Been soooooo busy. Am preparing to pursue a masters degree in linguistics; classes begin on Boxing Day. Work has also been consuming me to the point that I have hardly any time (or energy!) left over for writing.

Oh, I bought myself a Christmas present:

(Click for larger image)

Saw it in MPH and just couldn't resist! The new year begins with the word 'ahoight'. I am in love.

I keep holding books in my hands and telling myself that I won't die if I don't have these books, but my strategy isn't working. Obviously needs refining. Aversion therapy, perhaps?

I went to the Big Bookshop sale twice, in a magnificent example of what we locals like to call cari pasal, best translated as 'looking for trouble'. The first time was not my fault. A friend wanted to go, but didn't know how to get there. The least I could do as a friend was give her a ride there, right? Right??

The second time, okay, I admit that was all my own doing. I'd just gotten off work, had nowhere to go, no one to see, and this bright idea popped into my head out of nowhere: "Hey, Atria isn't too far away from here!" -- Atria being the place where the book sale is taking place, of course. So off to Atria I went!

I spent a fortune. The first time, I was extremely restrained (no trace of sarcasm here) and walked away with only eighty bucks' worth of books. The second time... can we not talk about the second time? We can't? Okay, I spent RM244. *faints*

Talking about book sales... how could I skip the Payless Books warehouse sale? I tried very, very hard to stay away... but I was invited to a Christmas party in Subang one evening, and the sale was -- yes, you guessed it -- in Subang. What could be easier than to set out from home a little earlier and "drop by" the sale venue "on the way"? Good thing I only spent about fifty bucks there. *phew*

Total new books = 35. Mind you, I don't read a lot. I just buy a lot of books!

It was during the Payless Books warehouse sale that I realised I don't generally read much fiction, apart from romance novels. I peruse the synopsis on the back cover or the jacket flap and think, "Boring," or "Sounds too involved", and then put the book back down.

It's interesting because I grew up reading fairy tales and Enid Blyton stories, and later graduated to the Secret Seven, Five Find-Outers, Famous Five, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators. For years, my reading material consisted exclusively of fiction (school textbooks don't count).

As a teen, I turned to reading autobiographies and biographies, especially those of Christian men & women. The library in my church -- Sitiawan Wesley -- was well-stocked, and I read of George Whitfield, Hudson Taylor, Fanny Crosby, Stormie Omartian (way before her books on prayer became famous)... and a lot of other people whom I can't remember now.

In recent years, I've mainly been digging into romance novels. Like I once wrote, I've wasted ten years of my life reading 'trash'. Probably because I read mainly to be entertained and to escape, and romance novels are perfect for that purpose. There is a lot of realism in what we like to categories as 'general fiction', and I don't like too much realism bursting my bubble. For instance, I'd never even dream of reading Tash Aw's bestseller!

Unusual plots intrigue me, which is why I savoured Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller's Wife so deeply; her book is very different from the run-of-the-mill novels we get nowadays. (Which reminds me, I must get it back from The Snark so I can reread it.) I also liked Bridget Jones' Diary -- partly, I admit, because Bridget's talent for getting into awkward and embarrassing situations reminded me of myself! Still, one book like that is enough. It's new the first time, but gets old fast.

I keep telling myself I must read more widely and I intend to, which is why I buy so many books. But they remain stacked upon my bedroom floor, as yet unread.

When I flip through the pages of a book, and the writing doesn't captivate me, as far as I'm concerned the novel is not worth reading. That's why I'm reluctant to buy books online -- you don't have the luxury of sampling the writing. A lot of times I find mundane dialogue, nothing that grips me, nothing that says, "You have to read this!"

And sometimes I will buy a book just for one line, one paragraph, one passage. Like this one:

God must have looked at man
and then decided
he could do a better
                        bigger job
make something really beautiful
and so before he stopped to rest
he made an elephant.

(Love's Been Good To Me, by Rod McKuen -- one of my finds at the Payless Books warehouse sale)

Finally managed to get hold of one of Dorothy L. Sayers' books, which, as far as I know, aren't stocked in local bookstores. Found it in Payless Books, that wonderful place which I gravitate to every chance I get.

Lord Peter Wimsey was rather a disappointment. Having heard so much about the aristocratic detective, I expected him to be debonair and suave like James Bond, decisive and in command like Hercule Poirot (minus the aggravating sense of self-importance), but he isn't. He's intelligent but talks like a... a... fop, and doesn't seem to take anything very seriously.

In this book, Strong Poison, he proposes marriage to a lady. There are hints aplenty that he is deeply attracted to her and has fallen for her pretty hard, yet when she asks him why he wants to marry her, what does he say? "Why? Oh, well -- I thought you'd be rather an attractive person to marry. That's all. I mean, I sort of took a fancy to you. I can't tell you why. There's no rule about it, you know."

