Moonlake’s Writing Space (and Routine)

The photo is not actually my writing space. Mine consists of only a single monitor and a keyboard and none of the other stuff but it is much too cluttered and I don’t want you to see how messy it is. But I chose the pic above because it is pretty much the standard setup and I’m using AI so I’m just taking the first picture that’s more or less what I want. Anyway, going back to the topic, I’m not a very ritualistic person, rather I tend towards practical and utilitarian so I don’t have a dedicated writing space per se (and besides Wild Writing, I don’t really write by hand anymore). Instead, this is basically a space where I write, work and play games with my PC. 

Now, while I don’t have any writing rituals, I do have a writing routine. It has been evolving but the basic principle is that I pick 5 or 6 days a week to work on my WIP and a set number of hours to devote to writing&related each day. By writing & related, I mean everything that feeds into my writing. Half of it is reading which is split between English/Kindle books nowadays which is purely leisure and what I call emotional reading- re-reading a specific old or new online novel in Chinese and recording down bits where I remember an emotional reaction to. The other half is not all directly related to the WIP but rather more exercises to hone my writer’s craft overall. RIght now, I only have one WIP writing session per writing day (I did have a spell of two writing sessions per writing day but that’s a few years ago now) and I’ve tweaked things from meeting a given word count to achievement based. Part of it is summer lethargy and procrastination and part of it is that there are just a lot of scenes where I feel ‘stuck’ constantly that I encounter everywhere for this project. 

That’s the state of things right now with me. Feel free to leave me comments to let me know what you think. 

23 days Italy, Switzerland and France trip on trains- France part 2

We caught the Flix bus from Annecy to Lyon and though the seats were a bit cramped, we no longer had to worry about porting luggages etc. I felt like I would do more Flix bus intercity trips in the future if I could. 

Our 3 star hotel at Lyon was really cramped but it had a good location. We mainly visited Place Bellecour and Vieux Lyon. Originally we planned to have lunch at Place Bellecour and almost had it at a Chinese wanton shop but the French waitress was adamant that we had to either sit at the table that Mum felt would make everyone gawp at us because we were right in front of the menu or basically share a ‘table’ with the other 3 Chinese customers (it was a row of 3 tables that was jammed together into a big table of 6) when there was an entire row of free tables on the other side. Mum did not like that treatment so we eventually walked off after sitting down at the free table and had food from the supermarket as lunch. We went to Vieux Lyon after lunch but it felt like a waste of time to be honest. We had the Palme d’Or pizza for dinner and I ate most of it because Mum had no appetite. Overall, it was too salty. 

Day 2 at Lyon was spent at Vienne. I think the highlight of this day was the quay and Cathédrale Saint-Maurice and then the rain cut the trip short such that even though I had already bought a return ticket at 5pm Mum decided we would buy new tickets on the spot to get out of the rain. And this is when I found out that I don’t need to prebook the Lyon to Vienne tickets at all because the return tickets bought on the day were exactly the same price as the tickets I bought online. Ah well. We bought something from the supermarket for dinner that day. I think by this point Mum was already down with the cold for many days and I caught mine on the first day in Annecy. 

Remarkable Women in Ancient China (23)- Qiu Jin

Who is She? 

  • A feminist, revolutionist and writer/poet 

Notable Life Events:

  • Born in 1875 (end of the Qing dynasty) as Qiu Gui Jin, to a family of government officials- her great-grandfather was a provincial governor, her grandfather and father held official positions in Taiwan.  
  • She got married in 1896 which was considered late for her era. It was an unhappy marriage as her husband was from a rich merchant family and only cared about enjoying himself 
  • In 1903, she befriended the wife of one of her husband’s colleagues Wu Zhi Ying and became sworn sister with her and she raised a controversy when she dressed in men’s clothes when going to the cinema on the Mid-autumn festival. In the next year, she divorced her husband and using her own jewelry as well as sponsorship from Wu Zhi Ying, she went abroad to Japan to study- she got the opportunity because Dowager Empress Cixi was eager to modernise China after losing the first Sino-Japanese war
  • In Japan, she was very active in revolutionary activities organised by fellow Chinese students, founded a few student groups and eventually got the position of strategist at the revolutionary society under two fellow students who founded the society on behalf of Sun Yat-sen who eventually led the revolution that successfully overthrew the Manchurian Qing Dynasty. It was also in Japan that she changed her name to Qiu Jin. 
  • She returned to China in February 1906 in protest of the laws restricting the freedoms of Chinese students in Japan that came into effect in the previous year. In China, she founded the “Chinese female newspaper” that only had two issues and then co-founded a school for females with her cousin Xu Xi Lin.  
  • In 1907 she took over as the head of a school for sport teachers that was founded by her cousin and others back in 1905 that was really the cover for a place that trained revolutionaries in military skills. In the same year, all the founders of the sports school were executed for assassinating their Manchu superiors and Qiu Jin was arrested in the same year. She could have fled but chose to stay at the female school where she was the principal and was apprehended there by Manchu authorities. She was tortured but refused to admit involvement in the scheme so the authorities used her own writings to incriminate her. She was beheaded in her home village at the age of 31. 

