The Calming of Nerves aka About Time

And Irving Wallace’s “The writing of one novel” makes it two. The first, and still favourite, being Stephen King’s excellent On Writing.

A pipe smoking author: who wouldn't want to read this?

Both are memoirs and how to books with King edging Wallace in sheer entertainment for me.
Wallace’s “The writing of one novel” is a darn great read for me as it provides the perfect basis for a style of writing which I am familiar; with researched materials being the starting block.

“The writing of one novel” is about the pipe smoking American author’s journey – literal as well as figurative – in writing a fictionalised Nobel Prize winner.

Starting from the sparking of an idea – if I am not mistaken, it was initially for a magazine article – to the digging of details through extensive research including interviews (imagine that!), his outlining of the storyline and characters, the first draft review process, publishing and the controversies that follow.

Is “The Prize” - the novel’s title - a worthy read? I do not know as I have not read it. It occupies a genre which I must admit to being less than enthusiastic to pick up the book and start flipping.

Both Wallace and King are strong proponents of the adage that writers must be voracious readers.

I’ve been stocking my reading materials (heh) and never getting round to doing the tough bit of, urm, reading them.

I keep telling myself that to finally write that novel I’ve always dream of, I need to read, and read a lot. And start writing even as the reading goes on.

By God, I will start the last mentioned act as I have been putting this off for a long, long time. Ideas ready; initial research's done, draft materials in place; so what’s stopping me?

Nerves.

And, oh, I need to find myself a muse. Seems to work best with one around.

On Reading aka With Apologies to Stephen King (again!)

I have this habit of re-reading books I really love countless number of times, and apparently this “behavior” seemed weird to others.

If by chance you are ever in my humble home’s humble makeshift library, these books are recognized by their “kusam” (Malay for “in shreds” or something thereabouts) look.

Some notable titles include Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Frank Miller’s Dark Knight returns, Leon Uris Mila 18, Robert J Shea’s Shike and Jonathan Lynn Antony Jay’s Yes Minister.

There are others, of course, but the above are those that pops easily to mind.

Of late, the pressures work and family has disallowed me this favoured pastime, but off and on, I’ll still slip short reads of often well-remembered paragraphs and pages.

The titles are in particular order of preference really, but if pushed, I would place Yes Minister top ranked followed by Dark Knight Returns a close second.

Both Mila 18 and Shike is part historical part fiction; that is if you buy into the authors’ depiction of events as plotted out in the two titles.

Note the oddity of the pseudo-academic On Writing: A Memoir amongst fictions.

On Writing is very fiction-like in its readability, even the ‘teaching” parts.

The book is actually part biography but it is a still “a page turner”, as blurbs on novels usually put it.

Writers have very distinctively styles that mark them out and thus not easy to replicate.

King puts it as life and people experience; providing examples of dialogues from other authors for comparison.

He talks about passive sentences:” They were unceremoniously ushered out of the hotel room” as opposed to “the Hotel kicked them out”. (MY example)

It is something I’m fully guilty of in my own writings which according to King, originates from timidity.

In writing. Imagine that.

Anyway, I read this following article in the New York Times which provides for some good illustrations in a different kind of writing attitude: pomposity.

Writing: “The proliferation of normalizations in a discursive formation may be an indication of a tendency towards pomposity and abstraction as opposed to “Writers who overload their sentences with normalizations tend to sound pompous and abstract.

I have to reiterate of being guilty of similar offences in my own pieces.

Pompous, eh?

Dark Knight, nuff said!

Dubious Duds

Yann Martel’s Beatrice and Virgil starts like a foreward and that alone got me hooked to dwelve further. Brilliant gambit, if I may say so.

Actually, it was initially the size (actually lack) of B & V which prompted me to pick it from the tens of titles lining The Times Book Store’s “New Arrival” shelf during a lunch break.

Ever seen George Orwell’s Animal Farm? B & V is about the same size.

The summary on the back cover (Blurb, is it?) doesn’t tell you much about the storyline, except that it involved an author, a taxidermist, a donkey and a monkey.

It was only upon Googling the title up later that I came to know B & V was part fiction part allegory on the Holocaust (look it up if you don’t know what this word means).

A few reviewers compared Martel with M. Night Shyamalan.

(Not the “I see dead people” Shyamalan. The Happening and The Last Airbender etc Shyamalan.

Yes; the one (or two) hit wonder.)

Having found Martel’s writing style to my liking, I was quite flabbergasted with the bad press. Could it really be THAT bad a book?

Writing is a tedious, lonely job.

Writers hope to excite, to enthrall, to give hours of page-turning moments, to provide imaginative avenues and probing insights, or to simply to help readers pass dreadful waits.

