What I don’t remember (aka Not…)

The jump-off line comes from What Belongs to Us by Marie Howe.

Not the birthday cakes that I once cherry picked for my birthdays. I remember them looking cute or pretty but no exact details. Not the stamp set of animals I once had. Not even my childhood closet- all the princessy dresses I used to have, not that I’m into looking princessy anymore. Not any bracelets- I never managed to hold onto any. I had two but one of them was lost down the drain during a shower and the other I took off and just forgot about, even though my first name was carved on it. It was a silver bracelet and it got too old and dirty even though I did have it cleaned thoroughly once. Not the ability to see shapes and make stories out of clouds when you saw them in the sky. Not the moon or the stars because even though they are not obscured by tall buildings you never really venture outside at night. It’s not safe to venture outside on foot. Not here. Not Sunkist and its fizziness. Not hair ties with cute parts to them. The last one you brought from Hong Kong is now on the double pony tails of your favourite doll, Lily. You still own her but you don’t play with her anymore. You just keep her for sentimentality’s sake but there are days you don’t even notice her at all even though you put her on the dresser table right besides your side of the bed. 

The Role of Etiquette in Chinese culture (5)- Subtlety

Besides a general cultural preference for subtlety, it plays an important role for etiquette. In particular, it features heavily in communications but also relates to the concept of humility, which is a virtue as deemed by Confucianism. 

In terms of communications, there are a lot of things left unsaid or implied. Double entendres are a more prominent component in Chinese compared to, say, English. Chinese people also devise ways to soften a “no” for whatever reasons that an English speaker isn’t restricted by. 

As for humility, Chinese tend to not react to a compliment with a “Thank you” but rather a type of “You must be mistaken” comment.

Of course, subtlety goes way deeper than this, such as me always being hitched up about subtlety when I write fiction. But in terms of subtlety and etiquette, I think I have provided the broad sketch. Let me know via comments if you want to discuss anything in further details. 

Moonlake’s Writing Updates- March 2026

I am currently co-outlining two novel projects and both feel a little autobiographical in nature to be honest (and from this, you can probably tell that I’ve put the thieving friends idea that came from ChatGPT on the back burner. Can’t say that it surprises me). 

The project currently coming out slightly ahead is actually the mage mother and daughter project rather than the twin sisters one. And I have finally named my mother and daughter duo (the daughter with help from GPT because I was just drawing a blank). 

Also, I realised that I haven’t actually talked about the premise for the mother & daughter story so here it is:

Set in a Chinese fantasy world, this story is about a mage daughter who wants to strike out in a new direction of magecraft coming into conflict with her protective traditionalist mother who is also a mage. 

After Yao announced her decision for her research at the Mage Academy, her mother and her had a big argument because her mother expected her to submit something in alignment with their family’s staked realm, benefiting from her mother’s expertise. Even when Yao fought hard enough to get a temporary conditional agreement from her mother to not interfere, she got thrust into deeper waters by the lack of progress on her research and an unexpected gradual revelation of the mysterious family taboo that she had been curious about.

Follow your own Voice

This jump-off line is from Start close in by David Whyte. 

Follow your own voice. It calls to you. Listen to it and follow it. But listen carefully. Make sure it’s your own. The mind is a tricky place. Things enter there and get scrambled. You might mistake something as your own, easily. So be careful. 

Follow your own voice. Follow your own pace. 

Follow your own voice. Make your own way. 

Follow your own voice. Sing your own tune. 

Follow your own voice. Make your own move. 

Follow your own voice. Wake up to the world of truth, that are carefully sifted and cultivated that you have arrived at. Keep sifting through the layers, keep trimming back what no longer apply, discard those splintered twigs. 

Follow your own voice. Be yourself. Reach out and grasp what is rightfully yours. 

Follow your own voice. Accept and explore all facets, then carefully sift and prune, then cultivate, shape it. Have a goal, work towards it slowly but steadily. Why? Because then you are more absorbed in the process. Go quickly, you might miss things. Go slow enough and you get to appreciate the smallness in things. Learn to celebrate the small victories. That’s what life is about. Not one big, whooping achievement but a string of small ones that add up. 

Moonlake’s Book Discoveries- March 2026

Mystery

The Perfect Alibi by Blake Pierce

I vaguely recalled that I had read this author before (of a different protagonist) and I was so-so about it. And the second read still makes me feel the same. It’s not really bad but I’m just not engaged with either the main character or the plot. For a psychological thriller, it’s also not doing much on the psychological front for me. 

What Remains by Tim Weaver

This story features a cold case with a compelling premise and the requisite twist at the end. Overall, a good mystery featuring two characters that work in the murder mystery genre. 

Historical fantasy 

The Judas Blossom by Stephen Aryan

This is counting towards my Oriental fantasy for this year and finally this is a book more to my liking, more historical fiction with just a touch of magic/fantasy. The only oddity to me is that one of the POVs was Temujin (son of Hulagu Khan), which doubles up with the name of Genghis Khan. As far as my research goes, this character seems to be the fictional part of the story and it doesn’t really affect anything in a substantial way, it just registers as an oddity to me, that’s all. Overall, well written. Thinking of reading the whole trilogy pending availability at my library. 

