Ted Mahsun

I'm still breathing! But this blog seems to be on life support. Well, you know the story ... busy and all that. Hopefully I'll be back in full force around March or April.

Cory Doctorow, of Boing Boing fame and author of quite a number of SF novels (look 'em up 'cos I'm too lazy to google them for you), has an article up on Locus Online on how to deal with the distractions of the Internet while writing . He doesn't believe in switching it off--the most obvious route--but has a number of useful tips to keep those distractions at bay. Some of them are obvious, like switching off your IM and carving out a regular writing routine, but the one I find most useful is his cautioning not to research: Researching isn't writing and vice-versa. When you come to a factual matter that you could google in a matter of seconds, don't. Don't give in and look up the length of the Brooklyn Bridge, the population of Rhode Island, or the distance to the Sun. That way lies distraction — an endless click-trance that will turn your 20 minutes of composing into a half-day's idyll through the web. Instead, do what journalists do: type "TK...

Yes! What an excellent idea! Unfortunately, though excellent it may be, it is only impossible for me to do so. Therefore, permit me to pass you an equally excellent link: Soiled Doves of the Old West . And if you're wondering what prompted this non sequitur of a post, I will have to say I've changed genres in my reading. For the past year or so, I've been telling everyone who's bothered to listen to me that I was in my Science Fiction phase and most of my reading has been SF-related. I guess it's safe to say I've since switched to reading Westerns... ...yeah, I know. Not an improvement on my literary tastes, but I rewatched Sergio Leone's masterpiece, Once Upon a Time in the West recently and it dredged up a longing inside me for the Wild West. Am currently reading Louis L'amour's Flint , which is enjoyable but the writing keeps raising my inner editor's warning sirens (Character perspectives change mid-paragraph! Repetition!). I also fo...

While 2007 was awesome for me , 2008 was not. A lot of things did not go well for me and people close to me this past year, and I'm not even counting my writing failures yet. I won't go into my non-writing disappointments this past year but I will touch on my writing disappointments. Of the three resolutions I made earlier this year , I achieved none. No surprise there, really ... since when have I kept a resolution? But still! Pretty disappointing! I mean, I would have loved to have finished that novel and would have been blown away to be able to write 12 short stories, one for each month. As it stands, not only have I not finished the novel, I went and started another unfinished novel for this year's NaNoWriMo, and I didn't even finish that. I did write 5 or so short stories this year, but all of them are unfinished. Yep, 2008 was an epic fail and not a year I will look back on fondly. On the other hand, I did have more book reviews published this year than th...

This review was published in The Star on 28th December 2008 . Unusual Whodunnit Review by TED MAHSUN Instead of following along in the steps of a detective unravelling a crime, we’re given a different perspective in this simply-told but cracking good mystery. SIX SUSPECTS By Vikas Swarup Publisher: DoubleDay, 472 pages ISBN: 978-0385608169 VIKAS Swarup’s latest book, Six Suspects , looks conventional at a glance: a notorious mob tycoon, Vicky Rai, is murdered in his own house during a party, and there are six suspects. Sounds like a straightforward whodunnit, right? Not quite. Unlike most crime novels, this novel does not employ a sleuth; well, not it in the conventional sense, anyway. But then, Swarup is not your conventional novelist, either: he is a diplomat, currently posted in Pretoria as India’s Deputy High Commissioner to South Africa. His debut novel, Q & A , was also unusual in that its protagonist is a slum dweller who wins the jackpot on the Who Wants...

This review was published in The Star on 28th December 2008 . Revisiting Columbine Review by TED MAHSUN THE HOUR I FIRST BELIEVED By Wally Lamb Publisher: HarperCollins, 832 Pages ISBN: 978-0007290697 THERE’S a selection of the book-reading populace that thumbs its collective noses at books picked by talk show host Oprah Winfrey for her Oprah’s Book Club. I don’t get this. Shouldn’t one judge a book by its own merit rather than dismissing it just because one isn’t fond of the talk show host? I was pondering this after I finished reading The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb, whose previous two novels had both been selected for discussion by Oprah’s Book Club. It would be such a shame if Lamb’s latest novel is disregarded just because Oprah likes it! Well, those who hate her book club ... they won’t know what they’re missing. The novel is intriguing and enjoyable; it constantly reminded me why I enjoy reading. The novel weaves fiction and fact by placing its two ...