For your work to be called a dud is certainly a downer. Especially if you slogged long and hard to come out with your so-called masterpiece.

I suppose Martel took all the criticism in stride as he did mentioned somewhere of working on another tale. Kudos to him.

According to Stephen King, writers are needy. He’s probably correct. Otherwise why do you spend hours, months and, even, years writing, rewriting to get it right for the reader, even if they are purely imaginary?

So, will I be getting the book then?

I’m thinking I will after all.

It might not be are emotionally charged as one of Leon Uris’s epic, but a book that can pass the hours in minutes is worthy of the attention span.

Storied Instructions

“Three countries that outperform us — Singapore, South Korea, Finland — don’t let anyone teach who doesn’t come from the top third of their graduating class. And in South Korea, they refer to their teachers as ‘nation builders.”

The “us” above is the US of A, but it could very well refer to any other country including Malaysia.

There are several good points in the column, including (I think) the following: “There are three basic skills that students need if they want to thrive in a knowledge economy: the ability to do critical thinking and problem-solving; the ability to communicate effectively; and the ability to collaborate.”

Tough call? Perhaps if the rut in the education system is way too deep and too entrenched to rectify and revamp.

Immediately I am thinking of the move to make history a compulsory-pass subject. Will it allow the three elements above come into play?

Much depends, probably, on the way the subjects are being taught in school. I’ve heard of teachers who go beyond their syllabus to make learning enjoyable - dare I say - again…

These are the cream of the crop, and contrary to the view above, I don’t think high grades are the sole criteria for such lofty ambitions. Passion is just important as teachers, too, learn while they teach, don’t they?

I’m wishing, though, that I know how exactly to instill these traits into my own daughter.

Just this weekend, she and her cousins joined their auntie for a jaunt at KL Pavilion, with the Times book store one of the outlets visited.

Clearly in a generous mood, their auntie had acceded to financing their purchases so off they went to the children section.

There weren’t that many books, but still enough to whet any bookworms’ appetite*, but in the end, my daughter exactly what her favorite year-older cousin chose. A diary. One of those lockable types which I know will end up being a doddling book.

Sigh...

She’s always seemed so reluctant to make her own decisions.**

Her younger sister is the exact opposite. Didn’t care what her elder “sisters” were browsing for, saw what she wanted, queried her auntie if the price is within the range permissible and got them. A magazine and an activity book.

She five, going six, but I know the magazine will be read from cover to cover.

Critical thinking and problem solving, communicating and collaborating, eh?

I wonder now if these are skills taught…

* PS: Found a copy of Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess “Instructions”. So beautiful yet so expensive. Tried to be sneaky in getting the girls interested but no such luck.

Ah Well…

** PSS: Perhaps I am being too hasty in my assumptions. Could it be her cousin was the follower instead? I sure wish so...

Wordy Eloquence

The Big Bad Wolf book sale is in town again and, in what is turning out to be an annual ritual, there I was with the whole family in tow.

South City Plaza was the chosen venue this year, and unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy to find as it seemed on the internet-sourced map.

All that matters was that we managed to get there plus a few cousins of the young ones.

As usual, there were like a billion books in the somewhat claustrophobic hall. Once we have left the children in their section, my wife and I proceeded on our own search for books.

Alas, there weren’t that many which really said “Pick me up” for me. Being such an old timer, I was looking very much for the seasoned, tattered cover novels of old, and what BBW has plenty was the newer ones.

There were still plenty for those really willing to go through one title to the other.

I was practically skimming through only the hard covers, and picking out those which featured pleasantly-designed overleaf before reading the summary at the back page.

And the sum result of the long exercise – two books. A fantasy and another on the (US) comics industry.

Alas, as usual, comics remain the elusive category which BBW is lacking on. There were some Manga titles, but not that many.

I discovered some old-style, illustrated, “Tales from the Crypt” over at the children side and managed to read quite a bit whilst doing the book – search.

(Ironically, the same is also an aspect covered in the book on the comics industry I bought. Haven’t gotten round to reading it yet, though.)

A question bugged me later on: Where exactly am I as a reader? Am I someone concerned with storylines? Do I look more for wordsmith artistry? Or was I somewhere in between?

The more I thought about this, the more convinced I was of falling in the second category.

Sure enough, there are stories which I read and re-read until the pages required extensive re-glueing and patching up, but there were clear signs that there were also stories where the words attracted me more than the story.

Sure tells a whole lot about the person, doesn’t it?

I was hooked by the fantasy after reading the summary exactly because of the elegance in its prose.

Suddenly, the crowd was no longer there. There was only me and the words for the briefest of moments.

Preceding events meant that reading the whole book would have to wait.

I will discover then if the pages within fulfill the promise reflected without.

I’m hoping it’ll be a good journey but you just never know.

