Anna Tan's Blog, page 87

#fridayflash: Waterfall

It wasn't that she didn't love him any more. It was just that she felt stifled. She'd been looking for stability and she'd found it, but at the same time she hadn't thought that stability meant boring.

"What's happened to us?" she asked him once.
"What? What's wrong?" he replied, barely looking up from his newspaper.
"Let's go do something fun."
"Like what?"
"I don't know."
He gave her a funny look.

It was as if her love had become staid instead of steadfast; the sense of wonder had turned quickly i...

#bookreview: Iban Dream by Golda Mowe

Happy Malaysia Day!
Sept 16, 1963 marks the day that Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore joined Malaya to form Malaysia. Of course, Singapore was kicked out shortly thereafter...

At any rate, I thought it would be a good day to introduce a novel written by a Sarawakan writer, Golda Mowe.

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Iban Dream by Golda Mowe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Iban Dream is the story of a young Iban boy left to fend for himself after the shaman of his longhouse ordered for him to be cast out because of an evil spirit. Adopted...

Global Literacy - A cause for concern

This post comes to you courtesy of https://www.grammarly.com/plagiarism-checker

#musicmonday: Waterfall by Chris Tomlin

The only things I have been listening to the past week is Chris Tomlin's Love Ran Red in my car and Jon Thurlow. As Jon Thurlow's sets (especially the one I've been listening to) often run over an hour, Chris Tomlin makes it to the blog.



Check back on Friday for a Friday Flash! (Assuming I am on time this week. Sorry!)

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Also, I will be taking down my flash fiction collection, Stories from A Place to Call Home, from Smashwords, so if you want to grab a copy of it, you should do that before the...

#fridayflash: Blame

The should haves lined his wall like a row of first prize trophies.

He should have studied engineering; after years of studying and practicing medicine, he finally realised what a pain people were and how much he didn't want to help heal them. But his parents had encouraged him, saying there was good money in it. Besides, didn't he want to give back to society?

He should have saved more when he was younger, instead of spending it on expensive cars and expensive clothes and expensive food....

#bookreview: Half Worlder by Lee Falin

Half Worlder by Lee Falin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Half Worlder is another coming of age story written in first person in a glutted market. That fact alone takes away a couple of stars. I'm not a huge fan of first person narratives, but Lee Falin pretty much makes it work okay. At least the asides were useful and interesting in a snarky kind of way.

Kristin Magnuson, the first Earthling selected to serve as a Youth Ambassador ("YA") in over fifty years, is actually only half human - her mother is...

#musicmonday: Blame by #FazzBand

Discovered over the Merdeka weekend at the Planet Eupe: A Musical Showcase.

Loved the sound, showmanship and energy.

Also, this might be the sound I'm looking for if I can finally decide on that script to work on. Which would throw all existing plans into a loop.

Eh.

Check them out here and here.

Also, because I enjoy torturing myself, I'm going to try this #musicmonday / #flashfiction combo, where I'll use the song I post on Mondays as the basis of the flash fiction on Friday.

We shall see wh...

In Memoriam

if glue could hold this family together

He used to sell glue - the kind that came in the little wide-bottomed plastic bottles with the stick fixed to the centre of the screw-on lid to spread it with. The kind that dried up on your fingers and you would spend several minutes carefully peeling off to look at your fingerprints. The kind with that nice glue smell that maybe made you a little high.

like their own words tear it apart
There was paper in his shop as well, the normal kind and the colour...

#bookreview: The Watcher's Keep by Timothy Bond

The Watcher's Keep by Timothy Bond
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Watcher's Keep has everything it takes to be a really good epic fantasy novel. A pair of twins thrown into the world to seek their destiny and the future; an evil Wizard-God, his dragon and his henchmen bent on ruling the world opposed by the Guardians, consisting of a Wizard, a woodsman and an assortment of motley characters; dwarves who are emerging into the world of men again, reluctantly; elves who are caught between helping and...

Deconstructing loss

I had been planning to do a post on Bersih and Merdeka and the new journey of life that I'm embarking on, including the exciting weekend that just passed, but instead I find myself sitting in Nando's anticipating some comfort food, pondering the vague concept of grief. 
I don't normally portray myself as an extraordinarily emotional person, but I am wildly emotive at times. It comes from processing words, actions and emotions and deconstructing them, both as a writer and an actor. Which i...