Cinthia Koeksal's Blog, page 5
June 22, 2012
Dragons
(Source: http://www.freepik.com/free-vector/chinese-dragon-vector-sketch-material_514536.htm)
My late father absolutely despised dragons. He never explained why—he just did. Anything that had dragons on in would be banished to the Realm of Garbage, unless it was a book in which case he’d just scribble out the offending dragon’s head. I wish I had asked him about this freaky trait…I’m sure it would have been an interesting tale. But that’s life—we’re so busy with our own daily trials that we don’t stop to take an interest in those of others. Yet another thing that I’m working on.
Despite growing up in a house that was dragon unfriendly, I simply love them. The idea of these magical creatures soaring through the sky just gives me goose bumps. This is why dragons reside in my mythical Valley of the Hornbills where my protagonist Anjeli gets to have all the fun while I sit at my laptop half the night.
Kinds of Asian dragons:-The Horned Dragon is considered to be the mightiest. -The Celestial Dragon supports the heavens and protects the Gods. -The Earth Dragon rules all of the earth. -The Spiritual Dragon controls the wind and rain. -The Treasure Dragon is the keeper of precious metals and gems. -The Winged Dragon is the only dragon with wings. -The Coiling Dragon dwells in the ocean. -The Yellow Dragon is a hornless dragon known for its scholarly knowledge(Source: Dragons in Asia, http://www.childrensmuseums.org/docs/DragonsInAsia.pdf)
The differences between European dragons and their Asian cousins are firstly their looks but also the fact that in Asia they are revered and loved while the poor European dragons were constantly being attacked by aspiring knights. Interestingly, for a mythical creature, the dragon has its roots in many different cultures across the world. How is it that almost every culture has its own version of dragons?
Dragon names throughout the planet:Malaysian, Indonesian and Indian: nagaChinese (Mandarin): lóngGreek: drákōnSlavic: zmajPersian: ezhdehāJewish (religious): Nachash Bare'achVietnamese: rồngJapanese: tatsuRead more about dragons on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon
I’m seriously starting to think that myths and legends made their way across the globe hitched to the noodle industry.
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June 15, 2012
No one Cares!
When I first came to Europe, I was extremely impressed when I met a woman who I wanted to adopt as my mum. I thought that she was the coolest mother around and wished that my own mother weren’t so strict. Now, ten years later, I look back and think that maybe there’s never one perfect solution. That woman’s kids have now become adults who think that responsibility and rationality are things that happen to other people, there are so many things that I would like to thank my own mother for but will never be able to and my own son pretends to gag every time his friends want to replace their parents with me. Does this mean that whatever a parent does, whichever methods parents apply in raising their kids they will always be seen as uncool? Is it human nature to be grateful to our parents only when it’s too late?
Being a teenager in a strict Indian family was hard and I only now realise that every single rule was put there for a very good reason. I just didn’t know it at the time—and teenagers shouldn’t be expected to know it either. In Anand Giridharadas’ novel India Calling, he talks about how his family tried very hard to integrate themselves into American life, exposing their kids to the Western world instead of shoving their noses in their own culture. In the end, this made him want to experience India for himself…and he moved back to the motherland. I grew up in Malaysia and when my parents tried to make us watch Tamil movies we all but feigned temporary blindness brought on by appendicitis. Why the difference in reactions?
My protagonist Anjeli in The Scarlet Omenis fighting with her mother at every turn. She is convinced that Indian mothers ferociously try to ruin their teenage daughters’ social lives so that they don’t come home pregnant. All she wants to do is run away from her mother’s suffocating concern. Does everyone at one point or another behave like that? Do we treat our parents as dispensable parts of our lives as teenagers?
“…The young person proudly asserts individuality from what parents like or independence of what parents want and in each case succeeds in provoking their disapproval. This is why rebellion, which is simply behavior that deliberately opposes the ruling norms or powers that be, has been given a good name by adolescents and a bad one by adults….Although the young person thinks rebellion is an act of independence, it actually never is. It is really an act of dependency. Rebellion causes the young person to depend self-definition and personal conduct on doing the opposite of what other people want.”-- Welcome to the hard half of parenting, Carl Pickhardt, Ph.D., http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/surviving-your-childs-adolescence/200912/rebel-cause-rebellion-in-adolescence
So we can expect that anything we say or do as parents will be held against us 25 years later on a shrink’s sofa. Just great!