PS: The eldest cousin of my children bought two copies of “Tales of the Crypt.” Will wonders never cease.

Prosal Excuses

Putting pen on paper is a big deal for a writer simply because you don't want to end up writing crap.

Well, crap in bad writing that makes the readers go "Ha Ha".

I chance upon these examples of bad writing and they are really quite good (bad, that is).

In fact right up there with "It was a dark and stormy night".

Have I ever made these similar foibles of my own? I don't doubt it at all.

Guilty as charged.

The "thirsty gerbil and giant water bottle" is probably the author's running away from a more cliched prose. "Compiling dust just like a writer's with the fear of publishing his writings" kind of prose.

(I must say that the thirsty gerbil bit was quite vivid a description though. So point made actually.)

At least these authors - bad opening aside - have their work published unlike some people I (ahem) personally know.

As such, I have resolved to put pen on paper no matter how bad my opening lines are.

I'm rereading Stephen King's On Writing just to get me inspired again and I must say that good writing wil grow on you.

In my personal library, you'll find some books in near-soiled condition while others still minty (this is a comic-related term, for those not familiar, meaning as good as from a book rack).

You know exactly then which are the good ones and what aren't.

Alas, time is so short these days that reading has become a chore.

And you just can't write if you don't read.

Its a fact of life that's simply bummer of an obstacle.

Is it, or is it another one of the those "fearful of bad writing" excuse?

The mentioned Gerbils.

Muse Tinkerer

For brief moments last Monday, I shamefully sank to the “Western Great, Elsewhere Less So” kind of thinking.

I had signed up for a technical report writing course at a city hotel in glitzy Bukit Bintang with all the initial impressions but promising.

It started with my being unable to locate the said hotel, which turned out to be at the rear portion of another (bigger, more luxurious hotel) and having to park my car quite a distance away. The classroom was located right at the end of a cramped corridor. This same corridor doubled as the "buffet snack" serving place, for want of a better word.

Care to guess that (early) morning dish? Char Kuew Tiow. “It cannot be any more Malaysian than this,” I thought deciding to skip the meal and opting for coffee only as I step into the function room.

It was dimly lit, classroom styled setting with two whiteboards and, on the table, an A4-sized booklet. I flipped it open' ready to criticized and did just that after the briefest of glance: “How drool.. This is going to be one dry course.”

By then, I had decided to stay on just until lunchtime and skipped the rest. A daughter down with abdominal pains being the other reason – never mind that she was already with a nanny.

Just a week before, I attended a similar one-day event in Singapore. The hotel was great, the food sumptuous, the speaker a Texan who injected humour into his presentation. I forgave his rushing through the session as he was just such a darn great speaker. A communications expert, as the marketing slip went.

Nancy – the local course speaker – is meanwhile a former banker turned freelance trainer.

Four hours into lunchtime, I ate back every prejudiced thought of her. She was simply superb, making a dry subject into a very entertaining session without the need to turn it into a guffaw fest just to keep eyelids open, interest from waning and minds wandering. And after lunch, the session’s end came fast; too fast in fact, a sign of how well things had gone.

Of course, the food was still horrendous-tasting, the corridor a source of body-brushing sessions as participants of other courses and seminars pass our room to get to the corner washroom but Nancy was worth every bit of inconvenience.

Did I absorb everything she taught in the two days? Not without some re-reading, but she certainly managed to wake some participant’s muse.

(Note: the “muse” is mentioned in Stephen King’s “On Writing”. They supposedly have a bag, pocket, knapsack of writing ideas in their safekeeping. His is a gruff, cigar chomping, hairy little guy who makes Mr. King do all the work while he loafs about. I haven’t found mine. My guess is that I am not looking too hard for him/her.)

On hindsight, Sturtevant was okay as was Nancy with solid knowledge and expertise in the subject matter their clarion call.

The latter just offer greater value in Ringgit and Sens. Not to mention the chance to ogle at the urbane souls of the KL Pavilion crowd whose life seemingly revolves around fashion and exercising their consumer rights of buying and buying and more buying.

Very deep pockets, hmm?

Ghost in Shell

Historical Histrionics

“According to legend, Genghis Khan lies buried somewhere beneath the dusty steppe of Northeastern Mongolia, entombed in a spot so secretive that anyone who made the mistake of encountering his funeral procession was executed on the spot.

Once he was below ground, his men brought in horses to trample evidence of his grave, and just to be absolutely sure he would never be found, they diverted a river to flow over their leader’s final resting place.”

I am no authority with regards one of the more well known Asian historical figure, and whatever “knowledge” I have of Genghis Khan is basically from Robert Shea’s (Shike – Last of the Zinja) portrayal of his grandson (?) Kublai Khan.