Memoir 

The Dressmaker’s Daughter by Kate Llewellyn

This is the first of my mini reading challenge this year but actually the book itself has nothing to do with water lily or waterlily. The author just previously wrote another memoir by the title of Waterlily. 

At any rate, this is actually a memoir that reads very fiction-like. So I’ve been enjoying it so far.

Upcoming trip to Greece and Italy 

I have an upcoming trip to Greece and Italy in October and my home bases this time are:

  • Greece- Athens, Santorini, Chania, Thessaloníki
  • Italy- Naples, Ortigia, Catania

Our main interest in Greece would be Santorini and we are only doing 1 beach in Chania, the one with pink sand. We feel like we wouldn’t like Athens much except for the Plaka neighbourhood but we would still spend 4 days there with a day trip out to Aegina Island. We would spend another 4 days on Santorini and then 3 days each on Chania and Thessaloniki to round out to 2 weeks. Italy is basically split between 8 days in Naples and a week in Eastern Sicily between the 2 home bases. 

That’s it so far. Stay tuned for my actual travelogue from November onwards. 

Remarkable Women in Ancient China (27)- Deng Sui 

Who is She?

  • An Empress of the Eastern Han dynasty
  • One of the few capable female regents with a positive reputation 

Notable Life Events

  • Born in 81 AD, grand daughter to Deng Yu, a government official who participated the founding of the Eastern Han dynasty 
  • Entered the Imperial Palace in 95 AD, received the title of Gui Ren (Prestigious Person) in 96 AD and made the Empress in 102 AD
  • Regent twice to the two Emperors who succeeded the throne after the death of her husband for a total of 16 years
  • During her reign there was about 10 years of natural disasters and she steered the dynasty safely through this period
  • She was known as being knowledgeable in both astronomy and mathematics, also responsible for many policies spanning over areas of anti-corruption, economic recovery, weapon development, general and female education development, breaking through superstition, funding the key redevelopment of the art of making paper and the development of astronomy equipment. 
  • She helped to foster the development of the world’s first dictionary 
  • She passed away in 121 AD 

Why is She Remarkable?

  • That period of natural disasters under her reign was really the highest in terms of frequency across the entire Eastern Han dynasty and her successful administration of it clearly showed her capability 
  • She became an example for later female regents 

Moonlake’s Thoughts on her: 

I’m a little time constrained and didn’t read her long biography in details so I couldn’t see much personality but again, we definitely have a highly capable educated woman in her. 

English reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Sui

Gaming and writing- Fate session planning adapted to novel outline

Since I last blogged about GMing, I’ve actually started a brand new Fate game rather than dragging the carcass of that old game left by the Fiasco. But that’s not the main point of this post. 

In outlining the twin sister story, I’ve kind of hit a wall in the sense that I can summarise each chapter in one sentence form and that’s about the extent I can take it. So I’ve taken to creating what I call a Fate outline for the story in which I pretend that each session is two chapters of the story (currently I have the story told in alternating chapters between the twin sisters). 

So far, it is interesting in that it makes me focus more on character actions and the consequences they face at a given point in time, also on the constraints they face. 

I’ll keep exploring this avenue as a way of moving forward with the project. 

Mini Reading Challenge 2026- Waterlily 

This is my set theme for this year. A cursory search on my local library catalogue turns up a memoir, a couple mysteries and the remaining spot is still empty. 

The memoir is The Dressmaker’s Daughter by Kate Llewellyn. The mysteries are Deadly Little Scandals by Jennifer Lyn Barnes and Deep Water by Peter Corris. I think I might have read Peter Corris before but I can’t remember much about it so I must have liked his work so-so if I had read it.

As you would notice if you’ve followed me for a while, what I cull for a reading list at the start of the year would often look very different to what I actually ended up reading, sometimes because I Google searched things and not everything is available on my local library catalogue and sometimes just because when I do my routine perusal of my local library catalogue something else catches my attention. So this is the standing list but I make no reservations about changing it at any moment. 

Writing pile 2026

I am going to bring back the concept of having a writing pile for myself. As my last post referred to, I’ve now decided to run three rather than two projects side by side. The twin sister story is still going to be the primary project since I’ve already started to outline it since the other two stories seem still to be lacking a basic plot. Story 2 is still the mother-daughter relationship story and I knew that I am going to set in in my Dragon Empire setting but I can’t seem to find an interesting set of events to peg it towards that I want to develop further. I may dig a little deeper into the characters to see whether that goes anywhere for me. 

For the brand new story 3, this came purely from ChatGPT generated story premises revolving around the concept of found family. I mean, I think I should really face up to it: no other topic interests me except family themed stories set in a fantasy setting. That’s basically the type of story I want to write. And I’ve already used the premise for my last CCC entry. Basically, the basic premise is this: Two thieves, who as children could see spirits, fled the same execution wagon. Befriending each other, they chose to stay together even though they were cursed to age differently. I don’t know much about the curse yet but I do know that I want to focus on how they deal with the curse as they stay together. I even know the title of this story: Night Star which are the combined names of the two friends that are joint protagonists for this story. But I’m not quite ready to move onto outlining it yet. 

That’s all for now. A March update is coming up, by which point more details will be shared.