On the same day this post is released, my Moonlake’s Studio blog, the game design and publication counterpart to this blog, has already been released.
Because I am a planner, I’ve somehow constructed a 10-year publication plan that was originally a product pipeline. And the product releases in the first year kept expanding- from a planned 13 products in the first year, it had expanded into 18 products now. I have done the first draft for up to month 3 of my publication schedule.
The actual publisher website isn’t coming out until week 5 when the free magnet comes out. Before that, the other blog is just going to be working like this blog where I write about my game settings and my personal experiences with table top RPG game design and publishing.
I have also submitted the trademark application for my publisher name and applied for an Australian Business Number. So this is the start of my game publishing journey. Eventually I will also fold in my fiction line under this but for now, I feel like games are getting more traction.
This is really the year of change for me. The second novel project I announced back in March is now officially on the back burner, replaced by a novelisation of my current ongoing game campaign that has been switched from Fate Core to Cortex.
I started to use ChatGPT more frequently now on top of assistance for my GMing, as a partner in outlining novels and writing craft exploration. I even started a thought experiment with it where we co-authored a Chinese plot-your-own adventure using an idea I knew I wouldn’t be interested in fictionalising. It wasn’t meant to be a get-rich-quick-scheme by leveraging AI on my part, I was just doing this as a broadening horizon exercise ala what I do for reading. It was fun at the start where we frequently branched off to talking about how I am as a writer and specific craft elements. But once I got it to start generating prose, that’s when frustration hit the fan. I basically had to calm down after the very first session of prose creation by switching to meta design of the project for four days before I finally called quits to the experiment after a total duration of 10 days (the first bit of prose was generated on day 6 and I wasn’t interested in any more AI prose that I had to intensely edit after the second bit of prose was generated and locked in.)
I am also becoming a publisher for tabletop games but eventually it will encompass my fiction. By the time you see this post, I will be in the process of registering my publisher name which I will reveal when the publishing blog is ready to go live.
This is the first book going towards my mini-reading challenge this year and possibly my first official memoir (I had read a partial one from a beta-reader swap that I was in from being a women’s writer group some years back) but the book itself has nothing to do with Waterlily. It’s just that the author had written another memoir whose title had the word waterlily in it.
A memoir is not some usual foray since I prefer fiction. This book most preserves what I find absorbing with fiction except for specific chapters containing snippets from the author’s diary or letters. Those I find on the boring side and I was sorely tempted to skip a whole chapter that is just concatenated from a series of diary entries or letters. But overall, an okay read that I can treat as a historical fiction about a decade before I was born.
Mystery
Deep Water by Peter Corris
This is also part of my mini-reading challenge but has even less relevance to waterlily. But it’s an okay mystery. Not sure that I would come back for more but okay.
Preface to Murder by M.S Morris
I listened to this in audiobook format and the narrator was okay but sometimes I can’t distinguish between various male police officers very well. Also, I expected this to be a single protagonist book but actually this seems more of a teamwork approach. Not that this is an issue per se. The twist is functional but I’m not pleased or displeased with it particularly.
Fantasy
Well of Darkness by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
I haven’t been reading epic fantasy lately and I’m just returning to one of my comfort authors. This is okay, a bit refreshing because it seems like it actually starts off with an anti-hero story even though I’m not too enthused about the anti-hero presented. For that reason, I’m not sure whether I’m keen to read book 2 even though apparently it reverts back to a more traditional epic fantasy according to the blurb. We will see.
The jump-off line is from Things I didn’t know I loved by Nazim Hikmet.
I didn’t know I enjoy stories featuring animals or emphasizing cuteness. I’m not much of an animal or cutesy person but I’m very much empathic. I can dive into others’ passions and what they enjoy, through reading.
I didn’t know I enjoy travelling. There is a caveat though: I like to travel with Mum. Just the two of us. No rush. We just casually stroll at our pace. I hate being rushed.
I didn’t know I enjoy watching dating shows. There’s some kind of goodwill and hope associated with seeing a successful, seemingly right match. Even when I realised later that they were set up just like other reality shows, they were largely entertaining. In various ways. Showing a glimpse into the skewed, anxious society of the modern mainland China. I was born there but I was never quite part of it. So I could look with a critical outsider’s eye upon the scene. I don’t like much of what I see. That is the honest truth.
I didn’t know I enjoy spy thrillers. Apart from James Bond, I never thought of it as being a genre onto itself. Not until Mum and I started getting into mainland Chinese spy thriller dramas. I grew up in Hong Kong and everything there was just fast-paced. Down to TV dramas. So that’s the pace I’m used to and like. So spy thrillers it is for me.