Why is she Remarkable? 

  • According to Wikipedia, “she is considered a national heroine and a martyr of republicanism and feminism”.  

Moonlake’s Thoughts on her: 

I only knew of her as a writer/poet before I looked into her and she actually reminds me of Li Qing Zhao who is also from a family of high societal standings, highly educated, patriotic and a female poet.

Chinese Lore- a selection of mythical fauna (25)

Dai Bird

Physical Description:

An owl-like bird with three eyes and ears.

Special Properties:

Its call sounds like that of deers. Consuming its meat cures diseases to do with too much moisture.

Yao

Physical Description:

A pheasant-like bird with a long tail, a red body and an indigo beak.

Special Properties:

The sound its makes sounds like its name. Consuming its meat prevents nightmares.

Qie Zhi

Physical Description:

An owl-like bird with a white head and red body.

Special Properties:

It has fire resistance.

Qing Geng

Physical Description:

A magpie-like bird with whites eyes, a white beak, an indigo body and a white tail.

Special Properties:

The sound it makes sounds like its name. It is resistant to diseases.

TBR list for 2025

I am yet to read the Doom of Odin and the new Black Jewel trilogy that I mentioned last year. I know I will definitely want to finish the Griminir trilogy but to be honest I am a bit iffy about the new Black Jewel trilogy given the new relationship developments (don’t want to give spoilers so that’s all I can say).

I am not quite sure whether I am continuing with my Oriental fantasy because to be honest, except for Guy Gavriel Kay and the Dandelion Dynasty series, nothing from my Oriental reads so far is actually to my taste. I did have my sights on The Initiate Brother by Sean Russell and some other books but there is no copy that I can borrow from my local library and I’m just not sure that it’s worth actually buying a book just to read it without me knowing beforehand if I would even like it (plus I don’t actually have any spare space in my book shelf right now). On the other hand, I can read the Ascendant trilogy which is inspired or based on Japanese culture. I guess I will see what comes up with my whims. 

I am continuing with the Banned and Banished series for my Craft Read. Curiosity Read will be determined by random browsing. Technically, I did have several books on my list including the Book Thief, Gone Girl, the Girl on the Train etc. But I don’t really feel in the mood for them or my library doesn’t have an electronic copy of it available and I don’t feel that keen for any single one enough to break the rule on physical books. 

My Broadening Horizon read this year has circled back to horror for the genre I don’t usually read and the caper mystery sub-genre has captured my immediate attention when I come across it. My pick for this year’s caper mystery is…. (drumroll) Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter (I’m actually equally keen on Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby but nowadays I prefer ebooks so the other book won out) And for horror, I’m really keen on the Little Stranger by Sarah Waters so I’m going to break the rule on physical books. 

Writing Goals 2025

The broad goal is to get to draft 0.84 which I didn’t get to last year. To be honest, it’s gotten to the point where the delineation between my decimal drafts is pretty arbitrary. I’m incrementing a draft whenever I see significant progress. As to what constitutes as significant, even I don’t have an answer for that. It’s whatever I feel as counting as significant at a given moment when it comes down to it. 

In 2025, I’m planning to embark on a brand new career path of being a translator as an income supplement by doing a one-semester course in the second half of the year. So this potentially cuts into my writing time. Then again, perhaps not, given that I’m already down to one session per day, 5 days a week. I’ve also taken off any word count limits and given it’s summer here, I’m especially lethargic. 

I’m not setting any fine goals this year. I will just see what falls when it falls. 

23 days Italy, Switzerland and France trip on trains- France part 1

The first leg of our French journey was spent at Annecy. I felt a little anxious about this because I had bought the Geneve to Annecy train tickets online (and stupidly bought a specific connection rather than a normal point to point) but when I remembered about the Lausanne-Geneve tickets the day before, it was already too late- I never learnt to use the ticket machines and just queued up for physical tickets everyday in the SBB ticket office. So we got up really early on the day and had to wait for 7am for the office to open. Luckily, at the ticketing office, I found out that we still had plenty of time. To be honest, I could not remember much of the attractions at Annecy because it was so small a place and nothing stood out in my memory. Even going through the photos, I did not think Annecy was that different from what we had seen at Switzerland. I think we snapped exactly one photo of Château d’Annecy (or what I assumed was the Chateau) and then bridges and colourful houses and a big mountain range at a lakeside park (forgot the name). For dinner, I ordered roasted bone marrow for Mum (Mum eats beef bone marrows which is a Chinese dish) and BBQ pork breast for myself. Unfortunately, the bone marrow happened to be coming from a big mutton bone and was too fatty for Mum’s taste whereas my BBQ sauce had a tomato base and tomatoes are not part of my usual diet because I’m born with an aversion to sourness. Epic food failure contrasting with my initial high hope for French cuisine. 

