seventhings to write home about

For those who are going back to work on a Tuesday...

2013-04-02T08:54:00.000+02:00

[image via designsponge]

Cats in beautiful homes

Granta and Tin House on how to run a publication that isn't sexist.

Artist recreates Floorplans of TV show apartments

Sad and funny. Penguins slipping on ice (my favourite bit is around 0:59).

The Bedside Battleground. The New York Times takes a look at the things people keep on their bedside table. (I'm one of those "I need EVERYTHING close at hand" kind of sleeper.)

Florence Welch singing Part of Your World

8 Beautiful Bookstores in Residential Spaces

[image via flavourwire]

strange times

2013-03-30T17:14:00.000+01:00

It's been a strange couple of weeks.

We sent out letters terminating our rental, phone, and other assorted contracts in preparation of our move to Amsterdam

and ever since then, I've been feeling increasingly impatient.

I want to be there already and my mind is often just gone.

(Left the building. Flown the coop.)

I think it might be hanging around the Jordaan district

just waiting for the rest of me to catch up.

To calm myself and [attempt to] settle my mind, I've taken to baking.

I've made rye bread, spelt rolls, pizza dough and a sad, crumbly cornbread.

M loves the homemade pizza so much that we had it twice in a week!

It looks better every time I make it, too. More pizza-shaped,

less like a stretched out, doughy mess...

At least our tummies are benefiting from my distracted state.

Below: shrimp and avocado pizza, and spinach and egg.

The Problem With Lunch

2013-03-11T08:34:00.000+01:00

is ~~it is Boring~~ I am Difficult.

By the time I get up and get going with breakfast, it's ten o'clock but I still want my cereal (oat flakes and puffed quinoa and amaranth in almond milk... I love almond milk). M has a "normal" schedule so he gets hungry at around one. Right before he goes and gets himself a sandwich from the shop five minutes away (they are the only place with healthy takeaway options for lunch), he stands in the doorway of the room where I work and waits for me to decide what I want to eat. He waits and waits and waits while I hem and haw. When I settle for one of the sandwich options, the look on my face is the opposite of enthusiastic. It possibly has something to do with their wet tomatoes. And the cream that they use on their bread.

Today, M said that I should figure out a solution to my Lunch Problem. My not-so-secret solution when he's away at work is to make ramen noodles, a decidedly unhealthy choice. But I'm almost 28. And I figure I should start making proper food for lunch, no? I'm not a big fan of cold food, unless it's warm outside (and I can assure you, it is not).

My requirements are that the meal doesn't take too long to make and that it's healthy. Here are a few recipes I found that might work.

(image from Anjali Prasertong)

Brown rice egg bowl
Twice-baked sweet potatoes
Crisp tuna cabbage salad
Better egg salad
Grilled guacamole (and anything else with avocado)

What do you usually have for lunch?
xx

P.S. I've made a Pinterest board for lunch ideas.

Weekend

2013-03-08T17:46:00.001+01:00

A list of what I liked this week:

Two words: Matcha. Latte.

Todd Selby's (of theselby) morning routine.

Had a bad week? This might put a (teeny) smile on your face.

A good article on Breakfast Network: The "Other" Singapore.

I want to do this someday.

An ICU patient and a note from her best friend.

Nora Ephron's Final Act

Updates!

2013-03-04T09:38:00.000+01:00

Bob Wake of Cambridge Book Review Press posted a review of my book on his blog, the best kind of review anyone with a debut novel can hope for.

In other (somewhat belated) news, I went on air last month to talk about my work and the difficulties fledgling writers face in the industry.

ill

2013-02-24T19:20:00.000+01:00

I wanted to put up a new post but I've been felled by a stomach bug. Hate being ill. I hope I can come out of this zombie state long enough to write something new next week!

BooksActually

2013-02-19T08:30:00.000+01:00

It's been a hectic 12 days in Singapore but I'm back in Europe once again. Sometimes, after a trip like this, I feel lost, like I've just been to Singapore for the very first time because so much change takes place in between my visits. This time, I feel like I've rediscovered it a little. I felt this most during my visit to one of the island's independent bookstores.

I write a lot about change –overwhelming, shattering change– that takes place constantly in Singapore, the kind that shoves people into line instead of letting them walk on their own (or skip, or run). At BooksActually, I felt a great measure of hope. There was a propitious air in that little space, I thought (and that's not just because they stock my novel). The store was filled with people squashing past each other in the aisles, peering at book spines and eclectic bits and bobs.

The store's range focuses mainly on literary work; their own imprint –Math Paper Press– puts the spotlight on local literature as well. You push past the doors and you know, you just know that the people in it (behind the counters as well as in front of it) love books, love reading. I decided quickly that BooksActually might be one of my favourite things about Singapore. It also doesn't hurt that the street it's on is lined with gorgeous cafes and restaurants. If you're ever in Singapore, do pop in and have a look around.