I personally don’t think it will come to that though. Once my parents allowed me to do stuff that they didn’t really approve of, it sort of lost its appeal. I use this method on my son often and it works wonders! The whole point of rebelling is probably just to see how far you can go (and how much you can upset your parents before they drown you in the fish pond). I suppose freedom is the key; everyone wants to be able to make their own choices and learn from their own mistakes.
As authors of young adult fiction, it’s important for us to integrate such influential adolescent feelings into our novels. Readers like to see their own trials and tribulations mirrored in their favourite characters. However, it’s also important for them to see that there is a way out—that there will be a solution at the end of the character’s journey. Remember, to young adults, the world DOES revolve around them…and I think it’s awesome.
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June 8, 2012
Rueful Logic
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” ― Albert Einstein“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”
― Mahatma Gandhi http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/mistakes
Through the last few weeks of final line editing (going through a manuscript for the last time to see if you’ve blindly missed any commas, full stops or whole words), I realised that no matter how careful you are, you’re going to make mistakes.
I think this also pertains to life in general. How many of us have that one skirt which you know is too colourful for anyone over eight and which has never left the confines of your closet? How many times have you gone over a conversation that you had with a friend and wondered why you used that word whose etymology is dubious to say the least and if that person is going to forever think you’re a complete moron? Mistakes and regret happen. They’re a part of life. I always tell my son that the only thing that matters is how hard you work at correcting them.
But is this true? Could that enormous no parking sign have been an omen heralding the appearance of that totally unfair traffic policeman? Are we just plain careless? In The Scarlet Omen, my protagonist Anjeli faces heart-rending regret and wishes that she could make things better. However, in her case, destiny and fate gang up and shove her out of the way. Sometimes, there is no reconciliation. Would it have been better never to have made the mistake in the first place?
“Because we live in an achievement and success oriented world, a popular rule is, "Whenever you do anything, do it right." Our parents, teachers, coaches, and friends helped us learn this rule. If we adopted it as our own then it may have been translated as, "Be thoroughly adequate and competent in everything you do." With this rule we become perfectionists and don’t like mistakes. Mistakes are now "bad" and something to be avoided.”—Daniel H. Johnston, 2002, Lessons for Living, http://www.lessons4living.com/wmaz14.htm
As an author, mistakes – especially those made during the querying process and final line editing – can be fatal. Compare: 'He glanced around the sea of faces' and 'He lanced around a sea of faeces'. Can you already hear your manuscript being flushed down the toilet? An author’s whole reputation depends on being a perfectionist! However, at any other time, I have to admit that mistakes are the tutors of life. We screw up, we learn and we move on, praying all the way that we haven’t left too much damage in our wake.
“The problem is that you are applying a bad rule about mistakes. It may have been a good rule and kept you out of trouble when you were six years old, but it is not a good rule now that you are older. It is time to change the rule…… a mistake is the first step in learning. Success comes from mistakes. This is good news…..With your new rule, what should you say to yourself the next time you make a mistake? Something like, "Great! Wonderful! Now I can learn something." You will be energized and feel excited, challenged, and motivated. You will get busy and work harder.“—http://www.lessons4living.com/wmaz14.htm.
Well that sounds a whole lot better. Pull out your pom-poms people because mistakes are the building blocks of a good plot. Characters in a novel go around making mistakes all the time and the whole point is to learn something from their journey - laughing, crying and cursing along with them as they bumble through life…and learn. Good news for us authors; bad news for that poor character who's about to answer the beckoning whispers of that Earth nymph!
“When you make a mistake, don’t look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into your mind and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power.”—Hugh White (1773-1840)
“If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.”—John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006)
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June 1, 2012
Watcha Doin' with Ken Spillman
Hey people! This week I'll be starting my monthly Watcha Doin' posts. You've heard me ramble and go on about life as a storyteller; now it's time to get some other authors on board (you'll still be hearing me whinge the other three weeks of the month, so don't fret!). I'll be interviewing a different author every month, so stay tuned! This month, Ken Spillman has been kind enough to grace us with his presence. Enjoy!
Author bio: Ken Spillman is one of Australia’s most renowned authors of children’s and young adult novels, writing memorable novels and contributing lovable and colourful characters to the literary world. Ken has written over 30 books and has more than a few awards under his belt, including the FAW National Literary Award. His YA novels include Blue (1999) and Love is a UFO (2007, Winner of the Western Australian Premier’s Book Award), while his Jakeseries of chapter books for early readers appears in many countries and languages as diverse as Vietnamese, Farsi, French and Serbian. He is also the author of the Daydreamer Dev series, The Strange Story of Felicity Frown, Advaita the Writer, and Radhika Takes the Plunge. Ken Spillman is a popular international presenter, travelling widely to speak at festivals and visit schools.
