Tropic Temper

Perlis State Park continued...

2012-02-01T00:34:00.000+08:00

Along Forest Trails...

A palm fighting for light in the understorey

Liana curling on the right...

Bahaya Rengas - beware the rengas tree. Some people react very badly, leading to anaphylaxis.

A flower-strewn path. Forest trees often have millions of tiny flowers.

And here's a look at those flowers on the path

Forest pool

The beginning of the climb up Mount Perlis

More from our Xmas trip to Perlis State Park

2012-01-30T16:01:00.001+08:00

Fungi and Leaves

Bracket Fungi on a tree trunk

Fungi growing on leaf litter

Fungi on a fallen log

Fungi on a tree

Fungi on a fallen branch

"Autumn"(? )leaves in the rainforest at Xmas...

Why I haven't posted much lately

2012-01-29T16:12:00.002+08:00

Yeah, I know. I haven't been posting lately. We are sorting out our house, throwing away things, deciding what it going to end up with the kids, and what we will take to Australia when we go, and what will stay here for my husband, who will -- we assume -- still be working here for a while yet. The house, however, will go up for sale soon.

This is the kind of life-change that many people have to make after the kids have left home. Do we really what to rattle around in a HUGE house, large garden, with all the expenses of upkeep, the large amount of housework that the tropics loves to give me to do? We've decided that we don't.

Yesterday I gave away 188 SF/F and crime books. This week I will be going through the more literary-type fiction. My husband has been disposing of outdated papers and files...

The manuscript has been put away for the time being after the completion of the "first" full draft. I always do this, as I find that there's nothing like separating myself from it for a while, then coming back to it. The mistakes tend to leap off the page.

If you know anyone who wants a 5 bedrm/3bathrm single-storey house and garden/orchard complete with mature rambutan, sukun (breadfruit), avocado, pink guava (jambu), and longan trees, markisa (passionfruit) vines in Bandar Baru Bangi... It'll be up for viewing around the end of February.

In search of oneself

2012-01-13T14:58:00.000+08:00

This was the Four-lined Tree-Frog in my kitchen this morning. I tried to catch him and put him out, and he managed to disappear, only to reappear (see second photo)...

Yes, that's him on the book case, reading the titles of the books. He's darkened himself to match the cover of my husband's honours thesis on pregnancy urine. For those of you who remember that they used to use frogs to determine if a woman was pregnant, that might seem so wrong on so many levels, but I assure you, he's obviously looking for the book on the far right, titled "Frogs and Toads of the World."

Told you he could read.

New book, new cover...

2012-01-06T09:56:00.000+08:00

Marvellous what you find on the internet when you are looking for something else...like a book by yourself (and your translator!) I have no idea who the cover artist is, but the translator is Susanne Gerold and the publisher is Blanvalet. It is due for publication in September.

And for those who don't speak German, from the cover,
what's the book?

The literal translation is "The Federation of Illusionists" -- Whispering Sand

More from my Xmas trip to Perlis State Park

2012-01-02T14:55:00.000+08:00

Christmas dinner -- lovely fresh seafood -- was eaten at sunset in Kuala Perlis beside the Andaman Sea, looking out towards Langkawi Islands. Unfortunately, the haze was bad so you really have to strain your eyes to see the islands, and the photo doesn't show them at all!

A bus-stop in Perlis, along a country road

Sugar Cane fields

Rice fields

Nakawan Range, bordering Thailand--a 36km continuous limestone hill

Where we had a quite delicious Xmas dinner

2011 in retrospect and what's on the plate for 2012

2011-12-31T18:33:00.000+08:00

In some ways, 2011 was an important year.

Here are some of the things that happened, in no particular order of importance:

Stormlord's Exile was proofed and published in US, UK and Australia. It received excellent reviews from bloggers, Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times etc etc. and so another trilogy came to an end. Sales in Australia have not been good, but wonderful elsewhere! Talk about irony...
Der Heiler (i.e. Gilfeather) came out in Germany
Guerisseur (Gilfeather mass paperback) came out in France
Corrumpue (The Tainted mass paperback) came out in France

I wrote a whole book, called The Lascar's Dagger*

I travelled to Cambodia (Siem Reap and Angkor Wat with my elder daughter and family, and my sister -- also met up with my nephew there), and twice to Thailand (Krabi and Pattaya)

I travelled within Malaysia to Langkawi Islands, Penang, twice to Perlis State Park

I went twice to Western Australia to settle on a place for our retirement (which will happen one day), and we put a deposit on a patch of land in Mandurah

I had a book Stormlord Rising shortlisted for two awards (Aurealis and Ditmars). (As usual, it didn't win.)

Much to my genuine astonishment, I had a trilogy (the Mirage Makers) voted as the second most popular completed Australian sf/f trilogy (after Sean Williams' The Books of the Cataclysm)

I went to yet another fabulous Swancon. I look forward to going every year soon!!

The birding tourism project was completed. This year included writing the final report, giving some birding courses to guides and stakeholders in Fraser's Hill and Lake Temenggor, and taking part in presentations of the material and in a seminar. In fact, this was probably my retirement year, as far as a "normal" working life is concerned ... although one never knows. I haven't ruled more work out, but there's none in the offing. Which is pretty damned big, come to think of it. I have not always worked full-time, but I don't think there's been a year since ... um... 1959 that I haven't worked at all. Wow, 2012 could be my first year of unemployment (if you don't count writing of course...).

And of course, every year has its downside stuff:

I was diagnosed with Sjogren's Syndrome
I was unable to sell the present work in progress on the basis of a proposal (sign of the times? I'm not the only established author to come across this one of late!)

What's up for next year?

Who knows?

Here are some things on the cards that might happen, all being well:

Due out: Die Magieren in mid-January (The Tainted in German)
Due out: L'Ombre de Tyr in February(?) (Shadow of Tyr in French)
Sell the new trilogy Sorcery and Spice*
Re-publish Havenstar
Start building the house in Mandurah and sell the present house in Malaysia
Have both daughters visit us in Malaysia
Take a road trip to the Murchison/Gascoigne with husband and sister

In the meantime: Happy New Year!!

*Working titles

What I was doing Xmas Day

2011-12-30T14:59:00.000+08:00

Proving I can work anywhere, any time.

A photo from Perlis State Park (yeah, we went back there).

Note the leech socks as a precaution.

Also the binoculars and note book, in case something interesting passes by.

Seasons Greetings

2011-12-25T19:47:00.000+08:00

To everyone, no matter what your faith.

I'm staying in the middle of the rainforest and had to emerge back to civilisation for a bit in order to telephone the kids...so taking this opportunity to hope all my friends and readers have a safe and happy holiday.

Twenty-one years ago we were on top of the twin towers

2011-12-12T22:16:00.002+08:00

21 years ago, I went to New York for the first time. Husband was on duty travel for the UN, I tagged along. This is us with the Malaysian Ambassador to the UN at the time. The year was 1990.

Unfortunately the camera lens was dirty, hence the spot in the middle.

And, of course, what did we do? We went to the Twin Towers.

Husband

Me with the Ambassador

Down on the ground again

Husband in front of the UN building.

Today husband was cleaning out some old files and he came across these. I've been to NY plenty of times since, including the time daughter was giving her defence of her Ph.D. thesis, but these photos are of the only time I went up the twin towers. The last time I saw them was a couple of months before they came down -- as I was flying out of Newark, I had a window seat. I remember thinking, lord, how huge they are in comparison to everything else around them...

Wild animals are -- guess what -- wild.

2011-12-08T11:20:00.001+08:00

Sad news out of Sabah. A young Australian tourist died while apparently -- if news sources are to be trusted -- taking photos with a flash of a single bull elephant in the Tabin Wildlife Reserve. From just 10 metres away.

I am so saddened by this whole incident. An unnecessary death of such a young person, with so much to offer the world.

She was a vet, and I find it a little surprising that someone so experienced with pets would not be a bit more wary of wild animals. If a domestic cute dog can bite when cornered and frightened...what is the logical expectation of a wild animal?

On two separate occasions I saw herds of wild elephants in Sabah. I also saw how they were respected by the guides of the Danum Rainforest Lodge. They would never have dreamed of deliberately getting ten metres from an elephant in an a tough off-road vehicle, let alone on foot. So what was the guide at Tabin thinking?? Or did the visitors he was guiding ignore his advice?

Here's the photo I took of a herd of elephants at Danum, through the windscreen of a 4WD. The guide stopped the car and did NOT approach any closer. He knows the elephants.

Elephant culture is such that the boss of the herd is the matriarch. Males leave the herd in their "teenage" years and are henceforth never a permanent member of the group. They are known to be irascible and sometimes aggressive, also susceptible to "musth" or periods of testosterone overload when they are absolutely unpredictable.

Who on earth thought it was ok to step up to a bull elephant and take a photo? Sabah rainforest ain't no zoo!

In one way, I blame these plentiful wild animal TV shows, where we are shown details of a bug strolling across a lion's mane, giving the impression that the cameraman was within stroking distance of the lion king. Believe me, she was not. The modern cameras these guys lug around can take that same shot from 500m away.

Worse still are the animal wanglers, wrestling everything from snakes to fish to crocodiles into submission in the name of "science" (pah!) as if they were cute cuddly teddy bears. They either have a death wish, or they are supported by a whole team of people with cattle prods and stun guns and tasers and anaesthetic darts and nets and poison antidotes.

Wild animals are ....WILD. You keep your distance.

Yeah, I know there are greedy opportunists selling you bags of peanuts so you can give them to the monkeys at some tourist spots. DON'T. Worse still, don't give the bag to your cute 3-year old daughter to feed that monkey (which I have seen stupid Malaysian parents do). Have you had a good look at the canine teeth on an adult macaque lately? They are as long as my thumb.

I've spent many weeks in the rainforest, camping in flimsy tents, walking the trails knowing there were tigers in the vicinity, seeing the leopard and bear tracks, having the orang utan throw things at out boat in anger because he thought we were too close (we were actually too far away to be hit), seeing the cobras and the vipers. I am not particularly nervous, but believe me, I don't do anything stupid either. It's wild out there.

Using the moments between now and next...

2011-12-06T09:33:00.004+08:00

I have always maintained that I can write anywhere. If I was the kind of writer who could only create in a silent study with the door closed, I'd never have been published.

Me with my Mac in Perlis State Park a few days back

The formative writing years crafting my skills were to the background of children's squabbles, and constant interruptions. Later, the years as a published writer coincided with my career working on projects to do with the ornithological component of the Malaysian rainforest. That meant loads of travel -- by boat, plane, car or on foot with a backpack; staying everywhere and anywhere, from 5 star accommodation complete with imported Dead Sea salts in the marble bathroom (I kid you not), to a tent in a peat swamp complete with bears raiding the food in the middle of the night (not kidding there, either); from bathing in a stagnant water pool half a kilometre away down a steep slope, to sleeping on bare concrete floors in a hut full of sandflies.

This the the row of chalets where we were staying In Perlis State Park

Fortunately or unfortunately, editors in far off places don't care what an author does in other facets of her life -- they want manuscripts handed in on time, copy edits done in a turn around of two weeks, proof reading completed in a couple of days. So, a wise writer with another job learns not to be too picky about writing environments and to write in airports or trains if that's what it takes, copy edit by candlelight if need be, and do the proofs at lunchtime in Starbucks. Or worse. (I seem to remember reading somewhere that Jane Austen wrote at boring family gatherings by standing at the mantelshelf scribbling in her notebook, but I can't remember the reference to check it...)

The view out of the back door after rain

Luckily, our recent trip to Perlis State Park up near the Thai border was a lovely place to write. My husband was taking students on field work; I tagged along and wrote.

The chalet in the evening

What better place than on that little porch overlooking the stream? (Usually the water is clearer than that, but it was raining.)

The view out of the front door

The journey to Perlis is long -- more than 500 kms -- but most of it is straight highway and a smooth run. so when I wasn't driving, I wrote, achieving about 1,000 words going up and a similar number on the way back.

From the back porch

View from the bedroom window

Sometimes seats and table for writers are provided...