Well, that was unexpected. I not only have one, but two book reviews in today's Star. The other review is for Wally Lamb's Hour I First Believed . I only noticed when I went out to get my own deadtree copy. I'd have noticed sooner though if only Google Alerts wasn't being so choosy... Anyways! A few months ago, I was given an advanced review copy (or as they call it, ARC) of Wally Lamb's Hour I First Believed for review, but when I finally finished writing the review, MPH Bookstores, who provided the ARC, told me they decided not to have a promo for the book so I thought, well that's that. Maybe the review wasn't going to be published. Turns out the Star editors turned to another bookstore to get a promo discount coupon from them instead. Neat! So there you go. If you get a copy of today's deadtree edition of The Star, you'll get a 25% discount coupon for both Hour I First Believed , Six Suspects and even Vikas Swarup's earlier book, Slumdog M...

Dude, I totally forgot. I woke early today too – a rare event for me on a Sunday – to go to the dentist's. If I had remembered then I could have just picked up a copy while I was out. Dammit, now I have to make the long trek out to civilisation. Anyways, behold, a review of Vikas Swarup's Six Suspects , just for you .

Met an old friend last night. It was his wedding. Haven't met him in at least 8 or 9 years. And now he's a doctor!

Ahh! I feel pretty good. I just finished writing a book review and it was the easiest peasiest book review I've ever written. Usually a book review would take me days to finish (sometimes even weeks !), but this one just took me 45 minutes. Can't say what book the review is for, because I haven't sent it in for publication yet. This isn't on commission so I won't know whether they'll publish it ... until they do. In the meantime, I'll be basking in that nice post-writing afterglow. It feels nice and warm!

And before long it will be the New Year. Hurray. Well, NaNoWriMo was a complete and epic fail for me. It wasn't all a loss though. I do have the beginnings of a novel that I'm pretty excited to continue writing, but for now I'll have to shelve it because I'd like to continue writing the novel I was working on before November ... which was really last year's NaNo project. Anyways, did you hear the news? Syed Alwi passed away. What a bummer huh? I enjoyed immensely his play "Alang Rentak Seribu" and regret I haven't seen any of his other theatre productions. Al-fatihah.

From Amir's blog again: BODY 2 BODY Writings on Alternative Sexuality in Malaysia Edited by Jerome Kugan and Pang Khee Teik Published by Matahari Books - CALL FOR ENTRIES 1. Writings should depict queer or alternative sexuality in Malaysia, or of Malaysian queers' experience in the world. 2. Possible Genre: fiction, true life accounts, essays, memoir, excerpts from novel or play. We do not accept verse. 3. Queer includes gay, lesbian, bisexual, transvestite, transgendered, intersexed. 4. Possible topics: coming out, forced out, going back in, love found, love lost, love squandered, encounters with homophobia, trying to go straight, married life, being friends with a queer person, being seduced by a queer friend, self-loathing, religion, family, work, studies, activism, etc. 5. Writers can be Malaysian or non-Malaysians. Writers can be queer or straight. 6. All writing must be in English, or translated into English. The writers are responsible for getting th...

Three eggs. Hah! Take that, George Orwell !

Here's an announcement from Amir Muhammad : Bapak-bapak, ibu-ibu, jambu-jambu dan awek-awek hadhari dijemput ke acara yang santai lagi gerek: Pelancaran buku KITAB PENGETAHUAN HANTU MALAYSIA. Buku sususan Danny Lim ini telah diterjemahkan secara sahih oleh Ahmad Kamal Abu Bakar. Ketahuilah asal-usul, sifat serta tumit-tumit Achilles puluhan hantu dan roh yang menjadi khazanah budaya masyarakat sibilis (sekular, pluralis dan liberalis) kita. Tempat: Bau Bau Cafe, The Annexe, Central Market. Tarikh: 5 Disember (Jumaat) Masa: 8:30pm hingga LRT senyap. Terdapat hiburan oleh beberapa kumpulan gitar rancak yang akan diumumkan kelak. Juga pembacaan mengejut oleh: Ahmad Kamal Abu Bakar Amir Muhammad Danny Lim Fahmi Fadzil Shahril Nizam Sharon Bakar Ted Mahsun dan beberapa lagi artis yang tak sempat masuk Bi-pop hari minggu lepas. Buku akan berada di toko-toko hanya 2 minggu setelah tarikh pelancaran, jadi dapatkanlah di sini agar anda tidak frust menonggeng. Harga buku: RM20. Tebal: 115 m...

