A friend took me to Cleveland to eat fish and chips for my birthday, last Wednesday. Rocks of different compositions were collected for a rock painting adventure, and I snapped shots of this Pelican. It was a pity that Mr. Pelican caught and ate a fish before I was close enough to get a decent shot, but I do like this particular one. It was a beautiful and peaceful day, made even more beautiful at night when I watched the Paris Opera Ballet perform La Bayadère at QPAC. It was my first time watching the ballet live, so it was quite fitting indeed.

I was going to do the whole stock-taking of the year and how it’s been a pretty decent life all in all, but my friend, the beautiful poet stopped me this year by saying “You’re not going to die, you’ve plenty more years of adventure left!”. So yes, I guess she made the most fitting statement of all. Every year I’ve been doing a stock-take of my new “age”, but this year I spent my birthday having an adventure. I guess that says it all

I tend to concoct dishes based on what I find so most of what I make is a result of random chance/luck. Ditto my bi-monthly pilgrimage to Chinatown to stock up on dried prawns and anchovies, chinese preserved fruits and various condiments.While I was at Burlington’s (asian supermarket), I found flat rice noodles that were uncut. Woo! Since it was exactly what was needed, I decided to recreate Chee Cheong Fun, which I have not had in nearly two years. Didn’t turn out too bad today. Doesn’t taste exactly like Ipoh Chee Cheong Fun, nor like Penang Chee Cheong Fun, but something in between. This was pretty much inevitable since I can’t find the red bean sauce I needed. Fortunately, I found a nice soy-bean and chilli paste which I used to make my own sauce.

Sauces (1) Boil anchovies and chilli powder together with the bean and chilli paste, salt. Thicken w/ a bit of tapioca flour. Blend with sesame seeds and deep fried shallots. Pour back in the pan, bring to boil.
(2) Dilute hae ko with warm water.

Rice Noodle: Fry some dried prawns in a bit of oil. Lay the rice noodle sheets in a dish, layer w/ said dried prawns and some sesame oil. Cover with microwave-friendly cling film. Microwave till noodles are soft but still elastic.

Assembly: Chop rice noodles as finely as you can, add deep fried tofu and fish balls. Drizzle soy sauce, the chilli mixture, the hae ko mixture and some pickled chillis if you have them. Sprinkle toasted sesame seeds, deep fried shallots and chopped spring onions on top. Nom.

You might also be interested in my Home-made Yong Tau Foo recipe if you’re another lost, homesick soul pining for Malaysian hawker/street food. :p

The problem with the generic, technical “Show, don’t tell” based advice dished out by writing workshops and writing books is this: it assumes all writing and storytelling must conform to one fictive model and one alone. Some of my best-loved storytellers are those who Tell, Tell, and Tell me some more. And I say yes, please Tell me more. And I say yes, dish me that info-feed, baby, if you’re dishing it the right way. Lay it on me.

It is within the resonance of their strong, individual voices that the “Show” element slowly resolves, without actually “Show”ing too much, just the faintest outline of a scene, letting the listener or individual flesh it out with their own minds. To me, this is the difference between technical aptitude as a writer and being a writer who allows a reader to dream. It’s the spaces in the mind. The Brontes understood this well, so did Tolkien. And so did other writers from non-canonical traditions. I think of the sparseness and the simplicity of Japanese verse, of the Malay pantun. I think of the storytellers of the old epics who gave us dizzying detail, but also a strong, resonant voice. If I have to err on the technical nitty gritty of my stories, I would. If my grammar falls by the wayside, if my pacing is not the best in the world. If, in starting my narrative in media res I have somehow disoriented my reader; if, I use run-on sentences in ways that dislocate them. If, I annoy you with a hanging participle. IF. I unforgivably dump an info feed halfway in my story. IF. I annoyingly, do not reveal what the story is about in my opening paragraphs because I am listening to the voice in my head that says Setting IS Character. If, I do not write character-driven fiction that is obviously character driven because I am just that postmodern or capricious enough to want to hide my narrators in strange places. If. I, most unforgivably, commit the politically incorrect transgression du jour. If I lay on too much philosophy that hurts your head. If. I commit unspeakable textual, grammatical errors but in doing so, still retain my voice. Would that make me a bad storyteller? Perhaps. But if I find my voice, who is to say? Even if it is buried, unheard. It is still a voice. Is a voice lost in a forest of slush still a voice or just unread text? Who is to say?

