KLILF

I’ve blogged about the KLILF event in my media gallery as I find it easier to load pictures in Blogger. If you’re interested to find out what you’ve missed, head over there.

My Klang

Klang is my hometown.  I was born and raised here and I don’t have any plans of moving somewhere else.

There are many good things about Klang.  Food galore, especially bah-kut-teh.  The people here are friendly.  In the suburbs, we’re still very much ‘kampung’ folks who easily strike up conversation with strangers at the market.  You can read more about my hometown here.

Star Review

Why I Blog

kue tagged me sometime back. I’m getting quite lackadaisical in responding to tags (sorry, Maya) but I will do this one as it’s quite easily done.

5 reasons why I blog.

1. To keep in touch with readers. I value their comments and feedback.

2. To promote my books. An author must have a platform and this blog is mine.

3. To keep the writing muscles well-oiled. Every writer needs to flex those muscles if she wants to write fit.

4. To get to know other bloggers whom I’d never get to meet otherwise, zewt for instance. I met him at my last book talk. He is a keen observer of life and he writes with refreshing honesty. Today zewt lost his beloved mother. I’d just came from reading his blog and my eyes are still wet. My condolences to zewt and his family.

5. To claim a bit of ‘real estate’ in cyberspace as mine.

Addendum : I blog because I like to.

This Saturday, 24 March, Xeus and I will be speaking at the MPH Breakfast Club for Litbloggers. It’s at 11.00 am at Bangsar Village II. Hope to see some of you there.

Utusan-Exxon Mobil YA Novel Competition

I saw this advert in today’s Star. A very important piece of information – the prize! – is missing so I rang up the secretariat for the information. Here it is :
1^st prize : RM6,000
2^nd prize : RM4,000
3^rd prize : RM3,000

This competition is supposed to be an annual affair. The first one was held in 2005 with a closing date of 1 December 2005. For this second competition, notice that it is Hadiah Sastera Kumpulan Utusan-Exxon Mobil 2006. They didn’t advertise it earlier as they figured people would automatically send in entries as it is a yearly competition. Of course when people don’t know, people don’t submit.

So now they’re advertising. Note the closing date is 30 April 2007, which means participants only have less than one and a half months to knock out their novel. But it’s not impossible. After all, the previous contest’s third prize winner wrote her novel in only six days.

Do you have a manuscript lying somewhere in your drawer or computer? Well, retrieve it and hammer it into shape. The requirement is a minimum of 150 pages, double spaced text. That’s about 37,500 words. Don’t have a work-in-progress? Start from scratch then. If you can’t finish it by deadline, it’s all rightee. Keep it for the next competition which will have a December 2007 deadline. Remember, this is a yearly affair.

Thanks to Utusan and Exxon Mobil for doing their bit for the local writing scene. The winning novels for the 2005 contest are in the process of being published. They should be out in April.

Test : How Malaysian are you?

Here’s a test for you. Read this letter from Ah Beng. Check your score at the bottom to see how Malaysian you truly are.

Thanks you for your letter. Wrong time no see you. How everything? For me, I am quiet find. You say in your letter your taukeh soh want you to chain your look? Somemore you must wear kick kok soo, hope you can wok properly.

Win Honk at Fusion View

If you haven’t got a copy of Honk! yet, here’s a chance to win a copy at Fusion View. I met the site owner, Yang-May Ooi during her recent trip back to KL. If you have heard any of her podcasts and browsed through her site, you may think she has the English stiff upper lip. In person, she’s more spontaneous and jovial than she lets on. Her blog focuses on cross-cultural experiences and writing. She’s the author of two novels, The Flame Tree and Mindgame.

Also at Fusion View is a call for submission of short stories to Italian e-zine Buran. Check it out.

HOT tomorrow

If you happen to be lounging in front of your tv tomorrow, Wed 14 March at about 8.30 a.m., please tune in to RTM2 for my interview on Hello on Two (HOT).