Shea’s Mongolian conqueror was depicted as someone respected by both his enemies as well as his ally, bright and highly articulate, but with a deadly ruthlessness in his quest of expanding his empire to the point of it being an obsession.

Before Shike came along, my image of the Mongolian conquerors (Kublai and Genghis) was that of Ming the Merciless from the campy science fiction series of Flash Gordon in the late 1970s.


It’s an image that’s particularly transfixing in the mind as to how Mongolians supposedly look like.

There is another television character which also play homage to this typical stereotyping, one I remember only by his oft quoted “Amazingg…”, most probably from the 1960’s Get Smart series about a bumbling spy.

The name of the character with the droopy, noodle moustache escapes me.

The modern interpretation of the great conqueror is far less stereotypical however as seen in Sergei Bodrov’s film Mongol (2007) where ironically, Japanese actor Asano Tadanobu played the lead figure.


Irony in that the land of the Rising Sun proved the most recalcitrant of annexations for Kublai with two failed attempts that “shattered the myth of Mongol invincibility throughout Asia” (The Mongol Conquerors), the second of which was depicted in Shea’s Shike in great, albeit purely fictional, detail.

The world’s history has been made that much richer from these strong, driven characters, but little has been paid to those whose lives were affected by the actions of these great men (and women).

This is exactly where the realm where fiction thrives.

Combining accepted facts with fiction, good writers are able to weave totally believable tales of characters living during such tumultuous times, and in so doing breathing some measure of reality and drama into dull, staid, historical facts.

Incidentally the first two para of this posting is from a Bernama news flash of students from the University of California’s (San Diego) Center for Interdisciplinary Science in Art, Architecture and Archaeology using advanced visualisation technologies to locate the tomb of the late Genghis.

Apparently researchers have tried in vain to locate the tomb’s site since 1990, so these students are raring for another go at it, and this time, technology is hoped to provide the breakthrough.

Dr. Albert Yu-Min Lin, an affiliated researcher of the Center, tells us why: “But as great a man he was, there are few clues and no factual evidence about Genghis Khan’s burial, which is why we need to start using technology to solve this mystery.”

If only I had foreseen all those years ago historians having this much fun.

Magik in Pittance

My first entrepreneurial slant, developed when I was 14 years old, was fueled by my thirst for comics.

I had sort of a Comics Club going at the college I was studying in, charging some nominal fee to finance the monthly subscription of several titles, namely Uncanny X-Men and some others.

Comics were relatively cheap back then – a bumper issue would set you back RM4.50 to RM6 at most – and they were delivered to the College office so they were pretty secure.

And as chief entrepreneur, I get the first read.

Alas, the same idea also dealt me with the loss of a major portion of those very comics from friends who – on hindsight – couldn’t care less about collections and being able to re-read the issues again and again.

(Incidentally, my better half is also always chiding me about reading again and again my collections of comics dating back to god-how-many years! She would ask how many times I needed to read the same thing. Sigh… )

Amongst the comics I lost were issues 186 to 188 of the Uncanny X-Men featuring the team against an alien breed called the dire wraiths (a spin off from another title : Rom The Spaceknight, which I didn’t read).


The story arc started with “Lifedeath” ; a love-hate story involving Storm, of the X-Men, and Forge – the inventor who created the weapon which stole her mutant powers.

It was also the same weapon that saw the dire wraiths making an assault against Forge’s building in a bid to destroy not only the gun but its inventor along with it, and soon the battle is joined by members of the X-Men, namely Rogue, Colossus and, later, his younger sister, Illyana aka Magik.

The ending of the X-Men versus dire wraiths battle was a cliffhanger in another adversary being introduced who would only emerged again in later issues, a seemingly favored tact of writer Chris Claremont which I highly detest.

Claremont however makes this (admittedly small) flaw with huge degrees of characterization, imaginative storylines and down-to-earth issues of love, death and heroics.

I was rummaging through the boxes of old comics I have not unpacked and found a single copy from the ill-conceived, but worthwhile Comics Club batch; issue 192 of the Uncanny X-Men.

The cover was worn out; the edges frayed and torn, and when I flipped through the pages, I found the tracing with a pen of Nightcrawler in one of the panels before the heroes – this time involving Kurt (the aforementioned Nightcrawler), Colossus and Rogue – went against another alien named Magus.

This issue also ended in a cliffhanger with Professor Charles Xavier – the X-Team founder and mentor – beaten unconscious by his students and dragged away to parts unknown.

Wow... Does anyone have issue 193?

I felt sad in seeing the issue’s condition but also elated the magic that drew me to comics were still very much alive in the yellowed pages 24 year later.

Best yet, it was only RM1.90.

A price tag that gets you pretty much nothing these days.