Ok, so on this trip I lucked out!

It's not always so good. But learn to use a few minutes here, and a few minutes there. Learn to shut out the noise and the curious glances. Learn to write when you aren't necessarily comfortable, when you have to watch out for the leeches (yeah, Perlis State Park after rain was rife with them, even in the chalet!). Becoming a published writer isn't easy, especially for someone who already has a job. It takes time and effort. So learn to use the moments in between here and there, between now and next...

They mount up, those minutes -- and so do the words.

Fun with Fungus

2011-12-04T17:20:00.000+08:00

Almost all taken by my husband, all found in Perlis, most in Perlis State Park. I always think there is something sort of fairytale-like about fungus. Maybe it goes back to those childhood books - illustrations in "Alice in Wonderland", or that picture of the fairy sitting on a mushroom in "The Little Green Door to Fairyland"...

From the huge (above) to the delicately small (below)

And above we have the not yet mature intruders in a pot plant

And here they are again, a little later, in their adult splendour.

Some animals from Perlis State Park

2011-12-02T17:38:00.001+08:00

Warning: if you can't tell the difference between a centipede an a millipede, don't pick them up. Millipedes are relatively harmless -- unless you want to eat one -- have 2 pairs of legs per segment, and are vegetarians. Centipede bites are nasty, they are carnivores and have one pair of legs per segment.
**Please note the correction on the frog species as per the comments from Budak in Singapore

Pill millipede (can roll itself up into a tight ball)

Millipede -- Narceus?

This is probably a unknown beetle instar (larval stage)5mm. Found on a fungus.

**Copper-cheeked frog Hydrophylax raniceps

Forest snails

The Three-striped Ground Squirrel getting into the rubbish bin...

Forests of Perlis

2011-12-01T22:55:00.000+08:00

Because it's pretty...

Photos 2, 3 &4 show different lianas, creepers. Unfortunately the ordinary Malaysian doesn't even know what these are, believe it or not. There was a photo of one in The Star newspaper the other day, calling it a strangler fig. Sigh. This country is one of the top biodiversity hotspots of the world, and the average Malaysian never sets foot inside a primary forest. If the do, they don't actually SEE anything, or understand what they see.

Spider? Moving pile of trash? Alien invasion?

2011-11-30T09:36:00.001+08:00

What is this?

We have no idea. It was snapped in Perlis by my husband, and is about 2cm (less than an inch) across.

The scary thing was that it ... moved. Yes, this heap of trash was alive. Sentient.

It appears to have legs.

And are those sticky-out things antennae beaming messages to a hovering spacecraft?

It also seems to be carrying several dead bodies around with it, possibly insects and snails...

Is it a master of disguise? "Look, I'm just the local rubbish dump.." Is it perhaps some kind of street sweeper or trash collector on its daily rounds? Or a mortuary assistant collecting the dead?

Spider? Land crab? Nanotechnology gone feral?

Click to enlarge.

I have no idea, but would appreciate opinions....

And the answer has come in from Budak in Singapore. Check out the comments.

PERLIS: a favourite state

2011-11-29T20:19:00.001+08:00

We had a long weekend last week, so we headed north to tiny Perlis, Peninsular Malaysia's most north-western state, bordering Thailand. It's also one of my favourites simply because it is stunningly beautiful.

Above: Imagine yourself standing there listening to the calls of the White-handed Gibbons (they sound as if they are whooping up a football victory), while overhead two Crested Serpent Eagles display in courtship ritual and a troop of Dusky Langurs watch, their white spectacled faces making them look cross-eyed...

Above: You can shop cheaply if that's your wish, buying their rice and fish products...

Or just enjoy the vistas of limestone outcrops, rainforest, ricefields and plantations (teak and rubber and oilpalm)

Above: Lake Timah-Tasoh (artificial)

There is nothing quite as brightly green and fresh as newly-planted rice. It's such a vivid paintbox green...

And alas, there are also signs that even here there are the thieves and robbers that so blight Malaysia. Below, the brass(?) plate that once adorned this viewpoint to indicate what you are looking at is missing.

These metal thefts are beyond a joke. They cost the government millions of dollars -- thieves have stolen metal from pylons causing them to fall, from electric sub-stations with obvious power outages; they've stolen guard railings, ornamental fences, lamposts, and anything they can lay their greedy little hands on.

For us, also last week, this almost had a dreadful result. They stole the drainage grating in front of our gate. My husband fell into the hole. He is seventy and the result could have been ghastly, especially as the drain is well over a metre deep. Fortunately, he sustained no more than a severely bruised and skinned and bloodied knee, not to mention a ruined suit.

Did we report it? No. Everyone knows that would be a pointless exercise -- no police station would take it seriously. A pity really. If all the other five million or so people (my conservative estimate) who have all lost gates, drain covers, and other small metal fixtures actually bothered to report the thefts, maybe the authorities would take these thefts seriously. How difficult is it to raid the metal yards and take a look at what they have that they have no explanation for? How many people have they killed so far by stealing the things that keep us safe? When do Malaysians say enough is enough?

Sjogren's

2011-11-23T13:06:00.001+08:00

This is the only post I am going to make on this subject. I do not want to be one of these people obsessed with their physical problems. They are best forgotten whenever one can!!

After some months of discomfort with an extraordinarily dry mouth that wasn't cured by drinking water, and scratchy eyes that felt as if I had something in them (if you've ever had conjunctivitis, you might know the feeling), I went to have a proper check up. This included a thorough eye test which included looking at tear production (which was abnormally low) and blood studies (which were normal) and a biopsy of my saliva glands (also normal).

Because of my symptoms -- and other side problems (osteoarthritis and pain, weakness, problems with concentration and focus, which may or may not be related) -- the specialist decided it was probably Sjogren's Syndrome, which is an auto-immune disease. You can read a summary about it here, if you wish. It is incurable, but not usually fatal unless you are really, really unlucky. It can make life pretty miserable, or be fairly mild in its symptoms. At the moment, the latter is where I am at right now, although I don't think I could survive without eyedrops. In fact, not using them would probably lead to corneal scarring. I am on a drug which I hope might improve other symptoms, especially the saliva problem. (If that gets really bad, it can affect speech and digestion).

Given all the kinds of things that can happen to someone of my age, this is really not so bad. In fact I feel I'm very very lucky when I read of people so much younger becoming ill with more serious autoimmune diseases or unpleasant things like cancer.

I don't expect it to make much difference to my life at this stage. I may write a little slower, but I think I can still manage one book a year. I shall still be doing all the other things that I've been doing in the past, like attending conventions, travelling, etc. Fatigue does make me a little slower at most things, but then that probably goes for most people as they grow older anyway.

Generally, then, I'm determined to stay fit and not to let this wretched syndrome dominate my life.

Titles again

2011-11-19T12:12:00.004+08:00

Well, the last lot of titles had a pretty resounding "No way!"

So I am trying another title poll (see sidebar on the left) -- this one would be for the first book of the trilogy.

"THE LASCAR'S DAGGER"

It's possible some of you may not know the word 'lascar' as it is something specific to the Asian region, or to British history. Feel free to answer the poll anyway.

AFTER doing the poll, if you don't know the word, come back and read the definition below, adapted from the Wikipedia article if you want...

____________________________________
LASCAR
Also Lashkar, Laskar.

A sailor or militiaman from the Indian Subcontinent or other countries east of the Cape of Good Hope, employed on European ships from the 16th century until the beginning of the 20th century.

The word comes from the Persian language, meaning military camp or army, and the Arabic word for a guard or soldier. The Portuguese adapted this term to lascarim, meaning an Asian militiaman or seaman. Lascars served on British ships under 'lascar' agreements. These agreements allowed shipowners more control than was the case in ordinary articles of agreement. The sailors could be transferred from one ship to another and retained in service for up to three years at one time. The name lascar was also used to refer to Indian servants, typically engaged by British military officers.

Help!! A Poll on book titles...

2011-11-13T00:18:00.003+08:00

NOTE: There are 2 polls...

As many of you know, I absolutely suck at choosing good book titles. So between now and the time when I actually submit book 1 of the trilogy, I shall probably poll you, my readers, several times about titles.

What happens after that is usually that the publisher says something very polite, which translated is "You suck at choosing good titles", after which we start all over again...

This trilogy is about colonialism and the spice trade in mythical lands, fighting evil, with loads of nature-based magic.

You will see two polls in the sidebar to the left, with some titles. One poll is for the individual books of the trilogy; the other is for the trilogy title.

A good title is one that would prompt you to pick up the book!

NOTE: you can choose as many titles as you like.

Living with the natural

2011-11-11T15:51:00.000+08:00

I've never been one for cities much. Not to live in. I tend to want something closer to the wild. Born on a farm; teenage years spent in a suburban area that had natural bush and a swamp close by (mostly tidied up now, less so then); even when we were in Vienna, we could walk into the Vienna Woods (and did, often).

A mealy bug destroyer!...yeah, that white thing. It's the teenager of a ladybug sp...

Our present house started off with forest and swamps close by, but now is pure suburbia, and not very attractive at that. So when it comes to buying a place for our retirement...we both prefer something less noisy and busy. (You know, somewhere where we are not blasted with the ugliness of loudspeakers for up to 3 hours a day, seven days a week, starting with a half hour session at 5.15 a.m. every day!) It looks like we are going to settle for a place next to a nature reserve on an estuary, with the wildness of an open sea a mere 2 kms away.

The following are just photos snapped by my husband with a digital camera, no fancy lenses, during our week in Western Australia in search of a place for retirement.

An oxidation pond with wood duck and a White Ibis

Wood duck strolling through a park

Crested Pigeon

Pied Oystercatcher

Birdwatching while househunting

Above & the 3 below: Len Howard Conservation Area -- bordering where we want to live

If you look close, you'll see preening comorants

Coot with chick

Wing drying...

Nankeen Night Heron

This is W.A.'s avian villain - The Silver Gull, denizen of rubbish bins/dumps, and expert thief

It must have been ladybird season -- saw at least 4 distinct species on this trip

Motorcycle frogs in my sister's frog pond -- and yes, they sound like motocycles

Locked out? There's always a way under the gate...

Peewit, Mudlark, Magpie-lark, Peewee. Whatever.

A Walk on the Beach

2011-11-08T20:44:00.000+08:00

This morning I was here.
It is supposed to be summer, warm, dry -- because this is Western Australia, and we were walking along a beach in Mandurah, which is where we intend one day to retire...

And it could have been a West Australian winter. Wet, blustery...intermittent showers and sun.

And my husband found this in the sand at the edge of the waves:

A piece of sponge...with attached mystery object, stuck to the stem.

That's an Australian 50c coin for size comparison.

The layers of "the thing" were hinged at the side where it was attached to the sponge.
So what does one do? Turn to the internet of course. Type in sea "egg case" and see what comes up. That led to pictures of whelk (conch) egg cases which seemed similar, and eventually to the Syrinx aruanus, or giant whelk...the biggest gastropod of all. According to one account, they can grow to 91cm long. That's 3 school rulers in length. Wow. When the snails hatch, they are 2 cms long.

A perfect Langkawi evening

2011-11-02T17:19:00.000+08:00

Some final shots from our trip to Langkawi. On our last evening, we went to our favourite restaurant on a beach, for a superb meal that didn't -- by Western standards -- cost the earth, where we could watch the parasailing as the sun went down.

And one last memory to relate. We were lounging by the hotel pool, when husband got talking to a couple from the Middle East. Thirty-ish or so, good-looking, Western dress, she with a hubble-bubble, him with a can of Heineken, both with excellent English skills. They were from Damascus. At the time, the Syrian government, on a daily basis, was shooting mostly unarmed protestors in the streets of other cities, children included, all recorded on the ubiquitous camera phones and then emailed out as videos to the rest of the world...

"All lies," says the gentleman. "Damascus has no demonstrations, nothing."
His wife nods in agreement. "We're are very happy with our President. (Bashar al-Assad.) We don't want a change. Our government is a good one."
"All that you see on al-Jezeera, CNN -- all lies," he says. "Don't believe it! 90% of Syrians do not want any change. We are a prosperous country. These are terrorists, thugs, attacking our legitimate government."