Questions:When you were little, did you dream of becoming a writer or did you also run around every Halloween as a fireman and pretend to chase villains down the street in the evenings? What made you want to become an author?I didn’t dream of being a writer. My first thought was to become a veterinarian, but then my sister decided she wanted to be one too, so I dropped the idea. I didn’t really think about becoming a writer… but imagining stuff was what made life interesting, and I actually DID imagine chasing villains. I simply loved writing stories. Around the age of 8, I started writing stories out of school, just for the fun of it. Later, when I was 14 and 15, I had an English teacher who told me that I should never stop writing. Obediently, I never have and never will.
What do you love about writing? What are the things about writing that sometimes leave you wishing that you did indeed take up that police badge?Kids often ask me what I love and hate about writing and I answer it this way… In your imagination, you can do anything, go anywhere – what could be cooler than that? The downside is that you have to sit still for long periods, and that isn’t good for the body. If I didn’t exercise, I’d be a hunched over and obese cripple.
Who are your heroes/mentors and why?That teacher who told me I should keep writing – simply because other people would enjoy my work – is a hero. Sure, there have been times I’ve blamed him for my bank balance, but there are many more days I’ve thanked him. The people I admire come from all walks of life. People who work hard to make the most of what they’ve got, and the circumstances they are in. People who give more than they take. People who care about other people.
If you could be anyone for a day, who would it be and why?Wow, what a question! The first person who comes to my mind is Roger Federer. The man has reached the pinnacle and stayed there for so long, yet remains the same man he always was. Pleasant, generous, humble. And fit… I’d love to be so fit!
What do you like to read when you’re not jet-setting around the globe or filling our heads with stories? Why?I read very widely. I am moved and inspired by literary fiction, especially by such Indian authors as Anita Desai, Vikram Seth and Rohinton Mistry. I discover little gems like Rachel Trezise, from Wales. I adore YA fiction, and think Australians lead the field. And what is more gorgeous than a visually and narratively enchanting picture book? Why do I love them? – I just do!
Do you listen to music to get in the mood for writing? If not, what do you do to psych yourself up before jumping into a novel (or during)?Music’s important to me, but not for writing. Confession time: coffee is what I need. No coffee, no words. Something else I’ve learned is that it is good for me to be surrounded by non-English speakers… it forces me into an inner world, but not an isolated one.
What are your personal experiences with writing and the Internet?The kids who read my books can email me anytime, and I’ll reply. And when I visit a school, I let them know. A few weeks ago I was in an Australian library, working on my laptop, when a notification popped up – it was a message from a reader in India, near the Bhutan border. What a world! It’s wonderful! Readers also reach me on Facebook, but personally I prefer Twitter for networking and promotion. It’s something you can dip into as time permits, and unlike Facebook it never becomes a substitute from proper email communication.
In The Scarlet Omen, my main protagonist comes up against vampires and witches. What do you personally think about supernatural beings and their place in literature? I look at it this way – there are supernatural beings in real life! For me, stories are about challenges and journeys, forces of nature and forces we don’t understand. Whether we are facing bullies or vampires, we need the strength and creativity to deal with them. So let’s all tell our stories, just the way they present themselves to us.
In Love is a UFO, your main character loses his father. How far do you think readers can emotionally delve into a story? In such cases, how can we tell if an author has done his or her job well? A novel presents a real world. It’s not quite the world the reader inhabits, but it meets them in it and transports them away. When we respond to a novel, we respond emotionally as well as intellectually – we feel sadness, excitement, fear. When readers get it, they feel it. That’s when we know the art and the craft are good.
All writers always tell their aspiring colleagues to “Never give up and always believe in yourself”. What do you think about this statement? How much confidence should one have in their work before giving up altogether? If you love something and believe in it, you will work very hard for it. And when you work very hard on something you love, the chances of eventual success are good. Writers write because they must, because they do, because they really want to. If you can give up, you should. That sounds weird, I know… but the thing is that good writers can’t give up.
Could you give us some words of wisdom about writing?Feel it. Be on the page, or on the screen. Be present in your work and know that every good story is not just the story, it says something more. Oh yes, and get up off the chair to stretch and exercise, otherwise you’ll be soooorrrry!!!
