Camellia Yang's Blog, page 3

The Narrator's Seal

When I was revising Chapter Four of "Dragon and Tiger Requiem" for the thirteenth time, I noticed something strange.

My protagonist, Lu Lin, originally a young nobleman from an established family, suddenly decided to journey alone to Snake Mountain in the northern territories to uncover family secrets. This decision seemed completely illogical and contradicted the character I had initially conceived.

Looking through my notes from earlier chapters, I discovered I had indeed written about his curios...

The Art of Making Connections

A friend once asked me, quite seriously, "What's your strategy for making friends as a digital nomad?" The question caught me off guard — have we really reached a point where even friendship requires tactical planning? It reminds me of those "networking guides" popular on social media that teach you how to curate your social circle, optimize conversations, and calculate the return on investment for your social interactions. These seemingly scientific approaches actually reveal a deeper anxiety a...

Okamoto Ramen Shop

Chapter 1: Encounter in the Snow

The wind was bitterly cold, snowflakes dancing in the air.

Yuichi Okamoto trudged through the heavy snow, his breath forming frost in the air. Fortunately, his ramen shop was only a fifteen-minute walk from home. This distance wouldn't normally be a challenge for someone raised in Osaka, but today's weather was exceptionally harsh. Yesterday's forecast had warned that this winter would be the coldest in nearly forty years, with conditions worsening from heavy snow ...

The Forgetting Path

Yan Zhenzhen stood at the edge of the university roof garden, gazing at the Shanghai skyline as twilight descended. The fading sunlight caught the glass facades of skyscrapers, turning them into pillars of gold and crimson. It was peaceful here, a small patch of green six stories above the chaotic streets, where she often came to think.

"I knew I'd find you here," said a familiar voice.

Zhenzhen turned to see Zhang Qinyao approaching, her slender figure silhouetted against the sunset. A fellow phy...

The Freelance Writing Reality Check

I've been flooded with messages lately asking the same question: "How can I make a living as a writer?" Having walked this path myself, I want to share some honest insights about the freelance writing world — minus the Instagram filters.

The Fantasy vs. Reality Gap

We all have that dreamy vision: sitting in a sun-drenched café, inspiration flowing effortlessly as we type, while money and admiration pour in automatically. But let's get real about what professional writing actually looks like:

Resear...

A Digital Nomad's Love Story

I always believed that freedom was the most worthwhile pursuit. I never wanted to pause, never truly settled anywhere. Each new city, each new face, made my life feel vibrant and rich. My world had no roots, only constant movement. Every departure was a chance to begin anew, and I saw myself as a traveller in this fluid world, drifting effortlessly through cities and moments in time, like autumn leaves scattered across London pavements.

Until I met him.

It was a New York evening when I sat in a re...

The Phantom Artefact

The first time I saw the video, my heart raced with an archaeologist's unbridled excitement. There was the missing dragon head from the Old Summer Palace's zodiac fountain, a relic that had tantalized historians for generations. The renowned Professor Zhang, whose weathered face I'd recognised from countless academic conferences, stood in what appeared to be a meticulously lit museum archive, holding the bronze artefact with reverent hands.

"We've done it," he said, his voice crackling with emoti...

The Great Fire Transformation

The Cosmic Clock of Chinese Metaphysics

For millennia, Chinese philosophy has viewed time not as a linear progression but as a cyclical dance of energies. At the heart of this worldview lies the 三元九运 (San Yuan Jiu Yun), or the "Three Cycles and Nine Periods," a 180-year cosmic calendar rooted in the I Ching (Book of Changes) and ancient astronomical observations. Each 20-year phase is governed by a specific energy linked to the Five Elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water) and a corresponding h...

AI and the New Era of Effortless Creativity

As I mentioned in my previous article, 2025 promises to be a year of significant transformation, particularly in AI model development.

The launch of DeepSeek last week marked a pivotal moment. In the past, writing was akin to learning to drive a manual car: you needed to master gear changes (article structure), keep an eye on the dashboard (grammar rules), and maintain a steady grip on the wheel (creative control).

Now, with tools like DeepSeek, writing has become second nature: a grandmother wan...

The Master of Escape

During one of my frequent visits to the Casa Fernando Pessoa in Lisbon, where the autumn light filters through tall windows and dust motes dance in the air like Pessoa's own scattered thoughts, I made a peculiar discovery.

I had been examining a particularly weathered edition of The Book of Disquiet, one whose margins bore annotations in what appeared to be several different hands, perhaps Pessoa's heteronyms speaking to one another across time. As I carefully turned its brittle pages, a manuscr...