Maybe that's the way they talked in 1930 (when the book was first published), emotionless and casual. I don't know. But you see he just isn't the smooth character I thought he would be. He doesn't even seem to know what he's doing most of the time!

There was not much mystery as to who committed the crime; half-way through, I'd guessed the identity of the murderer. The only question was how the fellow had managed it. Good murder mysteries will lead you up several garden paths and keep you guessing till the end, which is why I like Agatha Christie so much, despite finding Poirot extremely annoying.

I own several of Martha Grimes' books but have yet to read any, so can't comment on her Richard Jury; likewise, have not read any of Sue Grafton's work, so am not acquainted with Kinsey Millhone. Sherlock Holmes is good but the reader is never given the chance to see what he sees, so despite it being "elementary" we are continually obliged to wait for his explanation before we can understand how he unravelled the crime. That makes Conan Doyle's works very unlike mysteries and more like stories, albeit with a criminal bent. Because, as in all other stories, we simply wait for the events to unfold, as recounted by Sherlock Holmes (or usually Watson, the narrator).

My favourite fictional detective has to be the lawyer Perry Mason, who flies by the seat of his pants and is always getting into tight spots because he takes on his clients without having any idea how he's going to prove their innocence. There's a great deal of humour in Erle Stanley Gardner's writing; the books are also fun because of Mason's on-going rivalry with the assistant district attorney, who hates his guts and is always trying to trip him up. Unfortunately, like that of Sayers', Gardner's books aren't carried by local bookstores either. Frustrating.

At thirty-two, I felt old as the hills. How far away it was, that great man's life I'd promised myself. On top of everything else, I wasn't very happy with what I was writing; at the same time, I really would have liked to be in print. I can appreciate the extent of my disappointment today, when I recall that at twenty-two I'd noted down in my diary this phrase from Töpffer, which had made my heart beat faster: 'Whoever is not famous at twenty-eight must renounce glory for ever.' A totally absurd phrase, of course, but one which threw me into agonies. Well, at twenty-eight I was unknown, I'd written nothing good, and if I wanted ever to write anything worth reading I had my work cut out.
-- Jean-Paul Satre

I'm twenty-eight; I know exactly what he's talking about. I feel the same way -- if I ever want to write anything worth reading, I have my work cut out.

Writing takes a lot of discipline, especially if one's day job is something altogether different and divorced from writing. On one hand, I have to do something that allows me to continue surviving, so that I am able to write. On the other, work can be all-consuming and a very effective drain of my creative energy, thus preventing me from writing. It's a dilemma of sorts, the Sex & Cash Theory.

I still remember reading about the emergency room physician whose short story collection, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures, won the Giller prize this year. In an interview, he said:

I find that I can be exhausted as a writer after having worked a fair bit and still have the energy to go to the hospital. In fact, I'm relieved by the concreteness of medicine. And I can be mentally exhausted as a doctor and I've still got writer energy. They're very different processes. Writing is something that starts from the page and off you go, whereas with medicine, you're confronted with a situation and then have to deal with it.

Maybe he's found the balance between his two professions. I have yet to settle into a career (am currently job-hunting) so perhaps that explains why I have difficulty juggling the two things at the same time. Or is that only an excuse?

Dropped by the Write Out Loud book launch today (very late, I might add) to share in Alexandra Wong's moment of triumph. Alex has been a friend to me since we started chatting online in August 2005. I still have the transcript of our very first conversation, which started with her saying to me:

"Hi, I've never really added a stranger quite like this but I wanted to tell you I like your blog and the last few posts touched a chord."

She wanted to run off after that, but I persuaded her to introduce herself -- "You know me but I dunno you wor". After that we went on to talk about everything from parents to men to online dating to cost of living in KL / PJ to writing for the newspaper. I love instant messaging.

Alex is passionate about writing, and it shows. Local author and newspaper columnist Lydia Teh recently said in an interview that writers must be hungry in order to succeed. I often think that Alex is far more hungry than I. She gave up a lucrative and successful career in order to write, and she actively chases leads, jumps at the chance to network with other writers, and constantly submits stories and articles to various publications. Me, I say I want to be a writer, but am remarkably calm about it. Alex is anything but calm when it comes to this; she is devoted to making her dream come true. So if anyone deserves to have the joy of seeing one of her works published in a short story anthology, Alex's name is the first to come to mind.

At the book launch, I also met Ted Mahsun, a writer / blogger I'd so far only known by name (always see his comments on Sharon Bakar's blog!). It was good to speak with Karen-Ann Theseira, who put the book together, and to hear that a follow-up project is already in the works. She invited us -- BP and Sneexe were also present -- to submit stories for the next anthology.

I don't have anything to show her at the moment. Maybe that should be one of my resolutions for 2007: write more creative stuff. And try to read at least a book a month, since I can't hope to finish reading all the unread books I have!