I look around at the swimming pool, the palm trees, fronds waving gently in the breeze, the sound of children laughing and splashing. A waiter brings colourful cocktails with umbrellas to a nearby table. The sun shines, the breeze is -- perforce -- balmy...

I think: enjoy this, my friend, while you may. Because if people like you won't acknowledge the true nature of your problem, how can you ever mend it?

And I am grateful, so grateful, I am who I am, living in this place, at this time. Or are we all living with our heads stuck in the sand?

Mangrove Mud

2011-10-30T13:16:00.000+08:00

The following photos are all from Langkawi Island. The resort we were staying in has a floating boardwalk a short distance into the mangroves (seen here at low tide).

Some years ago I sent six months working on a mangrove project, living in the heart of Johor Baharu in an old colonial house overlooking the Straits of Malacca -- except if I was in the field, when accommodation varied from sleeping on cement floors being bitten by sandflies to hotels directly over a Chinese coffee shop, and much of my day was spent in boats poking around in some of Malaysia's remotest streams and estuaries.

One memorable day when we tried to walk through one of Malaysia's oldest untouched mangroves to find the southern most family of gibbons in the Peninsular. No one had known those animals were there until we heard them; the scientific books and papers said white-handed gibbon territory did not extend that far south. (I imagine they don't exist now, a few short years later -- I suspect the area has vanished under the all-encompassing "development" greed of man, and the gibbons died, or were captured. They were not in the mangroves, but isolated on a patch of higher ground forest. )

Unlike these flat seaside mangroves, an old grove can be incredibly rough going, with lobster mounds two metres high and drainage rills two metres deep - climb, descend, repeat, climb, descend, repeat. The trees were huge things, gnarled beyond description with interlaced roots -- a cat's cradle of wood. To set foot on the gluey grey mud that would suck your boots off in a second, it was necessary to balance on this lacy network of grey goo-slippery wood below and haul on the tree branches above. All lugging cameras and backpacks in near 90F heat and 100% humidity.

It took us over an hour to go less than a kilometre, which is when we decided to give up (given that getting trapped in there by the tide might not have been funny.) It was easier for the men involved -- they were 6 footer lanky Danes, with long legs, and twenty years younger than me...

What surprised me most was how astonishingly beautiful mangroves could be. And how alive with life. Note the roots poking through the mud above, a case where roots grow up to aerate themselves.

And (above) in among the roots and the new saplings, a hermit crab with his shell adorned with the remains of other dead shellfish.

And what about these, above -- fiddler crabs. Each male has developed a single claw much larger than the other. Its purpose is pure aggression. It can't use it to feed itself! Below there's one guarding his hole.

Note all the other types of shellfish lying around, waiting for the tide to come back in.

And me -- taking a photo

And here, a lovely blue crab with pretty markings.

The sounds of the mangroves are incredible -- pistol prawns snapping, all the clicking and scuttling underfoot, and the birds - Brown-winged Kingfisher calling, the slow flap of a dark morph reef egret, the singing of tailor birds and orioles and fantails...

Green and wild reasons to love Langkawi

2011-10-23T20:16:00.001+08:00

I have several favourite resorts on Langkawi Island. It has a whole range, from glorious luxury (Datai Langkawi; The Andaman -- where I once stayed while on a job!) to cheap backpackers.

This time around we went for comfort and great surroundings, but not outrageously expensive. I like the Berjaya Beach Resort because they (like the Andaman and the Datai) pay a lot of attention to keeping the green surroundings and blending the resort into the greenery.

Some of the chalets are over the water, but these are not my favourites; I like the chalets tucked away among the trees. You get woken up by the birds, including hornbills, and can watch the wildlife on your verandah. At night, there are flying "lemurs" (actually colugos) and flying squirrels.

Of course, there are still the usual things like swimming pools and recliner chairs on the beach.

One of the restaurants, see below, I enjoyed at breakfast because just below was the playground of about fifteen grey bellied squirrels and a number of common mynas.

These squirrels were wrongly identified in the resort literature as Plantain Squirrels; they aren't. They are Grey-bellied. (I have both types in my garden.)

One other reason I like these "green" resorts is that they don't clean the beaches with tractors and mechanical scarifiers -- it's done by hand, so crabs and other wildlife living beneath the sand is not disturbed. This means the herons and waders come to feed.

I remember walking out on to the beach in the early morning at The Andaman, and seeing the beach covered in tracks: monkeys, monitor lizards, otters, civets, leopard cat, herons, rodents, crabs and mud worms of all sizes. It was like a written history of what had happened during the night and at dawn, written in the sand.

A colugo taken at the resort on a previous visit. Remember these things fly. Well, to be more accurate, they glide...

Island Paradise?

2011-10-21T15:11:00.000+08:00

I first went to Langkawi Island when I was in my twenties.

I don't even remember the year, but take my word for it, it was an age ago.

1969 or a little later. We stayed in the government resthouse, I remember.

Langkawi is a group of islands -- supposedly 99 of them, off the northern coast of Peninsular Malaysia. You can see the Thai islands from there. We were back there, just recently.

Back in those early days, you had to take a slow local ferry that didn't run all that often, and you were probably the only tourists on the boat. In fact, we might well have been the only tourists on the island. there weren't many roads, and even fewer cars.

People lived by fishing and farming -- rice fields ploughed by water buffalo -- and generally ignored the mile upon mile of magnificent beaches, crystal clear waters, coral reefs and age-old geological marvels. Boys may have learn to swum; girls and adults didn't.

There were forests and mangroves...

And wildlife...

Like this Long-tailed Macaque above, photographed outside our chalet...

Or this Dusky Langur (leaf-monkey) sitting on our chalet roof...

Or this Southern Pied Hornbill above that woke us up in the morning

There are waterfalls, like this one above and below -- Seven Wells...

Seven Wells from the air

And beaches like this one...

...or mountains, like these (Mat Chinchang)...

It was a backwater when we first went there, but in a way, a glorious one. With rice and fish, wood in the forest and mangroves, home grown vegetables and fruit in the back yard, all in a magnificent setting, with the village school down the road, life might have been quiet but, if you didn't have ambition, it can't have been a bad place to grow up in.

Now, it's a pretty good place to holiday in. And the islanders are a great deal more prosperous.

More on the weekend in Penang

2011-10-16T13:15:00.000+08:00

The birthday dinner of our host was held on top of Penang Hill. The hill is one of the famous Malayan "hill resorts" of British colonial days. Normally the view is stupendous, but alas, over in Sumatra across the Straits of Malacca, the Indonesians were burning the island as they seem to do about once a year. (Malaysia is not innocent here, either -- they do the same thing on Malaysian Borneo). so it was very hazy.

Note the bridge to the mainland

me under an ancient Angsana tree

On Strawberry Hill -- so called because Captain Sir Francis Light of British East India Company days is supposed to have levelled the hill to grow strawberries in the late 18th century -- stands a restaurant called David Brown's. It serves a British traditional menu. Good food, and because we sat out on the lawns at the edge of the slope -- a glorious view as the sun went down and the lights came out...

Nightfall

(Francis Light leased Penang from the Sultan of Kedah. He died of malaria and is buried in the Protestant cemetery not far from the Hotel Penaga in Penang. His son was the surveyor Colonel William Light who laid out the city of Adelaide.)

The party-goers, many ethnicities, many countries, 1 Malaysia.

Penaga, a Hideaway in Penang

2011-10-14T11:04:00.001+08:00

Sometimes the heart rejoices to see things done right, especially when it comes to the restoration of old and crumbling buildings into vibrant living places, all done with more than just a passing nod to past heritage. Hotel Penaga in Georgetown is one such place. For a long while now, one of my friends has been missing from Kuala Lumpur -- and here's the reason. She and her husband have been fully occupied with restoring a block of shop houses into a boutique hotel.

Hotel Penaga

To see the "before" photos, click here -- and read how Hijjas (one of Malaysia's top architects) and his wife Angela, (just as well known, but as an active supporter of the arts and as an environmentalist) achieved and furnished this result. It has been a labour of love -- and it shows.

We stayed in the hotel recently -- as part of the owner's landmark birthday celebrations.

In between two parts of the hotel is a little laneway, which has become a feature of the hotel. Here, all is quiet and peaceful. A path wanders through to the next cross street, a garden is planted with both local plants -- including the penaga tree -- and exotics.

Of course, you can guess the original purpose of the laneway, right? Yeah, the dunny alley...

The view from our window (another side lane)

Another view further down the lane

A place to sit out in the open beside the pool...right under our upstairs window

Our first floor room was to the left in this photo.

The hotel spa, entered from the lane

Another view

The spa entry

The pool beside the lane

Looking the another way down the lane

The pool, looking down from our window

And, of course, one of the joys of the setting of Hotel Penaga is the fact that you can walk out of the door and you are in the heart of the old district of the city. An amble takes you to the World Heritage site of Penang, and everywhere there are things to explore: art galleries and antique and junk shops, clan houses and temples, ancient mosques and the old British cemetery, the water villages and old quays, the finest colonial architecture -- all within walking distance.

Inside our room, showing the combination of modernity and period-style furniture

The passage outside our room

And if you don't know the glory of Penang cuisine, this area is the place to check it out. You can go for high class restaurants to street stalls and food courts, all within walking distant. And if you want to eat in, there's the hotel restaurant featuring a range of ethnicity in its dishes.

Playing catch up

2011-10-12T13:28:00.000+08:00

Yes, I am still alive. But life has been hectic lately.

I have also been plagued by a health issue that is a bit unpleasant, and leaves me a bit tired from time to time. One of the worst part of health problems, though, is the fact that you have to devote time to solving them.

However, unlike many people in the world, we don't have issues with getting free medical care. Because my husband was a government servant, I am covered for all normal treatments/operations and common medications, but I do have to go to government hospitals and clinics. And as everyone knows - no matter where you live! - government clinics are SLOW and overcrowded.

So a single visit to a hospital clinic involves driving time (1.5 hrs including return) and a lot of waiting. Waiting to get a number. Waiting to see the doctor (often an intern). Waiting to see another more senior doctor or specialist. Waiting to have blood tests. Waiting to get medicine.

This is not all bad -- I get to read a lot! And it is free, which is more than many Americans can say for a start. Even for paying patients, the hospitals here are subsidised and cheap. Another thing Americans can't say. (And I hasten to say that cheap does not equal incompetent or shoddy.)*

There are no frills. No magazines in the huge waiting rooms. Plastic chairs. Too many patients (and this being Asia, patients usually bring along some other member of their family) has led to part of the corridor being partitioned off for a waiting room annex. Two or three doctors share an examination room, and so do patients. You can listen to what the fellow next to you is saying to his doctor... But the doctors are top-notch. And so is the equipment (though you may have to wait a long while for your turn).

As for my diagnosis? Not certain yet. Possibly an auto-immune disease, Sjogren's Syndrome. Not fatal. More just an uncomfortable nuisance from time to time. I return in a month for more test results. A biopsy for Sjogren's actually came up negative.

*Speaking to American readers of this blog -- you may have gathered that the absence of free medical care is something much of the rest of the world just doesn't get about America!

There is no truth...

2011-10-02T10:32:00.003+08:00

...to the rumour that I was eaten by dragons. Or that I have been imprisoned in a deep dungeon. Truly, I will be back this week to the world of blogging. And writing. And generally behaving like a abnormal human being.

Take a look at these...

2011-09-13T21:49:00.000+08:00

...beautiful paper sculptures.

Apology...

2011-09-08T17:14:00.000+08:00

More on Dragon Dictate will have to wait till Monday. Medical stuff has intervened into my life...for both me and my sis-in-law (who is one month younger than me), and this takes priority.

Dictating a novel, Part 2: Does it affect creativity?

2011-09-07T13:10:00.003+08:00

If you missed my introductory post on Dragon Dictate, see here.

