‘The best time to plan a book is while you’re doing the dishes’–Agatha Christie. Though this may not have been her idea of ‘doing’ dishes! Aren’t they pretty though? Both Lent and Ramadan are currently being observed in Singapore…
It is fasting season in Singapore right now–Ramadan for the Muslims and Lent for the Catholics. I’ve been doing my version of fasting too. which is to skip lunch while eating an early breakfast and fasting, except for water…
This came up because I went to the February Space Bar Write In Yesterday. I wrote about my first visit at the inaugural Space Bar last month…
Happy First Full Moon of the year (Yuan Xiao Jie) Everyone!! I’m sorry this is a day late, but the bright side (literally) is I get to write this on the fifteenth…
This is going to be a quick, short post because of all the Chinese New Year prep (cleaning/ visiting/ coordinating) going on right now, but I really liked the tongue in cheek (I think) slant the Central Library took on this…
Is anyone else finding it difficult to look forward to this new year? This is normally my favourite time of year–cool rainy weather with occasional thunderstorms (rain is predicted for the whole of next week here in Singapore)…
I realise this is my–and our–last post of 2024. It’s been a challenging year and the Unknown that we’re stepping into looks more ‘interesting’ (as in ‘May you live in interesting times’) than hopeful. After wrapping up the year’s projects…
We got to play at murder at the Singapore Science Centre Cafe last week! Forensic details are usually the steps…
I’m in a liminal space, writing-wise, right now. My editor, the wonderful Krystyna Green, is retiring at the end of this year. Krystyna has been my editor ever since she acquired my books for Constable/ Little, Brown/ Hachette…
I’ve been feasting mind, soul and (unfortunately?) body over the last two weeks. There’s been so much going on here… or maybe I only notice between book drafts! First of all, though, I got to go back to our neighbourhood kopitiam…
I’ve pretty much finished the cardigan I was knitting as I worked on the last book. I like to have a craft project running alongside the ‘big’ writing projects because there are times, in the middle of these six to eight month writing projects…
I have guests in my office—my guppies are in a temporary tank here because their larger (approx 120 L) fish tank by our bed sprang a leak in the middle of the night. That’s a lot of water, but fortunately it’s a slow leak and I should be able to get all my fishy charges out in time…
I’ve finally submitted the draft, so now I’m in the waiting-for-edits limbo and all my writing parasites are surfacing. You’d think I’d jump into all the things I’d been putting off—all the books I wanted to read, the exhibitions I wanted to go over, the shows I wanted to watch–but Plot Twist…
I’m in the really final Stretch of finishing my latest Tree History Mystery and yes, 3 kg heavier than when I started. But by now I’ve come to realise it’s part of the process…
I’m pushing through reworking the (hopefully) final, submittable draft of the next book–already missed first deadline and it looks like I’m going to be missing…
It’s Bouchercon Week! Even though I’m not anywhere near Nashville, I already imagine (and miss) all the conversations that will be going on in the Bouchercon Bar…
I’ve been trying to finish a draft–after a reshaping shift because apparently Americans won’t be uncomfortable…
I’ve always found it difficult learning things that intimidate me–and it doesn’t help that most things I don’t understand do intimidate me. And one of the things I find…
Singapore is a very small island–you can drive across it, coast to coast at its widest point, in under an hour. But still, when you’re underground. especially when you’ve just entered one of the tunnel expressways…
It was Father’s Day last Sunday–that’s my excuse to post this ancient photo of me with my (late) dad and mum. I remember telling my dad when I was nine…
Thanks to another visiting friend (one into maths rather than murder mysteries) we were hunting down Shanghainese restaurants this last week…