i am midway through american gods by neil gaiman. i brought to the states as alternative in-flight entertainment. i realised that meal times, movies and trying to catch some sleep doesn’t leave you much time for reading. but its always good to have a book in hand, for me it is at least.

extracts from american gods that i can totally identify with.

it was a dream, and in dreams you have no choices: either there are no decisions to be made, or they were made for you long before even the dream began. (303)

now it was late in the afternoon. shadow, who had no been in san francisco since he was a boy, who had only seen it since then as a background to movies, was astonished at how familiar it was, how colorful and unique the wooden houses, how steep the hills, how very much it didn’t feel like anywhere else. (305)

oh yes, how steep the hills indeed!

literature. i’ve always had a penchant for stories and book and book-buying/browsing since young, however i wouldn’t consider myself to have been a sufficiently avid or voracious reader in my younger days, i wish i was though. never too late to make up for that now i guess.

i do consider myself immensely blessed to have been able to make a living out of my love for literature, and in such a supportive working environment no less.

no surprises that i absolutely enjoyed myself during the singapore writer’s festival that concluded over the weekend. kudos to the organisers for inviting and hosting local and international writers for the event.

i attended two events, breakfast club at the national library on saturday and neil gaiman’s talk on graphic novels and fantasy on sunday.

why is it called breakfast club? firstly because it took place in the morning and secondly because breakfast (and later lunch) was provided. the local writers present gave an honest, sincere and candid insight into their experience as writers and their motives, predispositions and relationship with literature.

catherine lim

every writer contributes to small facet to the profile of singapore literature unique to his or her own experience and does not necessarily have to encompass the entirety of the singapore experience. together, these facets will form a larger mosaic. (my paraphrase)

stella kon

the only line that the censorship board wanted removed from “trial and other plays” is “there is no free speech in singapore”. (more or less what she said)

adrian tan

if there are days you wake up and don’t feel like doing anything, you’re a writer (i quote verbatim)

colin cheong

writing commercially comes at a cost. i have half a soul left. be kind to your muse. (more or less what he said)

my highlight of the festival was none other than the session with neil gaiman. his session was not so much a structured talk as it was a series of Q&A dialogue. neil gaiman is as good a writer as it is a speaker. he contextualised all his responses, added in anecdotes, and built up to a candid climax. he was charming, witty, disarming and astute.

after the dialogue session, he took time to autograph for all the 900 attendees. he wanted to make sure that everyone had something signed and took 5 hours to see it through. he chatted with everyone in line and even illustrated my frontispiece of the graveyard book.

i’ve never queued in line for so long in the past week but it was all worth it.

looking back, the process of coming up with the Lord of Dreams seemed less than an act of creation than one of sculpture; as if he were already waiting, grave and patient, inside a block of white marble, and all i need to do was chip away everything that wasn’t him.

afterword by neil gaiman

for preludes & nocturnes

i’m one of those people who read introductions, prefaces and afterwords because i am interesting in the process of the craft and product. i don’t really buy into the postmodern “death of the author” thing because everything has to come from somewhere and because there is a bit of ourselves in everything we put ourselves out there for.

i’ve just completed reading the absolute sandman vol 1, bought and presented lovingly by the geek – more than a year ago – who may not share my fascination for the profundity of morbidity but still wishes me well in my revelry (within reason).

i first become acquainted with the sandman graphic novels a decade ago when a certain jc classmate of mine – who come to think of it does skulk around in a fashion after the lord of dreams – circulated his original collection within the very special and quirky jc class of mine.

10 years on, i’m still very much in love with the series and will actually get to meet the creator, or rather the sculptor, of the sandman. again all thanks to the geek who takes an interest in my interests.

people think dreams aren’t real because they aren’t made of matter, of particles.

dreams are real.

but they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes.

in the spirit of the occasion, i’m reading and revisiting old friends within the covers.

woot! after waiting in the blazing hot sun for an hour, dee and i got ourselves a pair of the tickets each to attend the talk by Neil Gaiman, “Graphic Novels and Fantasy” scheduled for 1 nov. guess what i will be doing before that talk? completing my 10km GE run in the same vicinity. i will have sufficient time to head home for a change before meeting the man himself.

considering that there were other ardent fans who began waiting in line 6 hours before tickets were issued, having waited for an hour and still managing to bag the tickets wasn’t that much of an effort. its also fun with you have someone else to while the time away with. many people in the queue were there on their own.

the line snakes

and continues outside the gate

its 3pm and the line moves!

getting closer!

got ‘em!