Thanks, Ken! How inspiring. Check out www.kenspillman.com and www.jakeseries.com. Follow Ken on Twitter @kenspillmansays.
www.facebook.com/cinthiakoeksal
Author bio: Ken Spillman is one of Australia’s most renowned authors of children’s and young adult novels, writing memorable novels and contributing lovable and colourful characters to the literary world. Ken has written over 30 books and has more than a few awards under his belt, including the FAW National Literary Award. His YA novels include Blue (1999) and Love is a UFO (2007, Winner of the Western Australian Premier’s Book Award), while his Jakeseries of chapter books for early readers appears in many countries and languages as diverse as Vietnamese, Farsi, French and Serbian. He is also the author of the Daydreamer Dev series, The Strange Story of Felicity Frown, Advaita the Writer, and Radhika Takes the Plunge. Ken Spillman is a popular international presenter, travelling widely to speak at festivals and visit schools.
Questions:When you were little, did you dream of becoming a writer or did you also run around every Halloween as a fireman and pretend to chase villains down the street in the evenings? What made you want to become an author?I didn’t dream of being a writer. My first thought was to become a veterinarian, but then my sister decided she wanted to be one too, so I dropped the idea. I didn’t really think about becoming a writer… but imagining stuff was what made life interesting, and I actually DID imagine chasing villains. I simply loved writing stories. Around the age of 8, I started writing stories out of school, just for the fun of it. Later, when I was 14 and 15, I had an English teacher who told me that I should never stop writing. Obediently, I never have and never will.
What do you love about writing? What are the things about writing that sometimes leave you wishing that you did indeed take up that police badge?Kids often ask me what I love and hate about writing and I answer it this way… In your imagination, you can do anything, go anywhere – what could be cooler than that? The downside is that you have to sit still for long periods, and that isn’t good for the body. If I didn’t exercise, I’d be a hunched over and obese cripple.
Who are your heroes/mentors and why?That teacher who told me I should keep writing – simply because other people would enjoy my work – is a hero. Sure, there have been times I’ve blamed him for my bank balance, but there are many more days I’ve thanked him. The people I admire come from all walks of life. People who work hard to make the most of what they’ve got, and the circumstances they are in. People who give more than they take. People who care about other people.
If you could be anyone for a day, who would it be and why?Wow, what a question! The first person who comes to my mind is Roger Federer. The man has reached the pinnacle and stayed there for so long, yet remains the same man he always was. Pleasant, generous, humble. And fit… I’d love to be so fit!
What do you like to read when you’re not jet-setting around the globe or filling our heads with stories? Why?I read very widely. I am moved and inspired by literary fiction, especially by such Indian authors as Anita Desai, Vikram Seth and Rohinton Mistry. I discover little gems like Rachel Trezise, from Wales. I adore YA fiction, and think Australians lead the field. And what is more gorgeous than a visually and narratively enchanting picture book? Why do I love them? – I just do!
Do you listen to music to get in the mood for writing? If not, what do you do to psych yourself up before jumping into a novel (or during)?Music’s important to me, but not for writing. Confession time: coffee is what I need. No coffee, no words. Something else I’ve learned is that it is good for me to be surrounded by non-English speakers… it forces me into an inner world, but not an isolated one.
What are your personal experiences with writing and the Internet?The kids who read my books can email me anytime, and I’ll reply. And when I visit a school, I let them know. A few weeks ago I was in an Australian library, working on my laptop, when a notification popped up – it was a message from a reader in India, near the Bhutan border. What a world! It’s wonderful! Readers also reach me on Facebook, but personally I prefer Twitter for networking and promotion. It’s something you can dip into as time permits, and unlike Facebook it never becomes a substitute from proper email communication.
In The Scarlet Omen, my main protagonist comes up against vampires and witches. What do you personally think about supernatural beings and their place in literature? I look at it this way – there are supernatural beings in real life! For me, stories are about challenges and journeys, forces of nature and forces we don’t understand. Whether we are facing bullies or vampires, we need the strength and creativity to deal with them. So let’s all tell our stories, just the way they present themselves to us.
In Love is a UFO, your main character loses his father. How far do you think readers can emotionally delve into a story? In such cases, how can we tell if an author has done his or her job well? A novel presents a real world. It’s not quite the world the reader inhabits, but it meets them in it and transports them away. When we respond to a novel, we respond emotionally as well as intellectually – we feel sadness, excitement, fear. When readers get it, they feel it. That’s when we know the art and the craft are good.