I didn’t know I enjoy… I tried to take on a new experience every week with an activity that I have never done or have not done for years. But that faded out. Perhaps I should take it up again. There’s a thought.
When we talk about “heroes”, we tend to assume a shared structure. But once you compare Chinese and Western contexts, the difference becomes clearer.
Broadly speaking, Western stories tend to centre on the idea of a hero. Chinese traditions are less consistent on that front, and in modern fantasy, the structure shifts again.
In the Western tradition, the structure is fairly familiar.
A hero sets out on a journey, encounters obstacles, overcomes them, and returns. The emphasis is on what the hero does.
Figures like Odysseus or Hercules follow this pattern. Even in modern fantasy led by LOTR, the idea remains similar—there is a problem to be solved, and the hero moves outward to deal with it.
So the structure is:
leave
confront
resolve
return
The world presents a challenge, and the hero responds through action.
In Chinese material, it is less straightforward.
Classical texts and folklore don’t consistently organise themselves around a single “hero” figure in the same way. There are important characters, but the focus is not always on a structured journey of departure and return.
Instead, there is often more attention on:
position within a social or cosmic order
consequences of behaviour
shifts in circumstance rather than a single arc
So the structure is less tightly centred on one protagonist driving events through action.
Modern Chinese fantasy changes this again.
In web novels and related media, you do get a clear protagonist with a long-term goal, often framed as the pursuit of power or immortality. In that sense, it becomes closer to Western fantasy, especially more adventure-driven or episodic forms.
The difference is that progression is usually framed as self-development over time, rather than a single quest.
So instead of:
leave → resolve → return
it becomes something more like:
start weak → improve → overcome → continue
There isn’t always a final “return” point. The story can keep extending as long as progression continues.
Because of that, action still matters, but it is tied to advancement rather than resolution.
Conflicts are less about solving one central problem and more about:
overcoming successive obstacles
increasing capability
moving through stages over time
So while both traditions involve action, they organise it differently.
Another way to put it is:
Western structure tends to be quest-driven
Modern Chinese fantasy tends to be progression-driven
The surface elements can look similar—fights, journeys, enemies—but the underlying structure is not quite the same.
This is the replacement Religious Romance novel I found but it’s actually more religious romance with elements of erotica. Not saying it bothers me but nothing about the story really speaks to me personally. But I mean, most romances don’t. I am only attracted to certain types of romance dynamics. Overall, solidly written.
Iron and Magic by Ilona Andrews
I didn’t realise how much romance features in this story but it’s acceptable romance as far as I am concerned of the dynamic duo type. Overall, an enjoyable read but not quite sure I’m keen for more. I mean, I came into this book for the setting that mixes magic and technology and it is somewhat interesting. But the rest is okay but not particularly my type of book.
I had actually switched back into doing the character grid for the twin sister story (the other project is now officially on hold although now I am itching to turn my Fate-turned-Cortex game into a novel with a different campaign premise than the one I am running now and have started plotting it as a Fate game).
But I am stopping at 50 grids as opposed to the whole grid of 100 for the twin sisters. This has now created a grid for the abducted sister that is full in Relationships and Moods and mostly filled out for Talents and about 3 or 4 things under most of the other categories. For the other twin, Relationships and Talents still win but the spread is more even for the other categories.
An Empress in the Eastern Han era, one of the six Empresses who reigned at Court during that era.
Notable life events:
Born in approximately 149 AD, as the eldest daughter of the general Dou Wu, a descendant of Empress Dou’s brother.
Chosen to join the Imperial Harem in 165 AD and later made the Empress in the same year but much neglected by the Emperor- she was actually the third Empress that he’s had now
Being jealous and cruel by nature, she killed the favoured Royal Concubine and wanted to kill all of them except she was persuaded against that by eunuchs. She installed the next Emperor into place and began her reign at Court as the Dowager Empress
During her reign, she installed capable officials into key positions that advanced the prosperity and military prowess of the country while leaning on enunches and palace maids such as Zhao Rao at the same time.
She was eventually ‘deposed’ with power reverting back to the Emperor she installed due to betrayal from Zhao Rao and enunches.
She passed away in 172 AD.
Moonlake’s thoughts on her:
I just thought it interesting that she combines political acumen and jealousy (deemed a dismerit in women back in those days). Of course, it’s not that that combination doesn’t exist in history but certainly it’s rare that a Chinese historical woman was portrayed like that because back in those times, womanly virtue specifically included being non-jealous of the other wives and concubines of your husband such that one of the seven rules for disowning your wife was that she was a jealous woman.
Moonlake's Fiction Space 