The second day at Annecy was given to visiting Menthon-Saint-Bernard and Tallories. We got to the bus stop without mishaps but I was trying to find bus line 60 to no avail. Luckily, there was a Sibra (the bus company) office right nearby and there I found out that the line 60 no longer exists and has been replaced by line 20 which does not come until 11am (we had already missed the 9ish one; this bus runs for about 2 hours and then there’s a break of about 2 hours until it starts running again). We boarded without mishap but there was really nothing at Menthon-Saint-Bernard except the Chateau and we could not find a way to access it on foot (we kept coming to a sign that pointed to a car-only path towards it) so we did what we did with all the castles we came across: snap a photo of it from below and zoom in with the photo. It started raining in the afternoon so we gave up going on further to Tallories and just returned to Annecy by bus. We ordered half a dozen snails in croquilles (pastry) and meuniere perch fillet for dinner. The snails were okay but out of the four that I ate (Mum was already down with the cold and had a smaller than usual appetite), I only tasted one with a definite meat texture (which I felt was a bit chewy and akin to calamari meat) while the rest just tasted like the whole dish was just creamy garlic sauce. As for my meuniere perch fillet, I guess I had too much expectation for it but being used to steamed fish, a slowly cooked pan-fried fish was not that special. Sure, the fish meat was soft but not a style of cooking that I would be falling in love with. 

Sometimes I lose my way…

This is from Write New Headlines by Andy Stanley. 

Sometimes I lose my way. Usually in the small things but then that’s usually how it goes. 

Sometimes I lose my way. More often I stick to known paths. That’s what you do if you’re direction blind. And prudent. 

Sometimes I lose my way, in time. 

Sometimes I lose my way. I snap free of the reins. 

Sometimes I lose my way, like I’ve wandered into a dark tunnel. 

Sometimes I lose my way, more often I find myself a way out, somehow. 

Sometimes I lose my way. I’m a great believer in self sufficiency, perhaps too much. 

Sometimes I lose my way. But I will find my way out, somehow. 

Sometimes I lose my way. That doesn’t make me special. We might all be partly lost, in different places. 

Sometimes I lose my way.

Sometimes I lose my way and come to somewhere unexpected. But I can’t safely do that except maybe in a shopping centre. 

Sometimes I lose my way, not down a rabbit hole, or not a literal one anyway. I only recently realised the saying came from Alice in Wonderland. Perhaps. 

Sometimes I lose my way. I cannot read the compass at all. But I’ve got a compass app on my phone now. Not really put it to use yet. 

Moonlake’s Writing Updates- December 2024 

I have to be honest and say that I had to revisit my Writing Goals for 2024 post in order to write this. In short, I did not meet my broad goal at all. I’m still at draft 0.83. 

In terms of the finer goals, the first is redundant. I had definitely gone past the mid-point for both my protagonists and I had not really had time to refine the mid-point explicitly and I don’t think that’s the crux that will push the novel forward at this point in time. The second goal is… well, I had expected that I would have a round of structural analysis on the WIP this year but the truth is that I didn’t. It’s hard to say whether this is a good thing or not. 

Not a particularly fruitful year overall but something to be expected given my two trips this year. Onwards to 2025! 

Moonlake’s Book Discoveries : December 2024

Fantasy

The Sisters Mederos by Practice Sarath

I do like this book in that the two Mederos sisters are well developed and you can easily throw in with the two of them in their quest to restore their family. An okay reading experience, not sure if I will come back for more. 

Mystery 

13 by James Phelan 

This is certainly a fast-paced thriller and I wasn’t expecting the ending which definitely invites for more. I will go onto the next book if not for the upcoming holiday and then it will be whenever my whims take me. But a solid work from the author. 

12 by James Phelan 

I have forgotten the previous novel somewhat but thankfully there was a “previously section” that moved me seamlessly into this book. In this book, we continue with the adventures of Sam and the ride with him is certainly enjoyable. I can now see that each book possibly ends with a cliffhanger for Sam and not sure how I feel about that but I guess time will reveal all.

11 by James Phelan 

We continue the chase with Sam and I’m still on board so that’s good. I was pleased by the fact that the conclusion to the cliffhanger in the opening of this book is different from 12. 

10 by James Phelan 

I was expecting a different 13 to be revealed than the one featured in this book. Still, I might not be wrong yet. By now, I feel like the books are a little formulaic in there always being a cliffhanger ending that invites you to jump to the next book. My verdict on it is still the same as when I encountered it in the first book of this series: I don’t hate this ploy but I don’t love it either. But I’m still on board with the series. 

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

To be honest, I found the book a bit too slow in pace for my taste. I actually wonder whether this would be different for someone else who actually knows about the actual case this is based upon. Still, the fact that I stuck to the end means that it is well written enough to keep me engaged.