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I’m doing Nanowrimo, and I promised a few people I’d put up a preview of my favorite part so far.
‘Informata’ is based on the premise that things on the Internet exist in a dimension that certain people can access and maintain, so it was a natural choice that the Fail Whales of Twitter fame should make an appearance.
Plus they are so ridiculously cute.
Disclaimer: I don’t own, and don’t claim to own, any of Twitter’s trademarks. The Fail Whale belongs to Twitter. I’m not making any money off Informata, because I fully intend to bury it in my hard drive forever after November.
That being said, have Part 1 of a preview! Click through for the preview.
This week is APEC meeting week, but we’re still on for Nanowrimo write-ins!
This week
Dates: 14 Nov (Sat) and 15 Nov (Sun)
Venue: Earshot Cafe, The Arts House, 1 Old Parliament Lane
Time: 2pm to 4pm
Take public transport! There are several road and lane closures because of the APEC meetings, so public transport is your best bet to getting to The Arts House.
Here’s a full list of the affected roads if you’re driving.
Nearest MRT stations are City Hall and Raffles Place, but I recommend you come from City Hall if you’re unfamiliar with the area.
Here’s a map from City Hall mrt station:
View Larger Map
Just a quick reminder! Nanowrimo Singapore will be meeting every weekend in November for write-ins, so come on down and join us if you can!
This week
Dates: 7 Nov (Sat) and 8 Nov (Sun)
Venue: Earshot Cafe, The Arts House, 1 Old Parliament Lane
Time: 2pm to 4pm
Nearest MRT stations are City Hall and Raffles Place, but I recommend you come from City Hall if you’re unfamiliar with the area.
Here’s a map from City Hall mrt station:
View Larger Map
You can come if you don’t have a laptop! Typewriters, computers, assorted phones or paper and pen are all welcome :D
I don’t have many pictures for this, largely because I was too busy to take any! Quite a lot of the photos were by Nerwen.
On Saturday was the kick-off party for the Singapore chapter of Nanowrimo, of which I’m proud to be co-Municipal Liaison for. It was also the launch of Happiness at the End of the World, a collection of short stories revolving around the title theme. You can buy Happiness from our publisher, Two Trees!
Things started off really well with a gigantic cake box being delivered to my home. I was a little late because traffic was bad, but by the time I arrived at Earshot cafe things were already buzzing.
There’s quite a lot of thanks to go around, so I’ll try to fit everyone into my thirty-second speech :P
Thanks to: Seriously Sarah, Joelyn Alexandra, Nerwen, NotKieran (and family!), our long-suffering editor, publisher, typesetter and writer extraordinaire Rozen, Ziyang, Kiaace, Wena Poon, The Arts House, the National Arts Council, Singapore Writers Fest volunteers and staff, Singapore Wrimos, Hafiz aka ‘Zebra Preen’, HRH The Drama Queen Afiq, the boys who proved the cake was not a lie by finishing it (man slices!) and everybody else who came down to Earshot! :D
There were competitions and prizes given out, but everything went so fast and so crazy that I completely lost track. I had a heck of a time. I was so pleased with all our Undercover outfits – what with it being Halloween and all.
I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
 Rozen undercover as a tourist, winner of the Best Undercover competition More pictures under the jump
I went to see Neil Gaiman today! After waiting over four hours for tickets, you can bet I was excited as heck to see the man himself! With me was Seriously Sarah, Nerwen, Joelyn Alexandra (formerly Raven Azure, who is moving sites) and Justin from Nanowrimo.
They had to move the venue from the Chamber inside the Arts House (200 seats) to the Victoria Theatre (900 seats) because demand was so high. I learnt a lot of things about the area today, including that it’s very easy to walk from Cavenagh Bridge to Victoria Theatre and cut through to the Arts House. I’ve been going to that area for four years now, and only this year I find out… Sigh.
I was in the ticket-holders line, of course, but there was also this – and the organiser’s sense of humor really shines through…
Heh. People did try, though! Nevermind that all the tickets were gone. It’s Neil Gaiman, man. And some of them got really lucky! I saw a few people in the ticket-holders line give their extra tickets to the ticketless, largely because their friends couldn’t make it at the last minute. (Read more)
On Sunday I was out and about, and two of my stops were the Wii Sports Resort Carnival at Takashimaya and the Xbox Gaming Showdown at VivoCity.
Both were underwhelming, especially XGS. Maybe it was because I went at an off-hour, in the middle of the afternoon, so it wasn’t as exciting as it otherwise have been. (Read more)
This morning I was at The Arts House again, this time at Earshot cafe for the launch of Wena Poon’s The Proper Care of Foxes, her latest collection of short stories. I was joined by Sarah.
The Proper Care of Foxes has been out in stores for a bit now, but today was like the official launch with Wena and her publisher, Ethos Books. Ethos might be a familiar name, because they’re quite well known for publishing local poetry. (Read more)
One of the many panels at SWF 09 was Meet the Author: Mark Waid, held yesterday at the Chamber. His presence at SWF 09 is somewhat belated; he was supposed to join other comics writers Gail Simone and Kurt Busiek at the last SWF in 2007, but unfortunately he couldn’t make it at the very last minute. ):
About Mark Waid from the SWF website:
Mark Waid (United States)
Mark Waid is a comic book writer and editor who has written some of the best-selling graphic novels of all time, including Kingdom Come and Superman: Birthright. Currently editor-in-chief of independent comic book company BOOM! Studios, he is the writer behind The Incredibles, which is based on the 2004 Disney-Pixar film of the same name, and a variety of his self-created works.
I was extra-excited to see him because I had a special centerfold from the SWF 07 programme that Gail Simone and Kurt Busiek signed – I just needed his autograph to complete my centerfold. (Read more)
I spent the day at The Arts House at various panels, one of which was the Meet the Author: Wena Poon at the Blue Room! I was with Sarah, (the other) Raven and Nerwen.
A bit more on Wena from her profile on the SWF website:
Wena Poon (Singapore/United States)
Born and raised in Singapore, Wena Poon graduated magna cum laude in English Literature from Harvard and later obtained a degree from Harvard Law School. She has worked as a journalist and lawyer in Hong Kong and the United States. Her first book, Lions in Winter, was listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the Singapore Literature Prize. Within two months of its launch, the collection of short stories climbed to No. 6 in The Straits Times’ Top 10 Bestseller List for fiction (February 2008). Her second book is called The Proper Care of Foxes (2009).
Wena is a great writer and a friend. She writes serious short stories, currently published as Lions in Winter and The Proper Care of Foxes. My favorite is neither, though! She also has a series called Biophilia that has kickass heroine Imogen Parks, alternate worlds, and some really awesome talking animals. (Read more)
I’m having some technical difficulties with the site. Well, that’s putting it mildly; I broke my blog and I don’t even know how.
Until I figure out what went wrong and how to fix it, the blog will be using the default theme. I know it looks very barebones, but please bear with me until I can resolve this.
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