011: Difficulties, Cute Teas, Sick Kitties
A couple of bits and bobs this edition. We'll jump right to it in a sec, but first...
Support my work
Work-Life Balance – the multi-award-winning prose/comics hybrid co-created with Benjamin Chee. It's currently being developed into an animated series by Robot Playground Media.
You can also get the Work-Life Balance bundle, which comes with the book, a mug, washi tape and more.
Worlds Apart: A Conversation About Mental Health – a comic co-created with Nurjannah Suhaimi.
HANTU – Spotify channel for the award-winning narrative series, Ghost Maps, and the talk show, Dead Air, both of which were co-created with Kyle Ong.
A not-so-novel approach
I'm around two weeks into working on my novel and, while things are generally going fine, it's naturally not going exactly as planned. See, the trouble with modelling my approach and work schedule on how I did it in Norwich is... well, I'm not in Norwich.
There are a couple of factors that have made this a little difficult, but more than anything else, my mindset—if you'll pardon my French—is what's really fucking me up.
It's easy to focus solely on my novel when I fly to a whole other country with that express purpose. It wasn't just the cottage at Dragon Hall where I had the headspace to write; it was all of Norwich.
It's another thing altogether to lock myself in my work space all day—then switch back to simply being a guy named Wayne. Every morning, I have to make that switch in mindset and it's not as easy as I thought it would be.
This isn't a pity party though. I'm well aware that I've carved out an amazing opportunity for myself here. I just didn't want to give the impression that everything was hunky dory—and, really, I kinda needed to talk about it too.
Spill the tea
Fairly quiet on the self-promotion front this week. In the previous edition, I mentioned that Ervin, Ben and I spoke with a news outlet about the Work-Life Balance animated series. That interview won't be out till the end of this month.
Another interview that I did, however, went online two days ago—and I shared the stage with someone that's even more special to me than Ben or Ervin (sorry, guys).
Nadia and I spoke with Dilmah Singapore for their Valentine's Day Instagram post. We talked a little about how tea's a part of our love language, and I even managed to get in a silly pun. (I mean, of course I did.)
Also, you get to see a photo of Nadia and I from way back in 2008. Marvel at how beautiful she's remained throughout the years! Be amazed at how time has truly ravaged me in terrible, terrible ways! Check out the post now.
Not a subscriber yet?
If a friend forwarded this to you or you're reading it online, maybe consider signing up to receive long-form updates like this twice a month.
And now, back to your (mostly) regularly scheduled newsletter.
Sickly kitty
Luca was puking a bit too much the other night, so I brought him to the vet. Don't worry—the diagnosis is that it was either a particularly large fur ball or his tummy's just adjusting to his new dry food.
The vet also said that he's a very calm and sweet big boy. As far as I'm concerned, that's part of her medical diagnosis.
Clearly, he's doing much better now.
Links and things
Elvin Ching—writer/artist behind the amazing action/horror comic, The Woodsman—spoke with Comix.Sg about how he's progressing with the sequel (which I've only half-jokingly suggested that he call 2 Fast 2 Woodsman) and what it's like for a creator in Singapore. It's a frank discussion that reflects a lot of our everyday lives, as well as our hopes for the future of the local comics scene. Watch it here.
DC and Marvel are reprinting most of their classic crossovers. This sits less in the "links" column and more firmly under the "things" column 'cause, honestly, I really wanted to say how ridiculously happy this makes me. A lot of these crossovers were initially published when I was starting to read comics regularly, so yeah, nostalgia plays a part here, but I would also like to think that they're fun mini-events that anyone with even a passing familiarity with these characters could enjoy. (This isn't a review or a recommendation, by the way; just a lengthy paragraph that amounts to me going, "Whee!" like a child giddy on too much candy.)
That's it for now
As always, don't forget to support my work.
And I'll see you in March.