At the Shopping Centre

I made an unplanned excursion to Suria KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Centre to my non-Malaysian visitors) on Friday and was bowled over by its nifty Eid decorations. At centre court, there are strings of giant mock ketupat* hanging from the ceiling and pretty mosque-like wire domes resembling chandeliers. They have kampung* homes erected ala old-style streets at the concourse with batik painting in one, bridal gift-making in another and even a  kuih*-making demonstration to imbibe the spirit of Eid and Deepavali. Unfortunately, I did not bring my digital camera with me. But it all looked buoyantly festive.

Of course, my legs found their way to Kinokuniya on the top floor. And there, I found this gem of a book “Fondling Your Muse” by John Warner whose pages made me laugh out loud. Watch the vidlit (a book trailer)  of the book here. And here’s an excerpt from this irreverent tome:

In today’s entertainment world, risk is punished while treading the well-worn path is rewarded again and again and again. The only ground you should think about breaking is in your spacious backyard—for your new pool, paid for by your fat advance, earned by writing a book just like books that have already sold by the bucketful. Fortunately, 99 percent of today’s published fiction adheres to very specific, easily replicated formulas that can be broken down to simple recipes. Just choose one of these templates, and you’re off and away. 

John Grisham’s Legal Thriller Stew

Ingredients

• 1 youthful idealist either in or fresh out of law school
• 1 setting in a decaying southern city
• 1 corrupt institution
• 1 pinch ethical dilemma
• 1 moment of truth
• 7,000 mixed twists and turns 

Preparation

Thoroughly mix all ingredients in large bowl. Over extremely high heat, boil in pot until ingredients bubble over line of believability. Serves at least a couple million per batch, more if served with a movie tie-in. 

Chick-Lit Cacciatore

Ingredients

• 1 unconventionally attractive, romantically frustrated heroine
• 1 caddish boss (can substitute caddish co-worker, caddish former boyfriend, or caddish jockey) 
• 1 overprotective mother who wishes her daughter would just settle down
• half-dozen comically embarrassing situations (use more or less, to taste)
• 1 perfect ending reminiscent of that last scene in Pretty Woman, where Richard Gere realizes that he really could spend eternity with Julia Roberts, even though she has spent her entire adult life as a prostitute 

Preparation

You know the drill. Satisfies many, every single time. I can’t explain how, either.

I didn’t buy a copy yesterday but I probably will in future. It seems Kinokuniya is showcasing books on writing these days as this book, along with around a dozen others, were all displayed on a table close to the popular Japanese book section. A sign of things stirring in Malaysia’s bookworld, hopefully.

I noticed local author Xeus’s Dark City on the shelves, found an open copy, read the first page and couldn’t put the book down until the whole tale was finished. Xeus’s writing is elegantly understated, her dialogue noirish and she does clever flashback cuts to increase the suspense. This former fan of twisted, violent tales was impressed. It’s another book to add to the shelves next visit.

*Ketupat = Compacted rice prettily packaged in palm leaves
*Kampung = Village

Filed under: At the Stores, Books, Malaysiana, Personal Note, Writing

Off Topic: Eid and Dresses

With Eid celebrations three weeks away, I am getting panicky at the amount of preparations that I have not yet done: the home spring cleaning (the curtains! the windows!), the stocking up of kuih*, the shopping for my kids’ and hubby’s clothes, the request for leave from work and travel planning to the in-laws’, getting the money packets ready for nieces, nephews and neighbourhood kids who will drop by my in-laws’ place for these goodies.

I have yet to get my baju* prepared for the celebrations and I only hope that – as per last year – I will find a boutique with a lovely baju kurung or kebaya my size at a price below RM500. I keep promising myself I will find a good dressmaker and transform the pieces of materials that have been lying in my cupboard into real outfits. But the materials are so beautiful – one of them is a gift from my husband from more than five years back – I am loath to pass them to a tailor I don’t trust. And I have yet to find a tailor I do trust. The cut, you see, is very important, and only a handful of dressmakers have the eye and hand to make those exquisite cuts that will make the material hug and flow in all the right places.

It may be the age of technology, but good dressmaking remains very much human. And, as I am all thumbs when it comes to sewing (see sidebar), I desperately need to find capable sewing hands for my traditional dresses.

Suggestions welcomed.

*Note: Kuih = Malay pastries/desserts/biscuits
Baju = Outfit

Interesting Articles:

• In Era of T-shirts, Kurungs Survive, IHT, March 2, 2000
• Is the essential skill of sewing hanging by a thread? The Herald, UK, September 26, 2006

Filed under: At the Stores, Personal Note

Creative Writing, Week 5

Is it week 5 already?

What strikes me each week is how extraordinary the ordinary life can be when closely examined and minuted in words. That, I suppose, is what writing does – it brings into sharp relief all those tiny little details of living that you would otherwise have ignored and forgot. And it pins down nuances and expressions and, oh, those feather dustings of meaning that layer each encounter and event.

