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I reached 30,000 words on Amethyst Way, Cry Havoc Book 5, which is not too shabby. I’m very excited about this.
With Gentleman Magician, Cry Havoc Novella, I’m waiting on feedback from Matthew on the blurb. I need to blurb to create entries of the National Library and the ISBNs and preorders and so on.
Now I have reached my goal, I’m about to head out to do some gift shopping and we might eat out for my last night here. At present I still have to pack but all my clothes are on the bed waiting to be stuffed around gifts and things.
In other world news, there are terrible floods in Nepal, which are awful and bring back horrible memories of the Boxing Day tsunami. I was not affected directly, just emotionally by that disaster. Climate change disaster!
As well as Dolly Parton passing away, Tim Curry has joined her. More icons falling.
In the old days of Live Journal I used to blog about life and stuff. And I’ve been thinking about this recently, particular AI and it’s impact. My writer brain goes into story mode and I toss ideas around. The trouble is those thoughts are scary.
My latest thought is that our children or grandchildren or even ourselves will have to pay for knowledge. At present, you Google something and the AI comes back you, offering help and so on. But when we are all dependent on AI, and our children can no longer think for themselves, the billionaires may start charging us for knowledge, for information.
Information that was created by humans, created by us and that is mostly free.
That’s a bit scary right. Then, what about AI changing information and us losing our history. How will we know what is right and what is wrong?
My answer? Librarians and books. Real, analogue books. But what if they disappear as wekk? What if we can no longer learn from history because that history has been rewritten and knowledge is transactional on a fee for service basis. I am sure someone has written a book like this already.
It sucks to be a writer sometimes because the brain goes to weird places.
Today is Tuesday and I fly out very early Friday morning to return to Australia. My last full day is Thursday. I have mixed feelings, of course. I love hanging out with my son and my daughter-in-law and I love being in Singapore. I also miss home, my partner and my family and friends. We need instantaneous travel right now so I can see family and friends everyday. I’d probably need one of those time slowing devices as well to fit all that visiting into a day. Mmm.
I’ve spent a bit of time here, writing and working on writing administration tasks. I’ve mixed that up with trips to malls, the grocery stores and restaurants and cafes and a museum. I’ve caught up a couple of times with Singaporean friends. I’ve bought local books! I’ve visit Don Don Donki a lot and bought some interesting snacks. One of my daughter-in-law’s favourite things is to go to Fair Price on the weekend to buy fresh prawns. They have other live seafood too, but it’s the prawns that are the favourite. I am allergic to fish so my darling kids don’t eat it when I’m around, even though I don’t mind if they do.
I had a sinus thing that lasted for about a week and really made me suffer. I’m great now and I am surprised how much energy I have. My daughter-in-law makes sure I eat well. (low salt, low fat, low sugar). She cooked up another feast last night. She always cooks some kind of soup (broth) with herbs or fungus and so on. I felt so full even though by volume it’s much less than I eat at home. This visit has brought home to me how much we eat at home, how much meat and carbs. I like how with Chinese culture the food is shared. Even if we eat a western type meal, Ferdi and I will swap and share as much as we can. Restaurants here don’t blink if you ask for share plates. I hope to take away a few of these habits so Matthew better watch out that we might be sharing meals instead of feeling obliged to eat everything on the plate.
I have exercised in the pool every day except for two days due to sickness. According to Google that is about 250 calories burned per day. However, I use the pool exercise to trim and tone muscle, exercise my core and work on my knees. A trip to anywhere via MRT (Metro) uses around 5000 steps. More if there is a mall and looking for things. I’m going to head out to the supermarket later as I’m cooking tonight. On the menu is crispy pork belly. (this is high fat and salt but I’m not making a huge amount). What that all equates to is that I’ve lost 3 kilos. Probably fluid mostly. I think I would have lost more but now that I’m well, I’m eating more. The week I was sick by daughter-in-law despaired of me. I had no appetite and she had to cook inventively to encourage me to eat. New discovery for me is these long green chili things that have very little heat and taste great with stir fry pork and garlic. I tried this at Xiang Xiang restaurant. I don’t know their name but I will have to go looking for them. Google tells me they are called Chinese Screw Pepper.
On Sunday, which was my last Sunday here, we chilled by the pool then took the gondola from Mt Faber (not Barker) across to Sentosa and then the Sentosa one. We went to the Bikini Bar where we had a drink because it was hot and then walked around a bit. We went over 10, 000 steps just on Sentosa as we took a car to Mt Faber (not Barker!) and back. It was lovely just to forget stuff and hang out. We had Xiao Long Bao which were yummy. We tried crab ones as well and mmm well not as nice and very fishy tasting. We also bought some Pierre Herme macarons. Very yummy and tres cher. By the time we got home we were all very tired.
