfully. I was impressed with the parallel narratives that converge at the end. The tone was consistent and the narrative style was evocative yet somehow understated, nearly sterile (which was fitting for a story about a nurse and washing powder). It was a good choice to have the “low suds” washing powder form the ostensible subject of the story-- it was an interesting metaphor around which to explore various themes, and this was executed to good effect. In that sense the washing powder could represent orderliness in a chaotic world, conscience, or memory, or hope for a better tomorrow.

The tenses in the narration are inconsistent-- if deliberate, this technique was well used to a disquieting, schizophrenic effect that mirrors the desperation of the protagonist and her turbulent inner world. But I found it ultimately distracting and I consider that the story could be improved by using a consistent tense.

Aaron Lee was born in Malaysia in 1972. Educated in Singapore, he became a Singaporean in 1996. In 1992, 20 of his poems were published in the anthology In Search of Words (VJ Times, 1992). Since then his poetry has been appeared in anthologies, magazines and newspapers, as well as performed on radio and television for national broadcast.

Aaron has won numerous poetry prizes including the first prize in the National University of Singapore's Literary Society Poetry competition in 1995 and 3rd prize in the nationwide New Straits Times-Shell Poetry Competition in Malaysia in the same year. His first book of poetry A Visitation of Sunlight was selected to be one of 3 books to launch a new publishing label for quality contemporary Singaporean literature, Ethos Books. The collection won a National Book Development Council award in 1997.

A lawyer by profession, Aaron is also involved in theatre and promoting literature in Singapore. In 1999 the title poem of his book was selected for the "Poems on the Move" programme, an initiative by the National Arts Council to bring poetry to the public on mass transit.

PILOT: The Possible End of ANY Singapore Literature

2008-11-30T21:24:00.000+08:00

There are some days where I doubt myself as a writer - well, a writer to be, that is.

It is no big secret that the number readership has fallen steadily over the decades and a recent report that ran in the New York Times confirmed that you are more likely to run into a writer than a reader. Everyone wants to write and have their voices heard, and they are bothering much less to hear other voices.

Still, writers all begin as readers and I don’t think I have met a writer that doesn’t read. In fact, writers are probably some of the more ardent readers of our times. Perhaps therefore, there is still hope for the industry of Print. But when it comes to Poetry, that is a completely different game altogether - on the whole, everything looks grim for Poetry. Can’t say I blame poets for feeling suicidal.

If America thinks its problems are chronic with its shrinking reading population, then the state of readers in Singapore would be potentially be a state of cardiac arrest.

Reading is something that is for people who are idle and generally not constructive. Being CONSTRUCTIVE and USEFUL are the two words one should always wear on their sleeves if one were to consider oneself Singaporean. No other activity ranks worse than reading. Why read when you can play cell phone games or game on the PSP and skim through the myriad of tabloids available here? Oh sure, none of what I mentioned isn’t constructive in any sense.

And even if Singaporeans do read, there is a 1:12,000,000 chance that they would go for a Singaporean writer. Singaporeans are a race of people who are astronomically skeptical of anything make, created, performed or conceived by their own people. If anything that is made by a Singaporean, the conclusion reached would be that it would not be remotely as good as anything produced elsewhere in the world. Especially, in the publishing world, why read a little known novelist living in some obscure corner of Singapore when you can get Jodi Picoult for the same price? Let's not forget that in Singapore, everyone likes a good deal - maximum pleasure for the minimum sum.

It doesn’t help that most Singaporean writers are poets and most poets in Singapore are gay.

So, what’s left?

My fears were ascertained when I was at Kinokuniya the other day and I was looking the the shelf featuring Singaporean writers. Needless to say, I was the only one there. A group of teenagers came by, they were commenting on everything they saw in the bookstore. It was clear they weren’t there for the books, but were leaving a trail of self-absorbed needless comments symptomic of the blogging generation. They finally came to the Singaporean writers shelf. The negativity was instantaneous. One girl said, and I quote verbatim,

“Huh? Local writers ah? Why do you want to read something we all can understand?”

I was almost certain she meant to say something else, but modified her comments when she saw me browsing at the section. Again, it is no secret the there are very few Singaporeans who think Singaporeans can produce anything good. Therein lies the irony, but most people are a little too dense to see it. And the girl is merely reflecting the ethos of the generation. But assuming that what she said is accurate. Is she saying that she only wants to read stuff that she doesn’t understand? Or pose some kind of difficulty to her. She is a typical Singaporean operating on the belief that since I am Singaporean, I can easily understand anything written about Singapore, hence I feel no challenge or purpose reading it. I feel sorry for her lack of maturity.

But, again, assuming that her assumption is right, that most Singaporean works are easy to understand as the context is culturally accessible to her, what is her apparent problem with Singaporean literature? Is she embarrassed by the fact that she can understand a book so easily that somehow reflects the lack of intellectuality of Singaporeans? Can I then assume that Singaporeans like herself don’t like to read about Singapore, but is more interested to read about places (any place, for that matter) other than Singapore?

One of the purposes of Literature is to help create a cultural anchor for the country the writer calls his home. Like Ngugi Wa Thiongo, writers must ultimately decide wether WHO to write for. The people in his country or people outside of his country. Ngugi felt is was imperative for his works to reach out to Kenyans. He writes for Kenyans. This decision ultimately made him give up writing in English and wrote exclusively in Swahili so he could reach out to his people. I think, a Singaporean writer cannot hope to write for Singaporeans. Singaporeans would not read it, and they don’t need it. They don’t want to read about themselves, for they know, what they will see will be ugly.

A Singaporean writer must write from abroad. A transnational perspective for a global city. Singapore has no hinterland; we have no anchor that will remind people of what a proud nation we are. Our pride is in our country, but what WE achieved in the country. And as far as achievement goes, it is not confined in any fixed geographical space, lest a tiny one. The Singaporean writer must infuse this element of exteriority, a ’successful’ person looking in from a distance and inspire Singaporeans to want to leave Singapore and be able to adopt that same form of privileged position of being able to look from without.

The problem with Singapore writers, me included, is that we feel there is still a part of Singapore that we can still exploit and expose, and we need to do that to tell our other fucking stupid Singaporeans that there is still a possibility of wonderment in the Quotidian Singapore. But wait, they won’t listen. ‘Cause nothing we say will be good anyway.