The better a writer you are, the finer will be your word strokes, and the stronger will be its resonance in others’ minds (and hearts).

The class has two weeks to practise our strokes on a ministory.

ps: On a different note but still something I took away from class tonight – it is time to demand that My Man prepares for me Breakfast in Bed!

Filed under: Personal Note, Writing

Families are like Soap Operas

Anyone who thinks their family is boring is not paying enough attention.

Every family is a mini soap opera in action. Like Dynasty, Dallas, Knots Landing or the Bold and the Beautiful, all families will have their own JR, Alexis, Abby, Thorne and Sue Ellen. The difference is in the scale of theatrics and the frequency of family dramas – tensions simmer than explode, battle lines drawn via private conversations than screaming headlines and revenge meted out through personal letters and (dis)invitations. Some feuds escalate to the point where family secrets are divulged or third parties are drawn in, but usually, it’s only those within the circle who are aware of the undercurrents.

They are difficult to capture, these thorns and spikes of family life. Try explaining a squabble between your two aunts to an outsider and you’d find out how impossible it is to clarify the origins of the squabble, without dragging in at least a decade’s worth of family history. Try writing about your family and it gets even harder. In this article (Writing About Family: Is It Worth It?), essayist/writing professor Mimi Schwartz explains the dangers of writing about the family: privacy issues, the threat of lawsuits, the risk of causing hurt and ill will, and, of course, the horror of producing bad writing.

The risk of ill will is often reduced by gaining distance from the material. Wordsworth’s advice—to let emotion be recollected in tranquility—is particularly apt for family stories because one’s initial impulses to write about family often begin with self-pity or fury. The result is an impassioned journal entry, but a dull read for others. As I warn my students, the more you make yourself the hero of memoir, the more readers sympathize with your adversaries. You become a Woe-is-Me character who, as in life, overpowers the urge of others to root for you.

To avoid this, I remind them (and myself) of writer Bret Lott’s advice that a memoirist, in particular, must think of truth as having a small t, not a big one—as in my truth rather than the truth. Fiction writers do this more naturally, particularly writing in third person, for they have invented every character, and so are invested in letting each one make his or her own strong case for truth. But in memoir, when the ‘I’ represents both author and speaker, the temptation is to become myopic with self-centeredness—to see the world, especially family, as we did as children: full of heroes and villains, victims and victors, bullies and wimps. Unless we challenge these initial certainties—my father was a saint, my sister a prick—we lose the complexity of character that make readers care about and trust our vision. It’s that complexity that offers the best chance to hear “You got it just right.”

“Writing About Family: Is it worth it?”

I doubt I ever will write about family – there would be scores of invisible “editors” over my shoulder to give me endless headaches and guilt complexes, I am sure. But sometimes it seems a shame to let all the family anecdotes and childhood legends disappear without inking them down for future generations.

Anyway, Ramadhan starts tonight and is always a good month for rifts to mend and wounds to heal. Whether written down or not, the threads of family life will continue to be woven, around breaking of fast gatherings, Eid preparations and Raya celebrations.

To all my Muslim readers, may you have a fulfilling, rewarding and enriching Ramadhan, and may your family ties benefit from the magic and spirituality of the fasting month.

Filed under: Personal Note, Writing

The (Business) Booker Shortlist

Okay, so it’s really called The FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award and the purpose is “To identify the book that provides the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues, including management, finance and economics” (or how not to make your reader fall asleep while you are expounding theories of management, finance and economics).

This year, the second year of the award, from an initial list of 140 titles, the panel of judges* have narrowed down their “longlist” of 17 to just 5 books (almost like the Booker, isn’t it?):

• Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail
• Bo Burlingham’s Small Giants
• Charles Fishman’s The Wal-Mart Effect
• James Kynge’s China Shakes The World
• Marc Levinson’s The Box

Book excerpts are here.

The shortlist seems to consist of books with narrow subject areas and, except for The Long Tail and The Box, relate mostly to the US of A, although the judges insist that the theories and practices can be applied to the global scene. It was different last year, when Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat, won the award (I am happy to confirm the book is entertaining and enlightening).

Still, from the shortlist, I would consider the book on China and Marc Levinson’s which is on the container industry. The Long Tail has its own website and for some reason reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. Both are on marketing/trendspotting but (I assume) offer different theories.

The selection criteria is not as easy as the yawn test.

What sorts of books are likely to interest the judges in 2006? Jack Welch’s book (Winning) did not make last year’s shortlist and the Buffett and Greenspan titles will not appear in time for consideration this year.

Clearly, globalisation – the rise of China and India, in particular – the impact of technology, and the emergence of new competition for the established corporate giants are the three big themes that should generate compelling business narrative. But books that manage to extract entertaining and broad lessons from a specific case could also be in the running.

The search is also on for a “distinctive voice” that has not been heard before. “This year we not only want to find the best business books but also the next big name in business writing,” says Lionel Barber, the FT editor.