I named one of my characters Celandine, which has optional pronunciation. I tried training Dragon Dictate to accept the pronunciation "cell-an-dine". What it comes up with? You guessed it: "Cell and dine." Or "sell and dine". And when I don't accept that, it tries "seven dine", "seven dying", "cell undying"...anything but Celandine. So now I call her Celandeen, and my dragon happily types Celandine.

The main complaint by writers is that they can't dictate a story because their creative muse "doesn't work that way" or something along those lines.

Hmm. Look at the way I started my writing career:

A toddler, telling stories.
Learned to write and use a pencil and a notebook. (Primary school)
Started to use ink and pen -- the kind you dipped into an ink well. (Primary school)
Started to use a fountain pen. (Primary school, aged 11)
Was given my first portable typewriter. (Aged 21)
After some years, changed that for an electric typewriter. (Can't remember when).
Upgraded later to an electric that allowed for changes to a line of typing. (About 1980)
1982, bought my first computer: green screen; two huge floppy disks you had to keep on swapping in an out of the disk drives; no such thing as autosave. I thought I was in heaven. I worked my way through WordStar and WordPerfect. Or was it the other way around? I forget.
I can't tell you how many PCs that I've had since then, but now I'm on my first Mac, bought last year.

What I can tell you, is that I've been telling stories using all of the above, and switched from one to the other, usually with a big grin on my face. (Oh, that lovely fountain pen -- I felt SO grown up.)

I can hear by fellow writers saying ‘But that's different!’

Is it?

Then and now:

I used to think of the words, then my brain relayed the message to my hand to write them down using a pencil or a pen or by tapping on keys. Now I have to think the words aloud. That's all. Dragon Dictate writes them down for me. (Occasionally I have to correct it verbally because it doesn't hear me properly.) Not that much difference, really. The process is exactly the same, except for that one word ‘aloud’. Why should it make such a big difference, to the extent that it affects creativity?

I guess there are a few disadvantages:

You do have to get used to Dragon Dictate, and you do have to train it. You have to allow yourself a couple of weeks of frustration before you get used to it and it gets used you. But honestly? I think I took longer than that to accustom myself to using a Mac after years of PCs!

Occasionally, Dragon Dictate can be irritating and it can slow you down. For example, above when I said "aloud", it insisted on typing "allowed" and for some odd reason, wouldn't do what it usually does -- give me the alternative in the sidebar so that I can select that word or phrase using my voice. But these hiccups are a minor matter and can be fixed later.

You can get into trouble if you have a noisy environment, or a cough. I used to listen to music while writing and I suppose I still could if I kept the volume down and put the player on the other side of the room. If you're the kind of writer who talks to yourself or swears at your computer, I suppose Dragon Dictate might not be for you.

I personally don't find the program particularly helpful when I am revising. It is possible, and I do use it if I am totally rewriting passages or inserting new paragraphs, but for altering a word here and there, or swapping words around, for me, it's not really worth the trouble.

Of course, you are going to be speaking aloud so writing is no longer a quiet and secretive process. That's going to make it difficult to write your latest chapter in the local Starbucks, or to write your sex scene when your seven-year-old is all ears in the same room.

But does it actually change my creative process? Does it actually make me a worse writer, or a very different one?

I don't think so. It changes the dynamic a bit, but not nearly as much as switching from a typewriter to computer did! And it has so many advantages:

Firstly, I'm not the world's greatest typist and my typing was not improved when I developed arthritis in my little fingers. I am now an eight fingered typist! I tend to make quite a few typos. With Dragon Dictate I am writing the initial draft at least twice the speed that I used to, possibly even faster. I will admit that I do seem to have to take longer to make the initial corrections than I used to.

Does that mean that my first draft is not as good as it used to be?

I don't think that's what it means all. I think that when I type I tend to make more corrections as I go along than I do now with DD. The first draft is therefore a little more shaky than it used to be, but I don't find that problem, given the extra time using DD bestows on me.

And we mustn't forget the initial reason I bought the program to begin with. Repetitive strain injury (RSI).

So why are so many writers scared of changing to a speech to text programme? I think there could be a number of reasons.

The early text-to-speech programs were awful and for some, that has been their only experience. I'm actually quite astounded at how well Dragon Dictate copes with what I say and how easy it is –usually–to correct the occasional glitch in typing. Even quite recently, it was difficult to mix speech with mouse and/or typing in Dragon Dictate, because it tended only to recognise what it was told. With Dragon Dictate 2.5, that problem pretty much disappeared.

We writers are an insecure lot. We are terrified that our next book won't be as good as the last one, or that we can't repeat the previous success. We are therefore scared of anything that might change a successful dynamic. Writing is bloody hard work and so much can go wrong with the creation of an entire book -- many don't want to try something that might upset their writing applecart.

If they don't have DD or a similar programme, I would ask any writer to reconsider the MOMENT you start to have back, wrist, elbow, neck or hand problems. Because, quite frankly, we weren't structurally built to type all day long, and if you have RSI, it's going to really, really upset your creative process.

Your muse may still be there, but she'll cringe every time you approach the computer.

Next month: watch for some more about using Dragon Dictate, the process of speech-to-text.

On dictating with my dragon... PART ONE

2011-09-06T11:00:00.001+08:00

Sometimes, I wonder if my Dragon tries to improve my writing, by adding a little more pizzazz... "Her bedraggled appearance..." I say; and the programme obligingly types: "Her being strangled appearance..."

Like many writers, I suffer from repetitive strain injury (RSI) in the wrists and hands, resulting in pain, swelling and a lack of mobility. It's not to be wondered at. After all, I can spend anything up to ten or twelve hours a day at my computer. I have tried an ergonomic keyboard, adjustable table and an adjustable chair. All these things have helped, but none of them eliminated the problem, because I am unable to rest the strained joints and tissues completely. Writing is my job and I have to do it.

So, like many writers, I've resorted to something quite different. I invested in a speech-to-text programme called Dragon Dictate. I talk, it types. That's the theory. And because there are so many writers out there with RSI, I thought a blog post about dictating in general and Dragon Dictate in particular, might be helpful to my fellow writers. And if you don't have RSI, it might be worthwhile thinking that it's better to avoid it to begin with, rather than trying to mend it afterwards!

I am, by the way, using Dragon Dictate as I write this post.

First I investigated what was available, and of course one of the things I did was to ask writers who used speech-to-text how they felt about it. I was surprised to find that many didn't actually use it for writing their fiction. Instead, they used it for things like blog posts, e-mails, letters and business matters. This does of course reduce the time spent using hands at the keyboard, but by no means eliminated their hours spent typing.

When I asked them why they didn't use it for their fiction, they said they couldn't write like that. They found it changed the creative process too drastically and they felt the quality of their writing declined. In fact some said it creativity vanished when faced with a dictating device.

That, I decided, was no use to me. I wanted to be able to use it to write my books. The Stormlord trilogy for example, is over half a million words. If I could have dictated that instead of using my fingers and wrists, I might not have the pain. So I went ahead and bought the programme -- but with a different mindset. I would not use it just for the "other stuff"; I was determined to use it to write my stories.

And here I am, halfway through my new book at 70,000 words of which about half have been written using Dragon Dictate.

Part 2 Wednesday, where I will talk about the pros and cons of writing creatively using a speech-to-text programme.

Where I was yesterday evening

2011-09-04T15:30:00.000+08:00

In the Banker's Club, Kuala Lumpur.

This is the view from the window, an unusual look at Times Square (where you can still find a Borders Bookshop!) and the monorail down the middle of Imbi Road.

We were there at a reception given by the University of Western Australia (which is -- with the Australian National University in Canberra -- jointly considered to be Australia's top varsity). Below is the Vice-Chancellor Professor Alan Robson giving his speech to the UWA Alumni Association.

And below is Prof. Robson presenting a Distinguished Alumnus Award To my husband.

And here below is a group photograph of all the recipients.

From the left: Dato'Sri Wong Soon Koh; Prof Emeritus Dr Hood Salleh; Dr Roland Dom Mattu; Prof.Robson; my husband; Ramli Ibrahim

The recipients were a real cross-section of UWA alumni representing ( from the left) politics, the social sciences, medicine, pure science and the arts.

Above is Ramli Ibrahim, dancer, choreographer and artistic director -- whom I first saw dance when he was a student in Perth -- and his sister, whom I met when she came to do engineering at UWA, and stayed in our house more years ago than I care to count -- with the two of us.

It was lovely to see old friends from student days...

On Martin, and writing and criticism

2011-09-01T15:30:00.004+08:00

There's been a bit of an internet discussion, sometimes quite heated, and some of it incredibly silly, about George R.R. Martin's world as portrayed in his series that starts with Game of Thrones. You can read the main posts and comments here and here if you feel so inclined.

But I am not getting into the discussion except to say a few general things that astonish me. In fact, I'm a bit taken aback that they need to be explained.

Firstly, don't be a reader who confuses the story with the author in odd ways. For such readers, I have some news: a writer who portrays a misogynist world in his story, is not necessarily a misogynist. In fact, s/he may be quite the contrary. Such a writer may be trying to say quite uncomplimentary things about misogynists, or about the society that allows them to have power.

The selection of the setting for a story says nothing whatsoever about the writer's beliefs in his or her own life. Really. If I set a book in France, I'm not necessarily Francophile. If I write a story that is set entirely within an army at war, it doesn't mean I am pro-military. Or pro-war. If I set a book in a matriarchal society, it doesn't necessarily mean I think a matriarchal society is a good thing.

Secondly, do not confuse a reader's desire to read certain types of books with their desire to visit the setting -- or to hanker after a past that is no more, or to think it was a better world, or to live on the other side of the world. I am jaw-droppingly astonished that anyone has to actually SAY that.

If a reader likes reading war stories -- do you REALLY think that says they want to be dropped into a war setting? Let alone one with swords and no modern medics? Do I hanker after medieval Europe because I like reading fantasies set in that world? I'd run a mile rather than be dumped in the middle of the real Wars of the Roses, even if I had a stack of magic at my disposal!

Nor do I want to work in a morgue/police station/hospital/space ship because I watch TV programmes about pathologists/detectives/doctors/spacemen, ok?

Thirdly, this icky question of rape. Believe me, I understand if you don't want to read a book which has rape inside the pages, let alone several rapes. But please, don't tell a writer what s/he should and should not write about. Rape and sexual assault is part of -- probably -- every society on the planet right NOW*. To write a book about war, or about medieval times, and leave sexual assault out of the scenario, and you might just be viewing a story through rosy glasses... My Stormlord Rising was criticised because it portrayed quite a bit of sexual assault (most of it during war and invasion) against both men and women. If you don't want to read about it, put the book down. Don't blame the author for being realistic.

Fourthly, don't assume a medieval society has the same mores as your own, and is only different because they use swords and horses instead of bombs and cars. Some folk were saying Martin was writing about rape and paedophilia. By our standards, yes, he did. But - and it's a big but - transpose a 13-year old bride to another society, forced to oblige her husband whether she likes it or not, and it is neither paedophilia nor rape. In fact, there are societies right here in the present day (even in Malaysia) where people think of this as normal. Sorry to disallusion those critics who want to think they have a handle on what's morally right and wrong. It's not so easy. And be careful about you own sins before you jump down my throat on this one.

Yes, to us, the handing over of a 13-year-old girl to a mature man as his bride is horrific. But for most of history, including YOUR own, children were adults long before we nowadays think of them as adults today. A boy of eleven or even younger was expected to work the same length of day as his father, doing the same sort of physical work, and he didn't get paid for it, moreover.

A boy milked cows for a neighbour, starting at 5 a.m., before he walked the long distance to school. He was eleven and the year was 1901. At 12 he left school altogether (he had no choice in the matter, even though the legal age to leave was 14 in Australia at the time) and he started farmwork in earnest, all day, every day of the week, every week of the year. No holidays. Cows and harvests and farmers don't take holidays. That was the 20th century -- and he was my dad.

Back to medieval times. A woman became marriageable the moment she had her menses. And once married, there was no question of EVER legally refusing her husband his conjugal rights. Of course, one hopes most men are a lot nicer than that, even back in 1135, but legally? He had the right. And this is still so in many societies today. You can close your eyes to it, if you like, but don't tell a writer s/he's being crappy to write those sort of things into his/her story. They are real.

