Writing

POTMOTSP V 10 March 

I wrote this story as a corporate parody, with the ultimate questions being --- How far can meaningless work be pushed to? When you push language to the furthest it can go, does it become meaningless?
What does a meaningless office look like on paper?

I played around with a few endings for this story, and finally settled on a fairly happy one. I feel that the story doesn't really stretch the satire/sci-fi-ness enough though, and that I can still push the whole dysfunctionality a bit further, without going over the top.

The Cat story V 10 March 

In the latest iteration of the Cat Story, I rewrote the whole thing, and added a new ending, pushing the limits so that Kiat becomes outrightly weird. I had wanted to restrain the Kiat character as just a normal guy, with slight oddities, but experimented with going the extreme route in this revision. I am quite pleased with the beginning and middle rewrites, though. I think the prose is a lot tighter than it used to be, while retaining the original intent. The phrases are shorter too, and I've cut out the long explanations.

Next V 10 March 

The previous version of Next was decidedly racist, and presented Mark as wholly bad, and Kim as almost wholly good. I almost chucked this story out, but thinking about it again, I think showing another side to both characters might add a bit more weight to the story. It's still not terribly PC -- not that I think all the stories I write should be -- but I think it's more balanced and more thoughtful than the previous version. I struggled with the ending, once again, but it seems to vaguely work.


In progress

Shades 

I read this article and thought about the Shades story. On one hand, I do want it to be an 'I will survive' sort of story, but then again, not something cliched. The original 'brief' for the story was to have the woman stay in the marriage, to go against the grain of giving up when the going gets tough. Again, not PC, but something that I think happens still, whether women stay in abusive relationships out of fear, love, face, commitment, inertia. I think sometimes it takes more strength to stay than to leave.  

Pole

This is a pole dancing story that I wanted to do just because I want to get into the mind of a pole dancer, which may be the world's most frivolous reason to start a story. The plot is in shambles at this point, possibly because of that very same reason.

Siglap 

The Siglap story is also still pending, because I can't think of anything to write about the place. I think I need to read Robin Hemley's book soon on turning life into fiction.