But this is the part I like the most:

Finally, as publishers test the boundaries of the business book genre, who is to say that the most enjoyable insight into the essential drama of 21st century corporate, economic and financial life might not, one of these days, come from a novel, rather than a work of non-fiction?

Ha.

*■Lionel Barber, editor, Financial Times ■Lloyd C. Blankfein, president and chief operating officer, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc ■John Gapper, chief business commentator and associate editor, Financial Times■Jeffrey Garten, Juan Trippe professor of international trade, finance and business, Yale School of Management■Rachel Lomax, deputy governor for monetary policy, Bank of England ■N. R. Narayana Murthy, chairman and chief mentor, Infosys Technologies■Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive, WPP

Filed under: Newsprint, Reads, Work & Productivity

Creative Writing, Week 4

• It’s exciting to be able to roam inside your dreams and imagination. My problem, as I told our ever-encouraging teacher, is that I can never see enough details or describe them well. I doubt that I even dream in colour though I certainly daydream quite vividly!

• I try not to read too much into dreams especially those that make my hairs stand on end or end with me waking up gasping for breath and uttering Quranic verses. These dreams make you remember why you slept with the light on as a kid.

• I was intrigued by the book “Writers’ Dreams” passed around in class, especially as it features Anne Rice and Stephen King. I will look it up but…..(see below)

• Lastly, even as I eagerly look forward to Tuesday evenings, there is growing resistance to what the yuppie side of me labels fun but useless creative pursuits. “Don’t get sucked in too deep,” the corporate suit is warning.

  Yes, Ma’am, the sensible side of me says, and I dutifully pack Drucker instead of Didion into the briefcase and stubbornly resist buying another creative writing book (I seem to have collected quite a few of them over the years).

  But the briefcase is not with me all the time. And the muse can roam more freely during the weekends, and of course, on Tuesday evenings at the Creative Writing Class.

Filed under: Reads, Writing

A Reader’s SOS

By my bedside, balanced in precarious stacks and columns, about 40 books represent a rough count of ones I’ve read, am waiting to read, want to re-read, plus ones I started and put down, but which one day may lure me to their pages anew.

The Mechanic and The Muse, 6 August 2006

Inspired by the above blogpost and given that the space on my bedside table is fully taken up and the lamp has to be relegated to the carpet or the bed, I decided to total up my To-Read Pile. The result is frightening, and I don’t mean this in any braggy sort of manner but in a true panic. How am I going to find the time to read all of these books and how am I ever going to get the intellectual returns I am hoping for if I don’t?

At today’s count, I have:

• 7 Fiction Titles
• 9 Non-Fiction Titles (after discounting books taken from my company’s library)
• 10 Management and Work-Related Titles

All these exclude the hefty textbooks I have to read as part of the part-time education I am pursuing.
I used to be a One-Book Woman. I’d read a book from start to finish and only move on to another book once I’m done with one. But in recent years, I have found it very difficult to stick to just one book at a time. My interest will wane and I would be making unplanned excursions to the bookstore and coming away with more titles. I’d read the new ones, feel guilty about the older books and resume reading them when I feel guilty enough. I blamed it on a shorter attention span and that gave me another reason to be worry.

But writer Joe Queenan has a refreshingly different take. He reads at a minimum 25 books simultaneously (of course, he is also blessed with a superior memory, being able to recall after six months where he left off mid-book).

Friends say that I suffer from a short attention span, but exactly the opposite is true. I do not stop reading books because I lose interest in them; if anything, I have too long an attention span, one that allows me to read dozens of books simultaneously without losing interest in any of them…..The closest I can come to understanding my reading habits is the possibility that I became addicted to starting books as a child because books usually take off like a house on fire but then ease up around Page 70.

Why I Can’t Stop Starting Books, The New York Times Book Review

He’s also a persistent reader.

Starting books always makes me feel that a long-awaited voyage has already begun; that while it may take five years to finish Boswell’s “Life of Johnson” or “Remembrance of Things Past,” these are no longer dimly envisioned projects like learning to play the accordion or fly a helicopter, but in some way a real part of my life. Other people say, “One of these days, I’m finally going to get to ‘Ulysses.’ ” Well, I’ve already gotten to “Ulysses.” I’ve been getting to “Ulysses” for the past 25 years.

I am not reading 25 books simultaneously nor do I have a book to finish that I started ten years ago (I never continue past one year so they get abandoned) but I do find it an enormous challenge to squeeze in reading time for the handful that I have started, and, not having the super memory that Mr Queenan has, find it frustrating to have to backtrack to remember what I last read a month ago (in Bill Bryson’s Short History of Everything, was I at atoms or seismic shifts?).

I am also admittedly more a fiction afficionado than a non-fiction fan, which makes my reading of non-fiction, despite how interesting I find them (and they are entertainingly enlightening these days), more gelatinous-like compared with my easy swims with fiction.

If anyone has ideas on how a career Mom who is also a part-time student can be a more efficient reader, please, let me have them. Otherwise, I shall seriously contemplate a speed reading refreshers course.

Filed under: Reads, Writing