I do have some reflections that don’t relate to food and shopping. That is live in the moment. This might seem kind of weird but when I see an old woman, maybe 80-90 walking slowly or an elder person in their mobility scooter, I think, they are lucky because they made it to that age. I guess recent loss affects my thinking. Russell Kirkpatrick was a year younger than me. However I have been thinking like that for a while. You can’t take your good health for granted. You can’t demand that you live to 100. You have to live in the moment, do the best you can and look after yourself. Don’t do stupid things. I’m 66 and reasonably healthy but I have liver problems and I had eye issues last year. I don’t know what the future holds for me but I can live today and hope to be here tomorrow. As I begin leaving Singapore, I can’t assume that I’ll come back here and things will be the same. I can’t assume I’ll come back. I hope I will. I know I leave part of my heart here with my son and daughter-in-law and I wish them happiness and health.
What fascinates me most about Singapore is what they have achieved as a country. The rich cultures here also make the country unique. Of course, there are many places that have a similar cultural mix (hello result of British colonisation) but Singapore do it with purpose.
Okay well that was a bit deep, even for me. So on the writing front. Yesterday I finished taking up the edits on Gentleman Magician and now I need to read it through aloud. That might take a couple of days. I also need to register ISBNs and what not that will take a few hours. I am also at 24,500 words on Amethyst Way. I was hoping to get to 30,000 words before I get home. But here I am blogging instead of writing!
Overall, I am happy with what I have achieved on the writing front, given I was behind when I got here.
Edit: I made it to 26,000 words and then got a migraine so I did not cook.
Sometimes you just have to live with whatever. Sometimes you might feel you are in a vortex of shit.
On Monday, which was a very lovely day in Canberra, I went for a walk around the lake and then on to the Botanical Gardens with friends. Just near the end of my walk in the gardens, I did not see a step. And wow does landing on your knees hurt! I managed to hobble out there and put on a brave face. When I got home, I asked Matthew to clean the grazes with alcohol wipes. I might have screamed. However, they had to be cleaned. I managed dinner with friends being dropped by the door of the restaurant.
Some pictures from the walk.
I slept with my legs elevated because I expected swelling and the next morning I was not surprised to have jelly knees. I spent the day vegging in front of the TV, eating all the inappropriate food I could find. I contacted the office of orthopaedic surgeon who did my partial knee replacements and he requested an Xray. My view of the Xray is that it’s all okay bone wise, no breaks, the arthritis on the knee cap is worse that previously. I’m guessing it’s just soft tissue damage. The surgeon hasn’t called so I’m thinking there are no issues with my prosthesis either.
A picture of gumnuts!
Anyhow I can mostly walk okay. Occasionally the right knee gives and the right knee does not like leading the way upstairs. The swelling has come down somewhat.
In amongst all this are some family issues, some friends adversely affected by health news and I wonder if the stars are in the wrong quarter or something. The world is pretty shit too and all in all it is quite difficult to stay positive.
I moved out of my craft room on the weekend too. And it looks like I’m going to sell my floor loom. I’m not using it enough to justify the space it takes up. And I’m hoping I kept my craft makings accessible this time but with the knees I cannot assemble shelves and finish the tidy up. The test will come when I want to work on something. These days it is sewing that floats my boat. If you can believe it, I actually culled some fabric and a lot of yarn. It went to the local buy nothing group. I found things too that I had totally forgotten about.
As part of clearing the craft room, I finished the walking bonnet that I started in a workshop at the Regency weekend. It is made from violet dupion silk. I don’t have much in violet so I thought why not.
A little bit of writing has been achieved. Mostly the restructure of Tainted Lady. I have some beta reader feedback coming for Gentleman Magician that I hope won’t take long to address. All in all, I am a bit behind schedule.
I also need to organise a launch, virtual and real of, The Founders’ Legacy. So I must start with a blurb and that requires brain power.
I feel I’m in a time tunnel. Egads! It’s June already and I’m pondering what happened to May. Oh well.
Since my last post, I have sent The Founders’ Legacy off for a proofread. It’s due back later this month.
Gentleman Magician is waiting on some beta reader comments.
And I decided to publish my Regency Romance Tainted Lady, under my Dani Kristoff name as Dani’s books are more mainstream paranormal romance. I found a great cover. It features an older heroine and is a second chance romance. And being me there are feminist undertones.
I am currently restructuring Tainted Lady. I thought I had mostly restructured it but alas, I had not and I need to work through it carefully. It is only the beginning that I’ve chopped up, after feedback from a Romance Writers of Australia competition. Fab feedback btw. I also need to make a few tweaks to my hero. However, for some reason I keep getting stuck on chapter one. I mean you can rewrite a chapter one a gazillion times, you know.
