Finished

My creative juice has been flowing irregularly nowadays. Sometimes, I felt so inspired but unfortunately it happened when I hardly had time to pen down the words. Frustratingly, when I did have a lot of time during the weekends, I wasn't very productive.

On the last day of 2008, my co-author's first solo book was released. I quickly got a copy on Friday and up to now, have finished reading 20 out of her 22 new stories. I was surprised that the cover design was something she and my instructor put together though, it had a professional feel to it. Her plots are mostly down-to-earth but her characters really punched out the stories. Reviewers commented that she is good at creating complete, rounded characters and she has a way with prose. When reviewing the drafts for our first book, many times she said she felt like she didn't know my characters. More insights needed.

And reading her latest work did inspire me. It reminded me that I'm very close to completing my drafts. I need to function at full force from now onwards to get my first solo book out by April. I have even started picking up drafts that I've left halfway done or completed many months ago.

And coincidentally, I've been having difficulty with the short story below; yeap the 'toilet world' one. I first started writing it more than a year ago and had re-visited it several times after a few months, and finally after a year. Somehow, though I managed to end it, it didn't seem quite 'finished'. The characters seemed flat, even to me. It was a tough piece in the first place, involved quite a major technology-related research.

Anyway, I did another round of polishing this morning. I added in brand new insights discovered from Mr Designer's relationship with his business partner. Now the main character and his business partner seem more real. Voila! I think it's ready. I shall share it during the next writers' forum next week, if one of the 3 volunteers does not turn up that is:)

Flush, Papa, Flush - 2nd Cut

(continues)

My eyes felt tired. I squashed the cigarette stump into the overspilling ashtray in front of me. That was the last one. I threw the two empty Salem boxes into the metal dustbin under my desk.

I had been studying the 50-page ‘Request for Proposal’ document in my study room for three hours then. A charcoal pencil in one hand, my fingers moved on the pieces of A3 papers every time the right images came to mind. Our office was closed for the week for Christmas but we both needed that job badly. I had to get the sketches ready before Taka come to my house to discuss the presentation the next day.

I took a sip of the lukewarm Japanese green tea. It did not help. When Nami was around, she would prepare and serve tea just at the right time so the beverage would still be piping hot when I drank it. I could feel their presence all around me. I could hear their voices sometimes. The emptiness was overwhelming. Maybe I should return to Kuching and start anew.

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