All writers always tell their aspiring colleagues to “Never give up and always believe in yourself”. What do you think about this statement? How much confidence should one have in their work before giving up altogether? If you love something and believe in it, you will work very hard for it. And when you work very hard on something you love, the chances of eventual success are good. Writers write because they must, because they do, because they really want to. If you can give up, you should. That sounds weird, I know… but the thing is that good writers can’t give up.
Could you give us some words of wisdom about writing?Feel it. Be on the page, or on the screen. Be present in your work and know that every good story is not just the story, it says something more. Oh yes, and get up off the chair to stretch and exercise, otherwise you’ll be soooorrrry!!!
Thanks, Ken! How inspiring. Check out www.kenspillman.com and www.jakeseries.com. Follow Ken on Twitter @kenspillmansays.
www.facebook.com/cinthiakoeksal
May 24, 2012
Delightful vs. KCoolSweet
I had an interesting conversation with a good friend of mine about slangs and what they’re doing to the English language. It was a heated discussion, she being all for butchering the written and spoken word and it got messy (apple pie forks went flying) but in the end I won. Little did I know that my euphoria would last for all of two days. My teenage niece burst my bubble when I asked her about the absence of full stops in her five sentence long proclamation on Facebook and she told me “LOL it’s the 21st writers need to go with it that means u 2”. As you can imagine, I felt like a decaying crypt keeper on a very hot day.
My opinion that Google is God’s cure for ignorance tends to lead me to places on the Net that even my weird world of dreams cannot possibly conjure. After getting over my shock and pondering what my younger friend and darling niece had said, I decided to do some surfing (cyber only—wet suits and my hips don’t go together). Lo and behold, I found out that my preference for grammatically correct sentences, draconian attention to punctuation and deep respect for the Oxford English Dictionary belong strapped to a wagon on its way to a quarry back in the days of the Roman Empire. Apparently, even Shakespeare paid more attention to slang than I do.
“…the use of slang is frequently ridiculed by culturally-ignorant people who feel it is the product of insufficient education and believe it to be counter-evolutionary; of course, they couldn't be farther from the truth. human language has been in a state of constant reinvention for centuries, and slang has been used and created by poets and writers of all sorts….it is the right and responsibility of the modern human to keep re-evaluating language, to give dead words innovative contemporary meanings or to simply invent new ones, in order to be more appealing and representative to the speaker/listener (which was essentially the basis behind language anyway, to understandably communicate thoughts or ideas verbally).”--UrbanDictionary.com
In other words, if I don’t want to be a member of a dying clan, I need to “pick up my game” or “get my weight up” or “Hustle”. Blurgh. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for shortening words and leaving out my apostrophes on Facebook but aren’t books supposed to live on higher planes? Aren’t we writers supposed to preserve the beauty of literature by making magic come to life with words that don’t necessarily end with ‘ing’? (eg. planking, upcycling, tripping, flipping, hating, dissing and some other words that could get me banned from Blogdome. And then people go around slashing the real -ing words into –in’ words…apparently the sound of -g is taboo on Cool Planet.) So what happened? Wasn’t I the one walking around as a teenager with kidney-damaging jeans, mandatory Dock Martins and drumsticks pocking out of my back pocket? Did I grow up and become my English teacher?
I certainly hope not! It’s true: we need to go with the flow. Teenagers I meet normally love (heart) me and think I’m one “nasty-ass” (cool) adult. And when they say “adult”, I cringe and look behind me to see who they’re talking about. I gag at the mere mention of cauliflower and I think Eminem is one of the most brilliant composers alive. My eight year-old son boasts that his is the only mother who has watched all six episodes of Star Wars. Because of this need to live with one foot bouncing up and down at a David Guetta concert and one in the world of caviar and champagne, I tend to mix things up a little in my novels (Thank God for crossover genres!).
I try very hard to blend in the two worlds (Urban Dictionary vs Cambridge) because I fell off the young adult cliff awhile back but still squeal every time I hear the theme song of Harry Potter. It’s ok to grow up but I’ve learnt that a writer of YA (young adult) fiction needs to stay in focus and know his or her audience. You’re not going to convince General Grievous to buy your light saber unless you can prove that it once belonged to a Jedi!www.facebook.com/cinthiakoeksal