I’m not going to bother asking my friend to help me tape it on her VCR. She has helped me tape two of my tv appearances, but I discovered that it’ll cost a whopping RM100+ to convert it to VCD format. Uh-huh, not value for money, so I’m not going to spend that moolah. Desperate housewife must be circumspect in spending money mah.

Happy Day for Malaysia

I didn’t know there was to be a live telecast of the All England badminton tournament until hubby came down to watch tv while I was folding the laundry.

The first match between Lin Dan and Chen Yu (both China) was borrriiing. Lin Dan hardly raised a sweat to take home the singles title.

Then came our Koo Kien Kiat and Tan Boon Heong against China’s Fu Haifeng (Aaron Kwok look-alike) and Cai Yun. It was so exciting. I felt my heart thudding loudly in my chest, bip-bop-bip-bop throughout the match. Luckily I had the sofa all to myself and could kick and raise my hands as I please.

Timer Help

The humble timer has many uses :

1. Alert me when my stew or porridge is done.

2. Help me in my 10-minute writing exercise.

3. At the hair salon, it alerts the hairdresser when the perm is done.

4. Forces me to complete a chore in a given time, say clear the fridge in 15 minutes.

Now I’ve discovered that it is a handy parenting gadget :

5. Make no. 4 eat her breakfast in 20 minutes instead of an hour.

6. Get her to complete her homework quickly instead of dawdling over it.

What do you use the timer for?

Sold Out!!!

Yesterday Eric Forbes called me with the sweetest news ever.

“Lydia, we’re going to reprint your book. It’s sold out.”

“Really? You mean there’s zero copy left?”

“Distributor told me there’s no more stocks in the warehouse.”

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

If I have wings, I would’ve flown up up to the sky and beyond. How long I have waited for this moment. Six years! I’ve written three books but Honk! If You’re Malaysian is the first to be reprinted. Oh, what joy! If I wasn’t waiting in line at the bank, I would’ve grabbed my son and danced a victory jig there and then.

The fact that 3,000 copies have moved in less than three months is all the more reason for my euphoria. Though the book was available in MPH stores in the Klang Valley from last Christmas onwards, it only appeared in other bookstores in January. This means that in just over two months, Honk is sold out. Whooopeee!

There was more good news. When I popped into Popular after Eric’s phone call, I discovered that my book has made it into the top ten books for February. I so love this list because the statistics are compiled from all Popular bookstores nation-wide and includes all non-fiction books, both foreign and local. To recap, so far Honk! has made it into these best seller lists :

MPH MidValley – No. 1 for local books in the last week of December 2006.

MPH One-Utama – No. 4 for general books for month of January.

Borders, The Curve – No. 5 for the fortnight of 11-26 February.

Popular – No. 10 for non-fiction books for February.

I’m hoping it will make it into the MPH MidValley general books list and Kinokuniya’s list because these stats are published in The Star and The Sun respectively.

A big thank you to everyone who has made this possible, especially my dear readers.

Fresh column

Thor Kah Hoong bids farewell to his column in The Star today.

I have the greatest admiration for columnists who can maintain a pace and freshness year after year, with only an occasional stumble.

Me too. I’m beginning to learn how hard it is to be a weekly columnist. My column in Yellow Post started late last November. It has only been three months and I’m already struggling. It is not a matter of what to write. I have a six-months cache of ideas all lined up already. The trick is how to write it in such a way that is titillating and grabs the attention of the casual reader.

Take the latest article I’ve submitted. In line with International Women’s Day on 8 March, I’ve written a piece on what makes a woman special. I don’t want it to be cliche driven or pedestrian, so I made a list of attributes comparing women to … food. It took a bit of mental juggling to concoct the menu which included mangoes, papayas, Ferrero Roches, apples and putu mayams.

Grab a copy of Yellow Post from selected outlets in the Klang Valley : Popular, TM Point, Focus Point, KL Monorail, Fitnes First, Coffee Bean, Delifrance and The Manhattan Fish Market. It’s a free weekly paper published every Friday.