This is the battle I am fighting right now. And, I suspect, this is the battle I have been fighting all along.

Being the narratology geek that I am, I have my favorite storytellers. I also have, within that list, my favorite implied narrators, first or third person. I must admit to have inherited a narratological quirk or two from my days of writing my M.A. thesis on Angela Carter, but that is meant for another writerly wank. One of these days.

Angela Carter, Michael Ende, Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco, Boccaccio, Dante, various unnamed and anonymous writers of ancient epics and fairytales, Wole Soyinka, Guy Gavriel Kay, Anais Nin, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Sir Walter Scott, George Eliot, Isabel Allende, Gabriel García Márquez and I’m sure I’m forgetting half a dozen more. These are my mentors. These are my muses. And it’s been established that most of this would be casualties of the slush pile today. Which is not to say I have reached their level of narrative yet.

I’m just saying.

And probably ensuring the last nail gets hammered into my writerly coffin. But I’m tired of censoring myself.

I’m tired of rules, period. I just want to write recklessly like I mean it. I want to write like it’s that fling with the guy you really shouldn’t be out with but here you are, at 5am, talking at breakneck speed and doing unwise things instead of keeping within the prescribed margins. Which, I never could stop myself from writing or drawing outside of the margins in school, either. Could you?

And now I go back to fighting with MY narrative.

I’m still reconsidering/reshuffling which content should go where re, both the Wildwood and Water directories on mythopoetica.com. Since Growing Fins is photo-heavy and The Mythogenetic Grove should be for arts-based notifications, I’ve decided to move my visual arts updates there. I won’t be removing the existing visual arts updates that are here, of course, but in the future, my dear, silent RSS subscribers, do subscribe to The Mythogenetic Grove for updates on art, fiction and of course, the newly revived Webbed Feet postings.

The evenings are getting colder and colder. This has done something to my nesting instincts, dunno what, made it stronger, perhaps? I’ve been puttering about the cottage like one obsessed, dusting and removing cobwebs, reorganizing clutter and of course, making soup. Tonight, I had some vegetables, hot paprika, minced meat and half of a field mushroom left over from my brunch of eggplant+mushroom bruschetta. The goulash soup element happened by accident. It’s just a variation of my usual soup but I have to say this – it’s the best soup I’ve made this winter, and maybe ever, so here’s the recipe

A

1/2 a parsnip
a cup of cauliflower, chopped
2 potatoes, sliced and with skins remaining
1 1/2 to 2 big onions sliced
3 cloves garlic chopped roughly
1 sun-ripened tomato
1 carrot, chopped roughly.
Minced Meat

B

Paprika
Salt
Stock
Pepper
Herbs (optional, I just dunked in the mixed herbs which has parsley, basil + thyme)

C

Field Mushrooms
A knob of butter/low-fat dairy spread

Fill a soup pot with A and water. Season with B. Boil for 30-40 minutes. Mash it up roughly. Boil for another 15-30 minutes. Add C. Boil a bit longer. Add water and/or milk if things are evaporating too much. Stir. Taste lovingly. Dish out and serve.

I am convinced that parsnips are a wonder-soup ingredient. Made garlic toast to go with the soup but I am sure you could serve them with noodles in proper goulash style. And oh, I couldn’t help wanting to play with a new font

E.T.A.:

Thought I’d post a picture of the garlic toast as well. Made a garlic spread with crushed garlic, low-fat dairy spread, some extra virgin olive oil (full strength, none of the mild flavour bullshit) and a sprinkle of salt. Spread it over 9-grain multigrain bread, grill the two slices of bread in the oven. You can do this with a toaster oven as well, of course.

Since the purchase of my new monitor and my new WACOM Bamboo graphic tablet I’ve been mucking around with photoshop every now and then to reward myself in between my batches of furious research/thesis writing/angst. Have yet to acquire the textures/graphics that are best suited for a new site redesign, but here’s something new.

If you like it, then do head on over to the painting’s devart page.

The hidden pathway lies in between.

I love best the quiet, unexplored moments, which contain their own language, outside of the lexical codes of superficiality.