Fifthly, don't think that if a writer portrays a dark skinned people as having a different culture from that of white Westerners, they are portraying them as barbaric. In actual fact, the commentator is identifying themselves as an arrogant Westerner who believes that any culture -- other than their own, of course -- is barbaric.

I've got news for that kind of reader too. Every culture is barbaric. In the wonderful enlightened West, we hound gay kids to suicide, murder transwomen, sell our teenagers drugs that will kill them, and drop bombs on civilians and call it collateral damage, refuse medical treatment to the poor because they can't afford to pay.

So dark-skinned "barbarian" metes out some horrible punishment to another he perceives as a threat. No lawyer, no trial, no regular sentence, no chance of appeal. And in the West we stick them in Guantanamo. No lawyer, no trial, no regular sentence, no chance of appeal.

Many of George R.R. Martin's main characters are white-skinned and sort of Western in a Middle Ages sort of way. They are also -- by our present Western standards -- brutal, undemocratic, living in a world lacking any legal recourse for the wronged (especially if they are poor or don't have a sword).

In Martin's world, the dark-skinned are ... brutal, undemocratic, living in a world lacking any legal recourse for the wronged. So tell me, just which were the barbarians again?

My point?
If you don't like a book, any book, then criticise the writing or simply say, it's not my kind of story. Don't attack it by attacking the author because s/he must be like the characters. Don't attack it because the world doesn't match up to the one you think it ought to be (unless it's supposed to be a historical novel). If you think a book promotes sexism/racism/monarchism/homophobia or whatever then be careful of how you illustrate your case.

Otherwise you end up saying more about yourself, than about the book and the writer you wanted to condemn.

------------
*I think decent men have a hard time understanding how prevalent it is. I've never been raped, but I have been physically assaulted in a sexual way, twice, by complete strangers. Once when I was fifteen, once after I was married. Both times I immediately launched an attack on the attacker, they skedadled and nothing much really happened. (The second time, I clobbered the guy with a heavy pair of Zeiss binoculars ... threaten a birder when they are biridng, and that's what happens!)

The other side of paradise

2011-08-29T17:17:00.001+08:00

Pattaya by night is a different place. And definitely not a place for kids, and yet...there were youngsters here. All these photos were taken in Walking Street.

I don't know whether to admire Thailand for being honest and open about their seamy side, or just sickened by what is the underside, I guess, of a great many cities in a great many countries. Is it better to be hypocritical like Kuala Lumpur? And hound women -- or pretend they don't exist -- when they try to earn a living this way? I don't know. I just know that I would like to be sure it was a choice of adults. I'd like to think they all had a choice.

I can tell you I didn't see too many truly happy faces, just plastered-on smiles that disappeared the instant the prospective customer did.

In between the girlie bars and the sex parlours, there are many legitimate businesses.

Even an art shop with an artist painting a portrait from a photo

And a temple -- with a wrapped up tree, and offereings

Here's a close up of the offerings

And here's a shot of the true beneficiaries of the offerings. Yep, those big eyes are alive...

A wig shop outside a bar and an indication that many tourists are Russian speakers. So are some of the sex workers.

Daytime Pattaya

2011-08-27T21:41:00.000+08:00

I am home now, but here's some more from Pattaya Beach, Thailand.

The first thing you have to understand about this town is that daytime Pattaya and nightime Pattaya are two different places. And this is Pattaya in the daytime -- the beach.

Lines of umbrellas and deckchairs

And boats, ready to take you out to the islands and the corals...or water scooters to zip around on

And paragliding -- a cat's cradle of towlines and speedboats zipping this way and that

And yes, a quiet corner for the kids to play in the sand.

Pattaya

Wired in Pattaya...

2011-08-26T08:58:00.001+08:00

A street scene. Wiring, temple and a black cat with a death wish.

Couldn't see the cat? Here's a closer look. Look among those wires...

I have an idea that Pattaya wiremen are a breed apart...

More from Pattaya

2011-08-24T19:48:00.000+08:00

At the Dusit Thani Hotel, Pattaya, where my husband was attending a regional meeting.

Sunset as dinner is served

Me...grinning

Dinner overlooking the bay, dotted later with the bright spotlights of the squid boats

Inside the hotel, complete with waterfall

Life is full of surprises...

2011-08-23T15:13:00.000+08:00

And I am quite surprised to find myself with this view from my window this morning.

Looking towards the hotel where I am staying, Pattaya Beach, Thailand

SF Worldcon in Reno

2011-08-15T15:42:00.000+08:00

...will be on 17th-21st August, just couple of more days. I wish I could be there, but I couldn't afford it. Instead I sent a bit of myself.

Last year, the con was in Melbourne and I did go. And during the course of the con I won a book in the Brotherhood Without Banners Charity Raffle.

Don't know who the Brotherhood are? Well, I can tell you they run GREAT con parties, but they are a lot more than that. This is a brief descrition from their website:

The Brotherhood Without Banners is a George RR Martin fan group. Our primary mission is to bring together fans of GRRM’s writing for fun and discussion. Oh, and parties. Membership is open to everyone who is a fan of GRRM...

You can read lots more at the website.

Last year they had a whole stack of great books from authors as prizes in the charity raffle, but I remarked to one of the organisers that there wasn't a single book there written by a woman. Now, as they are a great bunch of guys who really care about George R.R. Martin, about SF in general, and the reputation of the Brotherhood, they took my comment to heart. So this year, there is -- at the very least -- one woman writer represented in the raffle prizes! There is a complete set of the Mirage Makers trilogy, which has never been available for sale in the USA.

This year the raffle is in support of the Joplin tornado disaster relief fund. So if you are at Worldcon, support the raffle! You ever know what you might win!

I have a new book out...

2011-08-11T12:43:00.000+08:00

...for all my German readers, from Blanvalet.

Der Heiler in the trilogy Die Inseln des Ruhms.

That's The Healer (i.e. Gilfeather) in The Isles of Glory

Happy reading!

Kelwyn Gilfeather was one of my own favourite characters ever. I so enjoyed writing that man!

And yeah, I dunno what he's doing walking around with a spotlight on the end of a staff, either.

The third book, Die Magierin is due sometime in January!

Where I am now

2011-08-03T19:06:00.000+08:00

I have not been posting much lately.

So...

Our lounge room

What have I been up to? The very observant will notice that my word count in the sidebar has stalled for the past 10 days or so. I am 40% through the first draft, but I'm waiting for a bit of feedback from some beta readers. I've never done this before -- halted a book to get feedback -- but there is a first time for everything.

All my own work. Top 3 shelves - different editions

Having had trouble selling the idea for my next book has left me a bit adrift, doubting myself. I need to know whether to proceed with this one, or go back to The Masks of Yedron, or try something completely new. So I am waiting for what others think.

In the meantime I am catching up on some business matters, answering a backlog of emails and housework, enjoying the wonderful ego-boosting feedback I have been getting from readers of Stormlord's Exile...

And here for your edification is the lounge room of a couple who cannot live without books. The paper variety.

Well folks, the time is here...

2011-07-27T01:34:00.001+08:00

USA Orbit edition

Sometime in the next week, you should be able to get your hands on a copy of Stormlord's Exile, the final volume in the trilogy. That's half a million words all together by the time you arrive at the end of volume three! And Publisher's Weekly did say - twice in the same paragraph - that this last book is exciting, and so I hope you will enjoy the ride.

British edition -- Orbit

I am already getting news about readers who have got their hands on a copy already, so now I am waiting to see just who puts up the first reader review on one of the Amazon sites, or Good Reads or the Barnes and Noble. And yeah, I am one of the pathetic authors who does indeed hang around looking for reader feedback.

Australian covers - Voyager HarperCollins

Guest Blogger: Alma Alexander

2011-07-19T16:29:00.000+08:00

I first met Alma online some years ago, and then -- in the way that writers sometimes do, particularly when they like the other writer's books! -- we managed to find ourselves in the same place at the same time and were able to meet face to face. And now she has been kind enough to agree to be a guest on Tropic Temper, talking about ...well, being a writer.

And there's another very good reason too. Alma has written another book, this one:

Isn't that one gorgeous cover?

So here, from Alma:

What does “being a writer” mean?

In a now famous and much-quoted interview, Ursula le Guin’s response to the question of “What would you be if you weren’t a writer” was a trenchant and succinct, “Dead.” And Gregory Macdonald, creator of “Fletch”, had this to say on the matter: "I never wanted to be a writer. I don’t want to be one now. To me, writing is not an occupation; it’s not a job; it’s not an avocation. It’s a response to life. I’ve never understood people who say, “I decided to be a writer.” That’s like saying you want to be a pine tree. Either you are a pine tree, or you are not."

So, then. I am alive. I am a pine tree, in Macdonald’s definition of same. I am, for better or worse, a writer.

I self-identify as one. I am introduced as one to perfect strangers by people who know me. Commentary by friends to somebody else asking me if I’d been writing lately has boiled down to a snort and a trenchant, “Oh, PLEASE. Why not ask if she’s been breathing lately?”

It’s something I do. It’s something I AM.

But part of “being a writer” is having written – and part of the yardstick of measuring a writer’s success is contained in that awful response to the I’m a writer line in the cocktail party context, when someone you’re talking to in a crowded room comes back with the “Oh, anything I might have read?” inquiry. Which then leads to a discussion of publication, and how one is published, and where, and who one is published by, and whether that publication has sufficient cachet or street-cred to warrant the time and attention of your cocktail party co-conversationalist. And all this… before we dive into the murky waters of genre, and whether writing mysteries, or science fiction, or fantasy, or (saints forfend!) romance, actually qualifies you for the “writer” title at all – because everyone knows that these are not Real Literature.

So, then. What do I write, and why do I write it?

Let me begin by throwing that word at you again. Genre. Yes, genre. Go duck for cover if you need to. Still here? Good. Because my next line has caused a lot of people a lot of grief, before they’ve reluctantly come to accept that I am at least partially right:

Fantasy is Not a Subset of Literature… because All Literature Is Fantasy – By Definition.

Oh, yes, it is. It’s fiction, which is defined as being not-true, which is therefore defined as a fantasy. And no, I don’t care if it’s set in Narnia or in the Upper West Side of Manhattan – if it’s fiction, it’s lies, and the only qualification is how well the lies are told. Some fiction is good enough to make us believe in dragons, and some can’t even make you believe in a New York lawyer. The tissue of lies is different – different color, different texture, different thickness – but it’s still a tissue of lies, and it’s only a semblance of any kind of reality at all.

So, then – what kind of fantasy have I allowed myself to indulge in?

With two exceptions – one being an autographical memoir and the other a collection of non-fiction essays – my writing oeuvre has been wrapped in the Telling of Tales. One of my novels was a modern-day epistolary (written in emails, with a co-author whom I’ve since married) and dealt with contemporary and real-life issues; the rest of my published work has been, by and large, far more fantastical than that. It ranges from the high epic fantasy as showcased in what became the Changer of Days duology (in the United States, the books are known as “The Hidden Queen” and “Changer of Days”) to alternate history/historical fantasy (“Secrets of Jin Shei” and “Embers of Heaven”) to the YA fantasy world of the Worldweavers trilogy (“Gift of the Unmage”, “Spellspam”, “Cybermage”).

These all self-define as fantasy for reasons which are both shared, and unique to individual projects. For instance, they’re all, by and large, immersion fantasies, set in their own particular worlds. Some (as with the Changer of Days books) wholly invented, some (the Jin Shei books) borrowed from the pages of history and alchymically changed as needed, and some (the Worldweavers books) in a world which is basically ours but with a few tweaks here and there to make it not-quite-ours, and with a hint of other worlds which are emphatically NOT our own being accessible from it with a bit of luck, knowledge, and experience.

And then… I put my writing tack on a horse of quite a different color.

“Midnight at Spanish Gardens” is… almost mainstream. If you merely glanced at it and didn’t look further, perhaps that is all that you would see – because on the face of it the story is palpably about OUR world, our REAL world, complete with the Mayan end-of the-world-in-2012 scenario built into it.

But look closer.

There is a portal.

And the portal – well – even if it appears to lead from one mundane life into another, it’s a portal, and the edges of it are glimmering with magic… and the being who ushers you through it is ageless and knowing, a creature who may or may not be a messenger, an angel.

This horse of a different color – take a closer look at it. It might look like a perfectly ordinary and perfectly mundane equine – but underneath that disquietingly disguising ordinary horse-colorr there is a shimmer of silver. Underneath its feet as they touch the ground there is a hint of light, as though those hooves are striking sparks off the ground. And if you look really carefully, if the angle of the head is just right, you can see the hint, just the hint, of a tiny nub on the horse’s blazed forehead. A nub that you almost believe that you cannot possibly have seen. A nub that hints that this horse may well live and prosper in our own world… but that its mother was without any doubt a Unicorn.

Part of the power of magic is to coat the bitter truths of our world in a layer of sweeter stuff, making them easier to swallow and to digest – and no, I am not talking about straight allegory, which is something that I have always found difficult to accept. I find allegory to be transparent, and being transparent it is unbearably preachy – because I can clearly see that clue-by-four as it is being aimed in my direction. I’ve always been a fan of subtle rather than in-your-face, and allegory – particularly when it’s done badly, which is alas so often the case with this kind of thing – is as unsubtle as it is possible to be.

But a story can be ABOUT something without hammering the concept home with a mallet.

“Midnight at Spanish Gardens” is a novel about people, at its heart – people who live their lives as best they can, people who get hurt, or bent, or broken, and who try and figure out the best way to pick up the pieces and make themselves as whole as they know how. It’s a novel with a deep emotional heart. It is also a novel of Ideas, and even Issues – the bitter little truths at the core of the sweet pills.

It deals with difficult stuff, and it is my hope that while enjoying the story in which that stuff is embedded my readers will also be moved to think more about the stuff itself, especially in the aftermath, after they have finished this book and put it down. It is my hope that there are things here that will stay in the reader’s memory, and the reader’s heart, and the reader’s thoughts and subsequent actions and perhaps attitudes, long after the book itself is done.

I am alive. I am a pine tree. I am a writer.

I write.

I hope that the things I write about, even though they are lies, are so rooted in truth that the fruit they bear is something the taste of which will remain remembered.

-------------

In closing – a few words about me, and a few more about the book -

My main website is at www.AlmaAlexander.com (take a look at the bibliography page!) and I also have a website dedicated to my YA series, Worldweavers, at http://www.almaalexander.com/worldweavers/ , and you can find a book trailer there, as well as excerpts from those books and also ordering information. I blog regularly at http://anghara.livejournal.com and if people want to get to know the real me that's the more dynamic site right now. I'm also on Facebook here or here and if you want to read more literary and writerly essaylets you might visit www.StorytellersUnplugged.com on the 30th of every month and keep up with me there.

If you want to look into purchasing any of my books, you can go to several places:

Amazon (if you are after actual books) or Kindle (if you're after a Kindle ebook)

Smashwords for other ebook editions (and go there to keep an eye on the Alexander Triads project, themed collections of short stories…)

Or visit your friendly neighbourhood indie store and ask them to get my books for you if they don't have them...

For "Midnight at Spanish Gardens", you can preorder the book here:

http://www.skywarriorbooks.com/OurBooks.html

and it will shortly be available here

http://astore.amazon.com/skywarriorbooks-20

and here

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/MHBonham

No news

2011-07-17T13:35:00.000+08:00

...about any of the tailorbird clan. This was the last we saw of chick No.2 on Saturday.

In other news, the bulbuls are back nesting in the hanging orchids...

More in the tailorbird saga

2011-07-15T10:30:00.000+08:00

It was raining this morning. And windy. Outside out bedroom window I could hear the baby bird yelling to be fed, non stop. After breakfast (mine) I realised it was still yelling, non-stop. I peeked into the nest from the bedroom. Empty. Just 7 full days after hatching and the parents chose an awful day to entice them out of the nest.

But something was definitely wrong. I went outside. In the street I could hear one baby bird calling and the parents. But the other was still under our window. After much, much searching, I finally found it under the grille of the drain, sitting miserably and very vocally in the water. It was mightily happy to be rescued and sat shivering in my (muddy)hand. I cupped my other hand over the top until it had warmed up, then my husband took this photo, and I placed it high on the pot-plants on our front veranda. One of the parents soon found it and it has been vocally demanding food all morning (and getting it from mum) while dad manages the other youngster further away.

Second time lucky? Common Tailorbird parents try again...

2011-07-13T16:40:00.000+08:00

You may remember the tailorbirds that built a nest under our bedroom window at home. Well they decided to do it again. Last time they didn't quite make it -- the nest fell out of the leaves, perhaps because a cat clawed it. Well, they are trying again.

Here is the nest (see the red writing) as seen from inside the bedroom.

Here below is the nest from the outside of the house. X is where I took the other photos from; y is the new nest, and z is the remains of the old nest which was occupied in February.

Photo below taken with flash. Two young, now 6 days old. When I first saw them they were nearly hatched and barely the size of the nail on my little finger. If you look carefully, you'll see that one of the leaves used has already died -- and I have stuck it to the main stalk with sticky tape in the hope that it will hold up.

The colouration of the mouth of a young bird programmes the parent to feed it. The yellow "gape" and black spots inside the mouth are part of a pattern which can vary from bird to bird. Baby cuckoos copy the patterning of the host bird's young.

I haven't managed to get the parents at the nest -- they are so quick, and I don't want to disturb them.

Let's hope the young make it to adulthood this time around!

It's coming, it's coming....

2011-07-12T20:50:00.000+08:00

The final book in the trilogy. Two weeks or thereabouts...

Now's the time to order!!

And here are what has been said about it so far:

Fast-paced read, full of action-adventure and danger...

... (The) characters, especially Shale and Terelle, shine brighter than the sun.

------(Romantic Times)

Families are divided, heroes are made, and the fate of the world is decided in the exciting conclusion...

Themes of family and identity dominate a story line that is both intimate and world-spanning ... exciting action and well-developed characters.

------(Publishers' Weekly)

Today I am...

2011-07-09T10:49:00.000+08:00

...over here, talking about Authors and the social media.

Happy Birthday to a Fabulous 40-year-old

2011-07-07T13:02:00.000+08:00

And here she was, at 4.

That's my girl!

2011-07-02T19:49:00.001+08:00

The other day my daughter's band (F.O.Machete) was the support band for TV on the Radio when they played Glasgow. Nuff said.

Second review -- this one from the Romantic Times

2011-06-30T17:53:00.001+08:00

As you may remember I was pretty chuffed to get a great review from Publishers' Weekly for Stormlord's Exile. And now I've had another great review, this one from the Romantic Times (which doesn't just review pure romance...)

As follows:

This fast-paced read, full of action-adventure and danger, is a fitting finale to Larke's Stormlord trilogy. Her imagined world is unique, yet recognizable enough in people and habits that we mere mortals have little trouble understanding it. Her characters, especially Shale and Terelle, shine brighter than the sun.

4 stars (compelling - page-turner)

Officially released in less than a month.

2011-06-29T00:09:00.000+08:00

If you live in the US, release date is July 26th...

Have you ordered it yet? From your friendly city bookseller? Or wherever?

Another interview

2011-06-23T21:11:00.000+08:00

I continue to try taming my dragon, but it's a stubborn animal sometimes. Last night it came up with "Pay low all tow" instead of Palo Alto. Can't say I blame it, really. Names are difficult. But why, after training, does it still decide the name of my hero is "Seiko" instead of "Saker"? The power of Japanese watchmakers? Sigh.

Anyway, in the meantime hop over my friend Rowena Daniell's blog for an interview with me and a chance to win a book with a neat answer...

Rowena has just had another trilogy published. I bought all three, and read them, one after the other. The Chronicles of King Rolen's Kin, yet more evidence that women write great -- yet intimate -- epic fantasy. And Rowena is yet another Australian. We rock!

There's still a long way to go...

2011-06-20T12:13:00.000+08:00

...but if you look at the sidebar, you will see that I am three-quarters the way there. I promised myself 37 days ago that I would write 1,000 words a day, average, and I haven't quite made that amount. But I'm still on the treadmill, and yes, there are days when I seem to get nowhere...

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

There is a reason, though. Instead of ploughing ahead, I have been reworking and polishing so that my agent has something to show editors.

And have I followed the synopsis? No. I never, ever do. Somehow, when I start writing there are so may better ideas crowding in. Characters take turns I never expected. They become real. The world becomes real. The villainy becomes real. So does the despair, the hope, the love, all the things that make up a story.

I love my work. I just have to hope that out there somewhere is an editor who loves it too.

So, are we equal yet?

2011-06-16T14:30:00.001+08:00

Nope, unfortunately.

There has been a lot of talk just lately about the disparity -- in publicity, prize giving, reviews and so on -- between books by women and books by men. If you haven't been following this discussion, take a look here for links to topics and blogs.

This post of mine is not a blog about writing, however. It's going to be about swimming. Years ago, I remember reading about a man (back in the 19th century) who was shocked at what happened after a shipwreck within sight of the coast of Britain. Men made it ashore safely; most of the women did not. The reason was easy to find. Women in those days could not swim. They were also hampered by cumbersome clothing, long skirts and lots of petticoats. As I recall, and my memory might be playing tricks on me, the man then decided to do something about it and began a campaign to teach women to swim.

Today, I was watching a news item on TV about the Australian Surf Life Saving Association teaching children to swim in Asia. Why? Because thousands of Asian children die of drowning every year. It is the most common cause of death in Asian children. Why? Because they are often close to water and yet have no adult supervision. And of course, most of them cannot swim. This new program has already had huge successes where it has been started, which is admirable. It is a wonderful initiative.

One of the problems I can see with this program, though, is it will probably not benefit girls as much as boys. Why not? Because in Asia, girls -- discrimination starts early -- are often not encouraged to expose themselves in any kind of clothing suitable for swimming; and swimming is seen as a male prerogative anyway.

My husband can swim after a fashion. Self-taught, he learned from dipping into the irrigation channels and streams around his kampung when he was a kid. None of his sisters EVER did that.

Women in Asia are being educated as never before. The new generation is even surpassing the men in academia -- yet they still often wear restrictive clothing at odds with their jobs, their lifestyles and of course, the climate. They still do most of the housework and much of the childcare. Their religions still teach them -- as fact -- stuff made up by men who had no legitimacy except what they gave themselves as interpreters of religious texts; men who imposed their own cultural practices on future generations of women because it suited their selfish need to be waited on.

I hope Asian women wake up to the many, many ways they are being brainwashed.

Another interview with moi...

2011-06-14T22:14:00.000+08:00

...if you are interested. Here.

This is an interview aimed more at young writers just starting out.

In the meantime: I'm not writing much at the moment because I am learning how to write with my speech to text software so I don't have to type and wreck my wrists...

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Seen in a Swedish bookstore...

2011-06-10T19:38:00.000+08:00

To be exact, in a specialty bookstore - Science Fiction Bokhandeln, in Stockholm.

Courtesy of a book-loving friend from Bookbabble, the booklover's podcast.

Thanks, Donny!

Stupid adults living in la-la land...

2011-06-05T17:30:00.001+08:00

And just to make sure that no one accuses me of picking on one particular country or culture, I am featuring one US example, and one Malaysian example. If I had the time, I am sure I could extend that to Australia, UK and Botswana...or any other country you care to name.

But these two will do:

From the Wall Street Journal

This article describes the distress of a mother who is looking for young adult (YA) books that don't deal with "vampires and suicide and self-mutilation, this dark, dark, stuff" -- and couldn't find any. The reviewer agrees that it's tough to find good YA books, saying that the kind of books the mother was talking about reflect back "distorted portrayals of what life is".

My comments

Apparently, according to the above article, we need sweetness and light and positiveness in the books young people read. (For God's sake, don't let the kids read The Bible, whatever you do. There's some real heavy stuff within its pages, particularly grim stories about a vengeful unforgiving God destroying whole cities, sending plagues, people being turning into pillars of salt for the crime of looking over their shoulder as their whole city is wiped out -- really, really nasty, upsetting stuff like that.)

Apparently, if your life sucks, and you're fourteen, there's not a shred of good in reading about people just like you, even if in the end they manage to cope. Much, much better, the writer of the article says, if we censor hell out of libraries so that our little darlings never read anything too bleak for them.

To me, this blinkered view of what life is like for a 13 or 14 year old is just plain weird. If a kid's life really is bad and he or she comes across a story that reflects their own, then they will learn something about coping, and they will learn that they are not alone -- surely one of the most valuable life-changing moments there is.

If said kid lives in a great neighbourhood with fabulous parents, then they are going to realise - as they will have to sooner or later -- that not everyone is so lucky.

The most remarkable thing about the article, though, is this: that reading a work of fiction can change a young adult for the worse. For example, that reading fiction about self-mutilation will make some kids do it. Er...nope. Because kids will have heard about it long before they read a work of fiction about it, believe me. Take my word for it. They hear about it from TV, the internet and their friends.

Fiction doesn't make a kid do bad things; real life does. Fiction hands them ways of coping with the bad things that happen to them so they DON'T do stupid stuff like self-mutilate.

The other thing fiction can do is offer a form of entertainment that makes real life bearable. Within the pages of a book (or to a lesser degree in a game or a TV show), a kid in trouble can escape, and in the escape gain the calm needed to deal with real life.

And of course, the article implies that all this is new. Books for young people used to be lovely...

When I was in primary school I had a lot of my mother's books from when she was a kid. She was born in 1903. Boy, what a miserable lot of books a kid had to read in those days. All about kids who died - Little Nell (Old Curiosity Shop - yes, kids did have Dickens read to them in those days - my mother said she cried and cried over that one), Beth March (Little Women), the little match girl (Andersen -- and loads of other similar fairy tales by him and brothers Grimm); Judy Woolcot (Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner) - geez. Their message seemed to be, "Never mind, if you are particularly good, you will die young and go to heaven all the sooner." Lucky you, kiddo!!

I reckon today's books offer more hope than those books. They empower kids, instead of throwing their entire fate into the arms of a capricious god.

And from The Star newspaper of Malaysia

This article is about some extraordinarily ignorant women sounding off about something they know NOTHING about (abused women and abusive men), and deciding that of course it's ALL the fault of WOMEN who don't know how to OBEY their potentially abusive husbands. And I gather that they think ALL MEN will be abusive given disobedient wives to manage. Wow, hard to get one's head around this bit of ignorant garbage.

Anyway these women have the answer. They are starting up a thing called "The Obedient Wives Club". Basically, as far as I can make out, it is a club for cult-bait. You know, the kind of people (in this case only women) who are so infantile and puerile that they need to hand over their money, bodies, independent thought, maturity, or any sense of self, to the tyrant cult leader in their family (who will make use of them, their bodies, their money but whom they must never challenge on anything, no matter how ignorant or stupid or cruel he is).

Hmm. Come to think of it, can I join as an honorary man? Sounds like a good deal for a impecunious writer. I can write and not worry about income while all my slaves can obey my every command...

Further update:
In today's The Star there's more about this moranic club. Their vice-president is a woman doctor who -- according to the paper - has stated that men won't stray if wives are good in bed (Geez, lady, what planet are you from?) but ... "if their husbands still abused or cheated on them despite being 'kept happy' in the bedroom" then a woman just has to be a good wife (read: doormat) to the end. If they don't obey their husbands, she says, they won't get to heaven.

What a lovely lady she is. Here's the message, loud and clear: if your husband is a drunken cheater who beats you within an inch of your life every other night, continue to be sweet and obliging, stay with him (with your children even if he beats them too?), and get your reward in heaven when he finally tortures you to death.

Lady, you stink.

Conquilt

2011-06-02T23:00:00.000+08:00

So, what am I doing blogging about a quilt? Because my signature is on one of those white pieces. And on white pieces you will find signatures from people like George R.R. Martin, Carrie Vaughn, Charlie Stross, Shaun Tan, China Mieville, Trudi Canavan, Rob Shearman, Paul Cornell, Kim Stanley Robinson...and some ninety or so other SF/F writers and artists.

A detail of part of the quilt

And this gorgeous thing is for sale!!!!!!!!!

Yep, you can BUY it, personally signed by all those people above.

You can read all about how to go about buying it here: and rest assured, the proceeds go to a very good cause.

Not in terribly good detail, but you can see some signatures

Conquilt was assembled by Rachel Holkner and award-winning quilter Jeanette Holkner. It is based on the pattern ‘Tribble Trouble’ (Yeah, those tribbles!) by Martha Thompson. It measures 152 cm x 192 cm with a 5cm diameter rod pocket on the back for easy display.

I adore it. (Many thanks to Rachel for all the hard work).

Oh, and I suppose I had better mention that the cat is not included.

Wordage...

2011-06-02T00:25:00.000+08:00

The observant among you will have noticed that there is another word counter thingy up in the sidebar. This is for my latest, as yet unsold, book. I am aiming at writing at least 1,000 words a day -- or 7,000 a week. I'm hoping to achieve more that that.

Don't take too much notice of the name -- titles tend to get changed along the way as publishers look for something that will sell.

And the picture? That's got nothing to do with the book.
That's The Beach. You know, the one in the deCaprio film set on the Thai Island of Ko Phi Phi. Our mistake? To go there on the Buddhist New Year's Day...Yep, those are just SOME of the boats...each bringing anything up to 15 or so people.

Aurealis Awards Judges' Reports

2011-05-28T14:48:00.000+08:00

The judges' reports for the 2010 awards are up and they can be read in their entirety from here.

And this is what the fantasy judges for best novel of 2010 said about Stormlord Rising:

"This is classic fantasy full of all the great elements fantasy readers love: a well-balanced magic system, a complex political world and a series of interweaving storylines told from the perspective of several engaging characters. Full of pace, energy and intrigue, Stormlord Rising is a must read for lovers of high fantasy."

And don't forget, folk:

Two months to the publication of Book 3, Stormlord's Exile

Malayasia has a maintenance problem...

2011-05-24T21:23:00.001+08:00

...you know, take your kids to the nearest playground and probably half of the equipment will be lying on the ground, broken or vandalised.

This is why panic-stricken Malaysians -- who are certain that Lynas Corp over in Pahang is actually peopled with evildoers doing something akin to importing pure radioactive uranium in paper bags with a view to giving us all cancer -- insist on calling in overseas experts to check it all out.

Malaysian experts supplied the government and the media and the locals with all the information needed about rare earths, which is what Lynas is actually interested in, but...

...we can't rely on local experts, you see. Locals are either incompetent, corrupt or liars. After all Malaysia has a maintenance problem, right?

This is why Malaysians would NEVER dream of:

Flying on MAS...
Flying on AirAsia...
Having an operation in a Malaysian hospital...
Going to a Malaysian-trained doctor...
Letting a Malaysian architect design their house or their office buildings...
Allowing a Malaysian laboratory to check if they have dengue...
Allowing Malaysian engineers anywhere near anything like an oilrig or a gas pipeline or a bridge...
Having a nuclear reactor running and operating in Bandar Baru Bangi for the past 28 years...

I could go on and on, but do I really need to say more?

And here's the ultimate irony. Who are the experts the Malaysian Government is calling in, in order to please the panicked folk out there who don't have any technical background and haven't a clue what rare earths are?

People from the UN International Atomic Energy Agency. Yep, the same place that had a Malaysian -- in the person of my husband -- as a Deputy Director-General for over six years, in charge of -- get this, technical assistance and cooperation.

That's right, the International Atomic Energy Agency trusted a Malaysian, but Malaysians don't trust their own.

More photos of our birthday trip

2011-05-19T18:46:00.001+08:00

...and this was us. Husband, daughter, grandson, self, sister, son-in-law and sister-in-law

After Cambodia, we continued our holiday to a more luxurious few days at Krabi in Thailand.

And very restful it was too, for the most part.

Hotel right on the beach...

I even did a bit of writing lying on one of those...

We were there for the Buddhist New Year, when much water is thrown...

And paper lanerns are let fly out over the sea...

...until they look like alien space ships about to invade...

and G&Ts as the sun went down were de rigeur...

Many thanks to my daughter, who made it all possible. Husband's 70th birthday was one to remember.

I am writing a new book...

2011-05-16T08:41:00.000+08:00

...just so as you know what I am doing.

And how is it going?

Fine, because I don't use paper at this stage. Or kittens.

I use the DEL button.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Not exactly Noramlyed, but...

2011-05-14T19:43:00.000+08:00

As many of you know, our family often has travelling disasters, leading to the term "being noramlyed". This April-May there were inumerable chances for things to go wrong. Members of my immediate family, including myself, were travelling all over the place: Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, USA, UK, Australia...

And nothing catastrophic happened. Everyone arrived more or less intact, with their luggage, and no airlines decided to go on strike. The worst thing that happened was having my toothpaste confiscated because I hadn't noticed it was 120 mls tube instead of 100 mls.

Yet our travels were not without oddity. The first one - a very pleasant one - was that after booking our trip to Cambodia for me, husband, daughter, son-in-law, grandson and my sister - we heard from my holidaying nephew that he was going to be in Siem Reap the day we arrived! Talk about a serendipitous meeting. We had a lovely meal together.

The other incident that was worthy of note played out as follows...
I'm not going to say which country or airport was involved. My sister and I were about to go through immigration prior to boarding a plane when I handed her my passport and boarding pass to hold, prior to a visit to the WC. She handed them back to afterwards, and we joined the usual immigration queue. She went through a different lane to me. On the other side of the immigration booths, as we headed towards the gate, we discovered that she had gone through on my passport and I had gone through on hers...

She is 7 years older than me, 6 inches taller and much slimmer. There is a slight family resemblance, but people do not ever confuse us!

So there you are - an extra 20mls of toothpaste is much more important that using the correct passport... I trust you all now feel much more confident about airport security.

My first Publishers' Weekly Review

2011-05-11T19:40:00.000+08:00

I've never had a Publishers' Weekly review -- until this week. For those of you who don't know much about these reviews, it's the one that is sometimes featured on the Amazon.com page for a book. They are often critical or a bit tongue in the cheek, hinting at -- rather than stating outright -- that the reviewer really didn't like the book. Most authors desire a PW review, at the same time as dreading getting one...

The ultimate accolade is to get a "starred" review. Just the one star, but you can't get better than that. And no, my review was not starred, but as my publicity manager said: "Any review that repeats the word “exciting” twice in one paragraph is definitely going to be a good one..."

Here's the whole thing:

"Families are divided, heroes are made, and the fate of the world is decided in the exciting conclusion to Australian conservationist Larke's Watergiver trilogy (after 2010's Stormlord Rising). In the desert-dry Quartern nation, only a cloudmaster can keep people alive by calling the rains. Lord Jasper Bloodstone, once a commoner, is the last surviving cloudmaster, but he is unable to manipulate salt water. His waterpainter lover, Terelle, wants to help, but a magical compulsion draws her away. Jasper's brother, Sandmaster Ravard, is killing every rainlord he can find--even targeting Jasper--in hopes of bringing back the Time of Random Rain. In poignant counterpoint, transgender warrior Rubric Verdigris struggles with his conscience and what it means to be a man. Themes of family and identity dominate a story line that is both intimate and world-spanning. Series fans will love the exciting action and well-developed characters; new readers will want to seek out the earlier books."

I am sooooooooo chuffed.

Two and a half months to publication, everyone!!

UK Orbit cover

Australian Voyager cover

US Orbit cover

Children of Cambodia...

2011-05-10T21:27:00.000+08:00

...and a few photos of grandson in Cambodia too.

It is sometimes heartbreaking: to see tots begging when they should be playing,

to see kids working when they should be in school.

My husband gives money to a Cambodian school project every month. He upped his donation after seeing Cambodia firsthand.