BooksActually
No. 9 Yong Siak Street
Tiong Bahru
Singapore 168645

(You can also find their online store here.)

this week (and last)

2013-02-14T10:09:00.001+01:00

Singapore. Lunar New Year. Food. Friends. Drink. Books.

pictures from the event

2013-02-09T11:00:00.001+01:00

Here's what happened on Thursday evening:

weekend links

2013-02-01T07:09:00.000+01:00

have a good one!

(via Donal Skehan)

why birds sing (via Travels and Daydreams)

courier just got better

diy: from a catalog to your wall (from decor8blog)

so apparently, your cat is evil.

most of what you know about grammar is wrong.

here's where I go when I get overwhelmed by sad, terrible news.

as above: the 10 happiest places on the internet.

/ / /

My Book & I...

2013-01-29T11:22:00.000+01:00

featured in the The Straits Times on Sunday!

The Rights of the Reader

2013-01-28T11:03:00.000+01:00

as illustrated by Quentin Blake...

this weekend

2013-01-25T20:19:00.001+01:00

I'm reading Restlessness...

on writing

2013-01-21T12:33:00.002+01:00

For the past few weeks, I've been busying myself with the launch of the book. In doing so, I've had to recall the process of writing If I Could Tell You. I didn't write it chronologically; each of the chapters were written when the mood struck me, or when I decided I wanted to write about a particular character. It was only afterwards that I thought about the sequence of the chapters, about how I should arrange the characters' stories in relation to another's.

One of them was even written for a class assignment. I got a good grade for it and put it away among the other pieces for class but it kept on bugging me. It was that one chapter which made me think about writing a book about Singapore and the people who live on that cramped little island. The other stories came along soon after that.

Here are the stories about how my stories came together.

The Process #1 - How It Began

The Process #2 - The Impetus

The Process #3 - Research

xo

Friday

2013-01-18T15:50:00.001+01:00

Made it to the weekend!

Kindle edition

2013-01-16T08:36:00.002+01:00

Good news!

My book is now available on Kindle (UK).

updates

2013-01-14T16:36:00.005+01:00

Set up a website for my book.
also a Goodreads page, and a giveaway,
and a Facebook event page.
(Yes, that was a lot of setting up)
Made an invite/poster/bragging sheet (see below)
Ate bread and butter, put butter on my working-at-home-sweatpants.
Too tired to wipe butter off. Or change.

p.s. do drop by if you're on the island!

If I Could Tell You

2013-01-11T16:37:00.000+01:00

When nothing is really yours, not even the flat you grew up in, just where do you call home?

The residents of Block 204 have a few months before their building is torn down, before they are scattered throughout the island into smaller, assigned flats. All of them know they will still be struggling to fit their lives into the new flats years later but no one protests. No one talks about it even as they are slowly being pushed out of their homes.

Not Cardboard Lady, an eighty-year-old woman who sells scraps for a living. Not young Alex, who is left homeless after a falling out with Cindy. Not Ah Tee, who has worked at the coffee-shop on the ground floor of Block 204 for much of his adult life, and whose reaction to the move affects his neighbours in different ways.

For some, the tragedy that occurs during their last days in Block 204 is a reminder of old violence, aged wounds. For others, new opportunities transpire. If I Could Tell You is about silence, the keeping and breaking of it, and what comes after.

Twenty Thirteen

2013-01-04T13:30:00.002+01:00

So.

Passed the end of 2012 without getting into too much trouble

(meaning we had wine but not too much, had rich food but not every day,

and were basically were good and tame).

For entertainment, we devoured

the second season of Homeland,

the first season of The Borgias (with a fiendish but alarmingly sympathetic Jeremy Irons), and

Earth Flight, which was out-of-the-world amazing.

Here's to the rest of 2013...

[image via houseofbourbon]

spellbound

2012-12-18T09:00:00.000+01:00

Julio López Saguar

Spellbound
by Emily Brontë

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

/ / /

the last two weeks in pictures

2012-12-13T14:57:00.000+01:00

It snowed.

And snowed.

We went to Amsterdam

and stayed in a gorgeous little hotel.

Looked into windows.

Gifted myself with two beautiful books.

book cover

2012-12-03T09:48:00.000+01:00

Here it is!

details about the book and its distribution date to follow...

next week, the reveal

2012-11-29T20:39:00.002+01:00

after

all this writing and all this time,

my book will finally be ready next year.

[from visualsupply.co]

I'll provide a sneak preview of the cover next week.

For now, I'll leave you with a link to an article about the daily routines of famous writer...

winter is near

2012-11-28T08:30:00.000+01:00

Are you ready for the cold?

knit sweater from Isabel Marant

turtleneck top

from Vince

chai toddy

from food52

stacks

from firstsightdaily

berry torta

by verdade de sabor

Dali, looking like father Christmas

by Robert Lebeck

little things

2012-11-21T01:18:00.001+01:00

a stack of magazines

"Inside" by Yvonne Kone and Line Klein

an espresso chocolate cupcake

by call me cupcake

"night smoke"

from need supply co.

metallic liner

via over the rainbow's too far

flowers

photo by Nina Broberg, from Ikea livet hemma (via cherry blossom blog)

Tracy and Hepburn

from MGM

. . . .