Crap. Has it been twenty days already? I don't think I need to say I'm seriously behind on my word count. It's not that I haven't been writing. I have. Lots of it. It's just that all the writing I've done this past month has mostly been of the speeches, essays, book forewords and book reviews variety. After all that, the last thing I want to do when I get home from work is to wrack my brains for a novel. In addition to that, the gallery I work for just held a HUGE event (I've mentioned this before I believe) yesterday, where People of Royalty came and graced us with their Presence. It was all a huge fuss and all so we were all understandably kept busy. It's true what they say. If you want to write a novel, don't have a writing job as your day job. You'll have written a lot during work, and by the time you get home, you'll be too tired to write anything for yourself. Having said that, I believe NaNoWriMo's not over yet. So there...

Hmm. Well I've been real busy of late so I have had to abandon my NaNoWriMo efforts for the time being. Also! My brother bought the Dragon Quest IV remake for the Nintendo DS...and it's completely captured me within its evil grasps. I'm making up for lost time. I never finished it the first time I played it on the NES all those years ago, and when they released the Playstation remake, I couldn't read Japanese. Now I'm determined to save the goddamn world, NaNoWriMo or no! (The following paragraph might only be interest to a special breed of nerd–the video game soundtrack nerd. I was digging through my video game soundtrack CD collection yesterday, and I could only find the soundtracks for Dragon Quests 1 to 8 except 4. I'm pretty sure I bought the soundtrack for 4. Did I lose it or something? Oh well, at least I rediscovered a CD I thought I had long ago lost: the Saga Frontier II OST! Yay! Only the best jRPG soundtrack evah! Well, next to Final Fantasy 6 obviou...

Woke up this morning to a NaNoWriMo pep email written by Jonathan Stroud in which he equates writing the first draft of a novel to an epic, heroic journey starring Charlton Heston: "Full of dramatic highs, dreadful lows and endless tedious bits when the audience goes out to make a cup of tea." How very true! Last night's writing session went better than the day before with me being able to hammer up to 2200 words. I had a target of reaching 3000 words but it was not to be. Still! 2200 words! That's a lot! My overall word count is now 5236. I'm happy with that number and also happy with the direction my story is taking. I didn't expect it to take a life of its own just yet, but that's what happened. I certainly did not expect the protagonist to impersonate a masseuse to break into a house. Weird. I think I'm beginning to feel the NaNo vibe now!

Yesterday's word count was much better. It didn't reach the requisite daily count of 1667, but I did write more than a thousand words and managed to reach 1400 words. If it's better than yesterday and the day before, than it's good enough for me. There's another thing that's good about all this. The fact that my daily word count is getting higher everyday might mean I'm gaining momentum so things might get better in the coming week. I'm still preparing for the worst though, so I can't get too cocky now. The art gallery I work for is planning a huge (HUGE!) exhibition launch this month and my wife's office deems it fit to make it compulsory for husbands to attend their family day, also happening later this month. I foresee these two events threatening to derail my NaNoWriMo efforts so I'll have to take some precautionary measures if I want to make sure my word count is good enough. Lastly, FUCK YOU PJH Corporation for forcing husbands to come ...

NaNoWriMo is here again! I would've blogged earlier but somehow the Internet keeps acting up everytime I want to log into Blogger. So anyway! To catch up, there was a book launch party on October 31st , and by the time I got home at about midnight, the last thing I wanted to work on was a 50,000 word novel. (What I did was fire up Thief: Deadly Shadows . Have you played it? It's awesome.) When I did finally start writing – at 8pm on 1st November – I only managed to crank out 670 words. This is something new for me. Usually with every NaNoWriMo I've taken part in, I start writing furiously, fueled by enthusiasm and ambition. This year, even though I've got a story I want to put down on paper and have the basic outline in my head, I don't really seem too excited by it. Not like previous years anyway. This seems to be reflected in my miserable wordcount. (Talking about my wordcount, the NaNoWriMo site seems to be having its annual early hiccup, wherein the their server...

Finally! Something new about Haruki Murakami I can feast my brains on! He was in Berkley to receive the inaugural Berkley Japan Prize (wtf? I have a feeling they created this one specially for him...) and was kind enough to have a reading and a conversation with the many fans who attended. (The session sold out fast.) Ben Dooley of The Millions was there and reported back a lot of interesting stuff I still didn't know about the writer, such as Murakami's likening of writing to playing video games: " Writing a story for me is just like playing a video game. I start with a word or idea, then I stick out my hand to catch what's coming next. I'm a player, and at the same time, I'm a programmer. It's kind of like playing chess by yourself. When you're the white player, you don't think about the black player. It's possible, but it's hard. It's kind of schizophrenic. " He also says he doesn't dream the conventional way: "I...