Here are some photos:

Grandson is looking through the postcards the girl is selling

School in a craft workshop

Two boys showing off their skills at leather work for sale

Boys working at leathercraft

East meets west

Cuteness in a village

A water life

Kid in a tub

The baby above is being bottle fed when the parents have almost nothing. When the bottle fell in the muddy water of the lake - where raw sewerage goes straight into the water - the woman picked it up and stuck it right back into the baby's mouth.

working

Swinging in a liana: kids see the similarities, not the differences

Come listen...

2011-05-09T09:41:00.000+08:00

...to me chat with Tansy Rayner Roberts on Galactichat (a podcast site of Australian author interviews).
Tansy is herself an author of several fantasies, and I am loving her ongoing trilogy, The Creature Court. I was well into the second book (The Shattered City) until I had to put it on hold because my sister swiped it, as she couldn't wait!

At one point I say that the Swancon I just attended was my third - actually, it was my fourth.

The link is here.

Another side of Cambodia

2011-05-07T17:44:00.000+08:00

Village life outside Siem Reap

Used to be able to see the broom seller like this in Malaysia. Rare now!

Selling those baskets and brooms!

Fire wood

Village pump

No chimney

Miscellaneous from Perth

2011-05-06T13:31:00.000+08:00

Perth, Western Australia, is my home town. Where I was born and around which I grew up. As a child I lived at the foot of that range you can see in the background.

I'm not a person who has much time for commemoration of battles usually, but my Dad was at the Battle of Ypres in the First World War, and other such places, so I can't pass by the war memorial overlooking Perth without remembering him.

I was up in the park (King's Park, overlooking the city) because my sister is one of the volunteer guides for the free walks there.

The area I want to live in...

2011-05-05T18:18:00.001+08:00

The foreshore of the town (Mandurah)

Mandurah bridge

Just a few minutes walk from the house I looked at

Within walking distance of the house

Foreshore near the house

Wood-duck and Oystercatchers

Bird watching for me, fishing for husband

Oh dear, Malaysia - you've done it again

2011-05-04T17:26:00.000+08:00

The other day, my niece was shaking her head over a piece about re-educating sissy boys by sending them to special camps. I groaned, assuming she was talking about some right-wing county, or a country ruled by religious bigots who can't bear the thought that boys may be growing up a little different to their ideal macho man, that is, not growing up to be the kinda man who's going to march around mountains with a hunting gun, or some other so-called masculine activity.

But no. Jak just pointed out to me that this was Malaysia, or to be more specific, the state education department in Terengganu. Yeah, I know, sounds pretty ridiculous, doesn't it. It gets worse. Here's what the Education Dept Director said, according to The Star newspaper:

.... the boot camp was designed to prevent the boys from developing feminine traits which could hamper their future. “The boys involved were selected from most schools in the state. They were carefully vetted before a final selection was made,” he told The Star. He added that if such tendencies were not curbed at a young age, it would lead to bigger problems for them in the future. He added among factors that encouraged effeminacy were parents' action in dressing boys in girls clothing as they had really wanted a girl or if the boys were surrounded by female siblings.

Oh, right, he would have to blame us woman for this perceived horror. Yep, it's always our fault. Have too many girls in the family and this is what happens. My husband and his brother (and their far more numerous sisters) might have something to say about that!!

And then there is this:
Department director Razali Daud explained that the four-day camp in Besut admitted boys identified by their schools for displaying “feminine qualities”. He said the 66 schoolboys were showing behaviours that were not “usually displayed by a normal male of their age.”

Oh? Who sez what it normal here anyway, eh?

“We understand that some people end up as mak nyah (transvestites) or homosexuals, but we will do our best to limit the number,” Razali was quoted as saying.

Actually, as any well-educated person knows, the true horror is telling kids who are outliers in the spectrum of what is possible that there's something the matter with them. True horror is blaming these kids, when the fault lies with the faulty perception of prejudiced people who create senseless labels based on their meaningless assumptions.

A boy has long eyelashes and curly hair? He must be a sissy. He prefers to read rather than play a rough game of football? He's a sissy. He paints or plays music or sings a beautiful soprano or is very shy or he stutters -- he's got to be a sissy. He's skinny and under-developed for his age? He's a sissy.

That's the first crime against the child concerned. The second crime occurs when authorities decide that being a "sissy" -- whatever that stupid categorisation involves -- means that the boy will grow up to be somehow "bad". And bad encompasses being gay. That's right, against all medical and scientific evidence to the contrary, sissy = gay and ... get this, also against all evidence to the contrary, you can talk 'em out of being gay (or trans or anything else you don't agree with) if you catch 'em young enough. Sheesh. Don't even get me started on the idea that being born GLBT is a sin.

I'm happy to say that there has been outrage in Malaysia about this, including statements from federal minister Senator Datuk Seri Shahrizat and the federal Women, Family and Community Development Ministry.
“We believe that such ‘boot camps’ must be abolished on the basis that they are harmful and do not serve the best interest of the child, and are therefore in clear violation of the Child Act 2001,” said Shahrizat in a statement today. “Every child is entitled to protection and assistance in all circumstances without regard to distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, social origin or physical, mental or emotional disabilities or any other status.”

The Terengganu Education Director has been back-peddling like mad, hopefully because someone has pointed out to him that what he said was not only pathetically stupid, but also woefully incorrect and viciously cruel.

What can we do to make sure this kind of silliness doesn't happen again? Well you can sign the petition here.

Angkor Wat

2011-05-03T08:20:00.001+08:00

The Angkor Wat temple complex (also early 12th century) was built as the state temple for the capital city. It is the best-preserved temple and the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation – first Hindu, then Buddhist. It is supposed to be the world's largest religious building.

One of the things visitors always do is go to watch the dawn there...

A very popular place at this hour in the morning, even in the off season (when we were there)

And looking the other way, this is what you see...

View from the main temple building

No comment

There's a swarm of bees in this pix - just right of top centre

To be quite honest, I didn't find this main temple of the Angkor area particularly attractive. One comes to see Angkor Wat, but many of the other temples are more interesting.

10 Hints for an Eleven-year-old Writer

2011-05-01T11:16:00.002+08:00

This is for Zak, and anyone else who dreams of being a published writer one day. Why? Because I was like you once - a kid who wrote and dreamed of being published. (There was no internet back then, in the cyber dark ages, and it was a great deal harder to find out anything about how best to do that. So you are much luckier now!)

1. Read.
Read what you love to read, as widely as possible. Never neglect your reading. As you grow older, you may think you don't have time to read -- but there always is time, even if it's just a few moments on a bus, or while waiting for a friend. Only by reading can you learn so much so easily and pleasantly about how to write.

2. Write.
For fun. Write the stories you'd like to read. No one gets to be good at something without practice. Think about people who play the piano well - they practice all the time. It doesn't matter if no one but you reads what you write - you are learning something every time you type a paragraph.

3. Things like spelling and good grammar are important.
Take the time to spell check and learn grammar rules. Only once a writer understands the rules, does s/he understand how rules can occasionally be broken.

4. Read books or articles about writing
You may find many interesting things on the web pages of some of your favourite authors.

5. As you grow up, seek the company of other writers.
We learn from one another. We support one another. We crit one another's writing. If you are a fantasy/science fiction writer, then find ways to join your local SF organization or go to local meetings, readings or conventions.

6. Don't be in too much of a hurry...
No one gets to play professional tennis and win trophies without years of practice. Writers usually don't get their first book professionally published until they are are more than thirty. Of course, there are exceptions, but there's no guarantees that you'll be one of them! Writing short stories can be a way to get your name out there and even to earn pocket money.

7. ... but don't lose sight of your goal.
Teenage years can be a tough time to write. You'll have lots of things to write about, but little time to do it. Keep writing nonetheless, even if it's only occasionally. And don't despair if your writing output plummets. You are learning valuable things about people. You are observing life at its most wonderful, and its most stressful and sometimes, sometimes even -- unfortunately -- at its most tragic. These are the memories that will make you a fine writer one day. Remember how life feels to you. Live. Think. Remember. Write. Consider keeping a private diary.

8. Buy books when you can.
If you don't have the money, tell your friends and/or family that you want books for presents. Why? Apart from the joy of owning books, you will be ensuring that the book industry remains a healthy one. After all, they need to have money to buy your manuscript and publish your book one day! It is odd how many would-be authors don't support book publishers in this way.

9. Looking ahead: Don't plan on studying creative writing at college/university.
You'll learn more about the things you need to know studying almost anything else - veterinary science, literature, geology, history, sociology, anything at all... You need to experience life. You need to have a job that earns you a living so you can write and hone your skills in your spare time.

10. Hold onto the dream.
Anything worth doing is worth doing well, and it takes time. Don't lose heart.

More from Angkor Thom

2011-04-30T12:22:00.000+08:00

The real heyday of this city lasted just over a hundred years, the whole of the 12th century, when it sustained anywhere from 80,000 to 150,000 people. At the beginning of that century, London had about 18,000.

An entrance gate through the wall

Offerings at one of the ancient statues

900 years later, still standing

Bayon Temple, the heart of Angkor Thom. That's us...

How we know a little about Khmer life in the 12th century

Note the lady with the tortoise which is biting the butt of the man in front...

Another example of present and past Buddhism

These towers were apparently used as the base for tightropes and acrobatics

A City called Angkor Thom

2011-04-29T17:49:00.000+08:00

Swancon/Natcon was SO good.

2011-04-26T16:29:00.000+08:00

If you weren't there, I'm sorry. You missed something really, really special.

There were, I think, four main reasons:

The venue - the Hyatt has a big circular open lounge in the middle and all the rooms used were nearby, with the result that everyone passed through this central area on their way to and from panels/art exhibition/dealers' room etc. That way you couldn't help but meet everyone sooner or later.
The guests - they were fabulous: Sean Williams, Justina Robson, Ellen Datlow and Sarah Xu.
The size of the con - just right for intimacy but not small enough to be incestuous.
The friendliness of the SFF folk, of West Australia in particular, but of all attendees in general.

Glitches in organisation? Sure, aren't there always? But everyone was cool and none of it mattered much. Everyone was having way too much fun!

I didn't take photos, but have a look at Cat Sparks'. See here.

Swancon/Natcon here I come!

2011-04-19T11:37:00.000+08:00

Tomorrow I leave for Swancon/Natcon. I leave around midnight and get in at about 5.30 a.m. I shall be at the lunch for guests, and at the con in the afternoon. Note that Thursday night is FREE. So if you are uncertain about whether cons are for you, come along. I guarantee you'll be hooked.

Barring changes, I have a panel that night:

Thursday 9.30 p.m.
"Seeing Green - natural imagery in fantastic fiction" with Kaaron Warren and Kate Eltham.

Mind you I will have had no sleep, and may not make too much sense...

My only other panel (so far anyway) is on:

Sunday at 3 p.m.
"Writing Abroad" with Kaaron Warren, Cristy Burne, Simon Brown

I will also be at the Ditmars on Sunday, at the lunch for guests on Thursday, the Orbit cocktails on Sunday, hanging around the bar...

Please, feel free to chat. We don't have to have met before. And if you have an online name I would recognise, please tell me. My memory for names is awful and I sometimes have trouble connecting two separate personas, i.e. online and actual.

Temples and Trees

2011-04-18T13:43:00.001+08:00

As an environmentalist, I always get a bit of a kick when nature wins out over man. Nowadays it doesn't happen too often.

At temples like Ta Prohm in Siem Reap, a thousand years or so has wrought a few changes, and the result is a magnificent juxtaposition of arboreal determination and not entirely immovable stonework...

This one I particularly love, with Buddha still managing a smile...

And here's the Australian cover for Stormlord's Exile

2011-04-17T16:00:00.001+08:00

Note: all three editions are due out at the same time

(available the last days of July, or first days of August).

UK Orbit cover

Australian Voyager cover

US Orbit cover

Detail from the original artwork

Which do you prefer?

2011-04-16T22:56:00.001+08:00

I am not sure that either of these are final, but this is how they appear on Amazon at the moment. One is for the US edition (on the right), and the other is for UK.

Three more months, guys!