Resisting Organizations

by | | Red Hourglass

In my entire life, I resisted being part of any organisation. I refused to get a job, dropped out of grad school, precisely because I felt suffocated by having to follow rigid rules and code of conducts that suppressed my creativity. The moment I felt I wasn’t expressing myself, I would just drop out of projects although I am on the verge of finishing them. My life has been about running away from getting dominated. Or dominating others.

Even my blog, videos, and books are about resisting organisation and going undercover, into espionage mode. I was a very curious child, I would read tons of books to find ou the answers to life and of course reading more equates to more questions instead of answers. I designed my life in a way to avoid being committed to any organisation and would go rogue if I am forced into one, including relationships with men.

I spent years travelling in different types of accommodation – five-star hotels, sofa, backpackers hostel. I tried them all. I did not want to be confined to just one type of life, I wanted to experience life from different perspectives. I dated guys from rich and poor families, and tried to elope with my bf in Australia but failed. I still speak to my cousins on a regular basis although they are doing very different things in life from what I am doing, I still prod them and ask them what is life next for them?

I had put myself on the fringe of society to examine society from the outside in. But I don’t feel belonged to any one society or any country. My identity is not related to where I studied, done or did. It is fragmented and each piece of me belongs to a different part of the world I had visited, and it continues to expand as I explore new boundaries.

I reside nowhere and belong nowhere. I am not part of just one organisation, but many organisations. I refuse to stay in cliques and prefer deep one on one conversations. I am not the sum of one, but the sum of many. For this, I give the world my perspective but my perspective is one of the many perspectives and it is not the “real” or “truth”. It is for each to discover through the journey of the characters I created in my Scarlet Queen Universe.

The underbelly of China’s economic success juxtaposed with the decline of America are the themes I explore in the Blue Orca. I would regard the Hourglass Series as my thesis on the reality of the world we live in today. Pre-order now at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M1MPRCI

Blue Orca Research

by | | Red Hourglass

Blue Orca is written from Mimi point of view. As part of my research for the novel, I had spent hundreds of hours watching documentaries and reading up about China. Similarly to what I had done for Red Hourglass, which was written over the span of four years and two trips to New York, I try to make fiction as close to reality as possible.

I had been to Beijing twice, and Shanghai once. My favourite lake in the world is in Hangzhou West Lake. I would happily retire by West Lake writing chinese poetry. I dread Hong Kong as I feel very uncomfortable in small spaces.

I used to only be able to write dialogue between two people and that itself is a challenge. Now, I had upped my game to have dialogue conversations between three people or more. I would attribute dialogue writing as my greatest flaw. Instead of four years, I had given myself one year to publish Blue Orca. Insane, I know. But possible.

I stumbled upon this documentary today. Emma’s voice is ringing in my head. It is about Chinese female orphans adopted overseas. In my dream life, I would foster and adopt children in future. It’s writing about this topic that moves me greatly to want to eventually turn my attention to orphanages – by giving women a voice and chance in life that they would not have otherwise experience. I hope my books will eventually draw more attention to these social issues and end the suffering of children.

Preparation on the Last Stretch – Red Hourglass Novel

by | | Red Hourglass

I took a one month vacation and gained new perspectives on how to go about in my future endeavours as a professional artist (defined as: one who works full time at her craft). I have a schedule which I tabulate the number of hours I spend a week on my artistry, which amounts to about forty hours a week. It’s a full time job almost – just that I do not have a boss or fixed pay check at the end of the moment. I do not have much financial rewards. However, there is a secondary kind of reward – fan mail from fans, recognition, and overall satisfaction of life, which I had been receiving since I resumed filming and writing.

I am on the final stretch of revising and checking for the final edits on my novel, the Red Hourglass. It’s like almost a devotion to a religious manuscript at this point. I have to remember, and find out what is working and what is not working. I had identified some small weaknesses, but overall I feel quite happy at the end product at the moment. It’s only one month left till publication and the amount of edits I can do is limited at this point.

The difference right now between the original first draft to this final draft is that I feel an adrenaline rush reading it. It’s like being in a race almost. It has a thriller like quality to it. It’s like a movie on fast speed. I had NEVER imagined my novel to be this, from where I started – it has exceeded my expectations. There is a saying “write what you do not know” to stretch your imagination. If you are in New York, write about what if you were living in Los Angeles. Precisely because of that, I think I had been driving my imagination crazy about writing in a context of a place I am not situated at.

One of my beta readers feedback is that the final draft is like “being on an adrenaline rush without coffee.” I had admittedly, probably consumed about a thousand cups of coffee to write the Red Hourglass. Maybe it’s the the sum of my mental hardcore process of condensing many things in a few words. When I read it now, I recall several memories here and there – when I wrote it, sometimes about my own life, sometimes what I watched or replayed to study (character studies), etc. It’s like reading what I did four years of my life in one book.

There are many people who dream out there to write their own novel, having almost finished my first novel, I have this to say – just do it. Just sit down and write. No one is going to push you to do it. Just do it because YOU want to do it. The process is fun, and the end product is satisfying. I would attribute the completion of my novel is the major milestone in my life. It’s not even about my graduation day that was my milestone – it is this. This is the ONLY thing I did for myself in my life. I graduated from university because I was EXPECTED to graduate. There is a difference in that.

As I go about two more weeks of final changes, I have to say I am very excited for the launch of the Red Hourglass on 30th October 2015. The day before Halloween 🙂