In other news, I am vacating my craft room for my grandson. However, this is cathartic and important. I’ve built up a bit of a mess since I last moved back into my craft room so it is good to sort through things, find bits of patterns and work out what I want to keep handy and what can be safely stored. I have made it quite clear that everything needs to be accessible so I am labelling as well as sorting and tidying. This is a threefold problem as the garage needs to be sorted and that is long overdue. For where may I ask will the craft stuff go? I have a floor loom that needs to be moved and I may want to you know weave something. I am hoping for a garage that is tidy and accessible. I have been in there to look for a power tool and said I’m going to buy a new one as I can’t find the one we have. Yes, it is that bad. The major sorting was instigated by a collapsing ceiling in the garage and then roof repairs which has a ripple effect. The other element is rearranging the library, which is currently a dormitory, and working out where to put stuff. All very disruptive to one’s writing routine.
I am progressively going through my hard drive and will publish more things perhaps next year. It’s clean up time!
Next appearance is Newcastle Next Book Boyfriend Link here. Saturday 13 June, 2026 93.0 to 4.30
Given all that is happening in the world right, it is hard to deal with things. My doomscrolling is almost non-existent because I can’t bear it.
With my economics learning, I know things are just going to get worse in Australia as we deal with the Iran war fall out. Inflation is not anyone’s friend and coming so close after the pandemic and all those income support payments people got (that have to be paid back somehow) it’s a double punch. The Iran war situation is not over and we were already priming for this oil shock. We thought it might be a short one but alas…no. The Government’s budget is a tough one. I can feel the austerity vibes.
Forget tarrifs! They were hard, unpredicatable and so on. Forget the old world order. The rules have been tossed out.
I think wars, famine, disease outbreaks make one feel a bit hopeless and disempowered. There isn’t much one individual can do about any of it.
I try to think of ways to influence what is going on around me and ways I can help contribute to mine and others’ well being.
I walk in the neighbourhood a lot. It’s suburbia, there were are hills, trees, birds, magnificent sky. People walk their dogs, or just walk about. I figure if I want a nice neighbourhood, I should say ‘hello’ and ‘good morning’ and ‘Cute dog. Can I pat it?’ People usually say hi back. This might seem a small thing but it helps create a neighbourly, neighbourhood.
Also, getting out in a beautiful day lifts the spirits. How can you not be calmed by trees, and nature. It kind of fills me up. Today I went in a different direction. Up the hill into the nature reserve. I was taking a picture of the view when someone said ‘Morning!’ I hadn’t heard them approached and startled. Once I had got myself together I said Good morning back. He said ‘It’s a great view.’ Walking back toward home, there was a big group walking towards me, a men’s group maybe. We exchanged good mornings and it felt nice, you know.
I also started looking a view from say a water colourist perspective. Not that I am a watercolourist, but I do aspire to try one day. The photos below are some that I took.
Our street has a Signal chat group. Our neighbour next door dropped notes into people’s letter boxes and asked if people wanted in. Most of us did. It aslo incorporates the street behind as well. Great for organising things like Halloween for the kids and so on. It is a really nice group of people. I had Christmas drinks on our decks one year. Not everyone came but a few did and it was nice to put faces to names. I think this chat group has helped create a lovely neighbourhood. We can post about snakes, or kangaroos on the street. Sometimes neighbours say ‘I’ve put a box of lemons out. Help yourself.’ OR “Zuccinis going if you want them.” Anyhow, I think this is a positive thing. We even tell the street if we are going away and there are housesitters. Or if someone has a teenager to feed the cat etc.
My partner volunteers at the Food Co-Op and he really believes in their ethos. He picks up left over bread from a bakery and delivers it to the Co-Op and one day a week to our local community centre. The bread goes to people in need, rather than the tip.
Other things we can do to whether difficult periods is donate a can of food to the local food bank. We have one in the next suburb and we can also leave food at the Pool and Leisure centre. I drop books there to the community book swap thing as well.
Other friends I know do things like make scarves for homeless people or Ukraine. These were woven, but crochet is fine. A beanie with left over wool.
To help others doesn’t have to cost much money but it usually costs time. I am still working on where I want to put my effort in. I am currently working parttime but that is going to end soon.
I’ve done my share of committees in local associations-community housing, writing, writing centre.
I feel grateful to have been on this Earth for 66 years. It has not been easy but I am here now and like it or not I have to live through whatever gets thrown my way. I also recognise my priviledge. I have a roof over my head, food and clothing. I can indulge my craft pursuits.
So here are the photos I took this morning. I thought most would make a good water colour painting.
I took a wrong turn but thought this was an interesting composition.
I know nothing much about water colouring and I am not an artist. But I though the dark foreground and the layering of hills, cloud and sky was interesting.
Another view with contrasts.
I thought the road curving away was interesting. I don’t think the photo does it justtice.
Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing 