My Novel - A Self-Critique

With The Ming Storytellers, I was not merely writing to thrill. I wanted to create an entertaining work of fiction that merged interesting characters, narrative, history with ideologies that were important to me. Visually I also wanted to evoke strong images that could do well on screen. Because I love film.

If after having read the book, a reader can, either consciously or subconsciously, perceive parallels between the events unravelling in this novel and society today, then I will have been successful.

If a reader can, either consciously or subconsciously understand the fallacy of Eurocentrism and gain a fresh perspective on the world, then I will have been successful.

The setting is China and the world during the 15th century. It is a remote and, to date, unfamiliar setting especially for non-mainland Chinese including myself. This remote and therefore, one may argue, arbitrary setting is perfect because it may be used to teach, it may be used to introduce a new paradigm about the world and society. However unlike the fictitious worlds of sci-fi or fantasy, it is still a world that is closer to home, a world that has set in motion certain patterns today and from which many parallels may be drawn with our world today.

The world in that period, when China, the Middle Kingdom, was a dominant power comes with its norms and its ideologies just as the English speaking world today has its own dominant Western centric ideologies.

The setting is also perfect because it encourages readers to see outside and understand that what we call normal is a myth.

One particular strategy I have used is to depict the society of the Nakhi people. While I have done this superficially and in no way do I call myself an anthropologist, the depiction of the Nakhi does put into question the generally accepted view of women in the Asian world. In the Nakhi kingdom, women were not submissive. Even the vocabulary used by the Nakhi attribute strength to feminine words and weakness to masculine words.

To conclude, all my characters have beliefs that are relevant to their times. In no way do these beliefs directly reflect my own although to some degree, a few of my characters' ideologies are informed by my values.

The themes explored in the novel include:

• racism / xenophobia
  
• gender roles
  
• the nature of sexuality
  
• power
  
• existentialism
  
• ambition / success
  
• imperialism
  
• dreams
  

I will flesh these out when I have time and explain the main ideas presented. I will also explain how these ideas challenge the dominant ideologies today.

It is no secret that for me the greatest joy would be that this novel becomes part of some education curriculum. All my life, given my multi-cultural background, the experiences I have had living in different countries and reconciling my multiple cultural identities while learning more about other cultures, then studying social psychology and understanding the influence of prejudice/perceptions/attitudes in human thinking, all these things have taught me that NOTHING that we take for granted as NORMAL is normal.
And when we cease to think in black and white, our tolerance and acceptance for others follows.

The Ming Storytellers is a historical novel set in the Ming Dynasty, at a time when China was in its Golden Age. It is a rich account of life in the Forbidden City and beyond drawing on four years of research on Chinese concubines, eunuchs, the Ming government, international relations and world travel in the 15th century. The novel draws on psychology and speculative history but belongs to the newly coined Ming Gothic genre.

Dark Times

For the last two nights, I've dreamt about cars.

Dream One

I am a figurehead in some sort of prestigious school and wearing a long blue velvet gown with a plunging neckline. I am dressed for a ceremony. I step on top of a podium and make a speech. Initially, I'm hesitant because I have only just realised my role in this school and so the responsibility weighs down on me. I feel like an impostor as everyone encourages me to speak. But I speak. And it's easier than I thought. I win them through my voice and my choice of words.

Straight after this, my dad picks me up in his car. We drive off away from the elite school. And it's then that I realise how chaotic and rundown the outside world is. There are no real roads. Cars compete for space in the cramped butimen lanes devoid of traffic signs and lights. There are abandoned construction grounds everywhere.

My dad is driving faster and I feel tense as he narrowly misses first one, then two and then several cars speeding in his direction. We manage to weave past all of them. He is keen to drive us to safety. The area all around us is filled with cars moving and crashing in every direction. It's an absolute carnage. We are stuck as everyone, without exception, has suffered a collision of some sort. There is a bus / car collision ahead of us, barring our way and my dad is still speeding...

In an unexplained twist which I am now familiar with, my unconscious instinct kicks without warning. I feel myself drift out of my body and step outside of the car. It means that something is about to happen. I don't know how I know but I know. I am safe now, apparently. I am no longer in the car in spirit, only in body. I follow my dad's car. I can see it avoid the impending collision with the side of the bus and veer sharply towards the left. My dad's car disappears from view into a side road. I can no longer see. So I float higher up, towering the mass car wreak. I move like a ghost towards the road that he took.

It's not a road. It's a deep precipice. It's the steepest slope I've ever seen and it leads to nowhere. I can not even see the bottom because it's so deep. There is only water and clouds of mist with glimpses of steel that betray the content of the crevasse. The car must have fallen instantly. He did not know that it wasn't a road. And now they are dead.

The End.

I've looked up this dream but I'm not convinced by its supposed meaning. The dictionnary tells me that my life is out of control. Bizarre. It says that the person driving is the one I wish was in control of my life. Hardly accurate.
Death is a good symbol though.

The other reason why I don't believe that the person driving has any significance in terms of control issues is the next dream.

Dream Two

This time it begins with an argument with my mother. I run away. I have no home, no money. I end up turning to an ex. His name is Damien. I go to his house and he shelters me.

The next day he drives me to the stores to buy food. I feel like a dag. I'm wearing a gigantic white tracksuit and I feel terrible. I don't like it when I hate my clothes. I see people in the store who remind me of my unhappiness. I tell Damien that I'd like to go and change.

We return to the car. It happens to be a 4WD that my father used to own. But it's much larger, almost colossal. The dashboard is made of marble. It's heavily chromed on the outside. Damien manoeuvres the car out of the park and I step in. I have a fleeting thought, "This used to be my dad's car. Now he is dead."

So I know that my dad is dead. (Outside my dream, he still lives)

Incidentally, Damien is definitely not the person I would want to 'control' my life. So it's bizarre.

Then an old man in a white singlet appears from nowhere and talks to Damien through the side window. I realise it's Damien's dad. He is crouching forward and looks pained. He speaks imploringly in a sad, broken tone and I feel that he wants to speak to his son. But he dares not ask him to wait. He doesn't want to impose.

I can see that Damien is getting the hint. But he is hesitating. Should he drive away with me and take care of me or stay awhile to speak with his dad?

I understand. So I step out of a car to indicate that I'm not going anywhere. I feel terrible for the old man. I tell Damien to stay with his dad and speak to him.

The END.


Maybe these dreams are telling me that my dad needs me. I really think so. Might have to visit some time...

I also think the school side of the dream means that I'm living a cocooned existence, oblivious to the troubles of others. I'm living in my little pristine world and have forgotten those who care about me. Like my parents for example.

That's the best way I can interpret the dreams.

The Carnivorous Vine and the Monitor

If you think this title is corny just wait until I tell you about my dream.

It was actually a nightmare but after years of experience with terror filled visions, my unconscious is now adept at moderating nightmares and actively intervening at the right moment to achieve a PG rating rather than an R rating.

By intervening, I mean that I can, to some extent, control my dreams and lessen the horror to come. This implies that usually, I somehow know about the worst that is to come...
It's a little like a privileged preview of the dream. I sit there, watching the dream's frames flip by in fast forward motion, glimpsing the horrific climax and then I stop, rewind, take a deep breath and watch the dream at normal speed.

In an emergency, I can self-willingly fly, become invisible, shape shift, penetrate through walls, move objects through telekinesis...I'm very powerful. Through my touch, I can also pass my powers to others in order to protect them. So if I want to make you invisible, I only have to touch you and make myself invisible. When I disappear, so do you. That way, the boogie man (or something more out of the ordinary from Laura's monster catalogue) will no longer see either of us and we can be safe together. Or if I want to fly away and take you with me to escape an evil place, I can also do that by holding your hand.

The sum of all this, is that what usually threatens to be a nightmare, becomes just a dream.

So a couple of nights ago, in a potential nightmare, Laura borrowed a monitor from uni and placed it in a lab room. Who knows why I needed a monitor from uni but it's a dream and I'm sure there was a useful purpose behind it.

It was an Apple monitor by the way. Why do you think that is? I've never owned one...

It was haunted.

After placing the monitor in an empty lab room, I reached out to touch the screen (for some reason, don't ask). I then watched with great alarm as a red spidery web began to etch itself on the monitor's surface. The web spread into fine, hairlike veins and reminded me of a cracked mirror.

And that's when it happened. A leafy green vine almost five centimeters in diameter jutted out of the center of the web and began to extend and grow out of the monitor - yes, that's the Apple monitor, you haven't lost me - it continued to grow, reaching out to the four corners of the room and threatening to crash everything in its path. Think "The Fountain" when the tree of life shoots out of the conquistador and that's approximately the effect in the dream.

Except it was a carnivorous vine.

So there was a lot of carnage. The vine killed and devoured everything in its path with its many little green jaws armed with pointy little piranha teeth.

Being a lucid dreamer, I decided that I hadn't died and that I was somehow floating around the room avoiding the vine tentacles. A bit like in a computer game where you have to dodge things. I had already calculated that it was a plant and therefore needed light for photosynthesis and to grow. Whoever said that high school science was useless? It could just about save my life...

So I shut the blinds. What do you think happened? The monstrous thing was so sensitive to the absence of light that it soon retreated back inside the monitor, at a frightening rate. The red crack disappeared from the screen and everything went back to normal apart from the smashed glass doors (I forgot to mention that the lab had glass doors...) and the couple of dead people lying around the corridor outside the lab.

With my heart pounding, I decided to return this haunted monitor back to the university. Somehow, I met my current psychology tutor and returned the monitor back to her. That's where it becomes laughable. I expertly told her that she could use the monitor without any issues but that she would have to close the blinds and avoid touching the screen...

Of course initially she didn't believe me. Who the hell would. So I demonstrated. Leaving her office blinds open, I gently touched the monitor's screen until the red spidery web appeared. Then as soon as the demonic vine made its appearance, and I was satisfied that she had seen it, I quickly shut the blinds to avoid a situation. My tutor was now convinced that there was a carnivorous vine living inside her monitor. All she had to do was follow my instructions and she, along with the other people around her, would be safe.

I could do with some dream interpretation.
Now, just where is Joseph when you need him?


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I guess this makes me a Natural according to this article on Lucid Dreaming.

"Naturals" are Dreamers that have been lucid dreaming since before they knew what lucid dreaming was, and before they attempted to have lucid dreams.
Naturals are a lucky few, who almost qualify as an entire subculture on their own.

Did you read that? I'm one of the lucky few!!! Go me.

Stabbed

I forgot to mention this but the other night, I dreamt that someone, I'm not sure who, stabbed me in the chest (just below the sternum to be exact) with a pair of kraft scissors. I was in my togs swimming when suddenly I looked down to see a pair of spread out handles dangling out of my bleeding torso. I didn't feel pain because the blades were not in too deep. As I extracted the two blades, with my right hand (I'm left handed, but I tend to handle scissors with my right hand, long story) I was very careful not to squeeze the handles together as this would only have brought the blades together within my chest and caused more damage. However much as I tried, I failed in avoiding friction between the blades. When I did finally remove the pair of scissors from my chest, the blood oozed out of two 0.5 inch holes and the skin separating those two holes had been pinched and nearly ripped.

It was fascinating.

I used an online dictionary to decipher this dream by typing the words "scissors" and "stab" in the search box provided. Apparently I am overly suspicious and fear being betrayed. Also recently, an event has caused me to feel that people are 'stabbing me in the back (chest)'. The scissors denote the tendency I have for cutting people out of my life.
Putting the two metaphors together, it would appear that I may be consciously isolating myself from other people out of fear of getting hurt and that it is my suspicious nature that feeds this fear.

Who needs psychology when you have a dream book.

Week of Horror

Like my good twisted friend, I suffer from horrifying nightmares. While I've never dreamt of an imp as such, my nightmares usually have a complex plot, a nasty twist a la Night Shyamalan, wicked characters that disturbingly enough, spring out from my tenebrous imagination and usually, an added psychological bent. The so called twist in those dreams has my heart thumping so violently that often I've wished my subconscious would be so kind as to give me some hints, I don't know, a clue, so that when the dream reaches its climax and the horrible scene does unravel, I could at least not die of a heart attack in my sleep, that I could, instead, think, "oh, yep, I like what you've done with that part. Ok, what's next."

So Monday night, I had one of those. And I have to ask myself where, oh where, do I get this filth from? Because I certainly do not watch horror films (well, very rarely) and even if I did, my dreams are far too original to bear any resemblance to existing scripts...thank you very much. So when I finally awoke on Tuesday morning, oh Bliss! I was so grateful to the universe and never in my life did I love my alarm clock so much. Oh, you precious digital thing you.

But something good came out of this.
I have written down some notes about that particular dream. I think it has the potential to constitute a rewarding screenplay. Perhaps when I have time, after all my other projects. Just when you thought I'd actually share the dream with you, it now turns out to be copyright! Believe me you don't want to know. I narrated the dream to Jason and he said that once the script is written, "he doesn't want to read it please". It freaked him out too much.

Oh it does look promising...

But now to expand on this Week of Horror (hey, that's the title of the post!) I have to share what happened to me last night.

Well on Tuesday night, Jason was off in Melbourne for some business trip. This doesn't happen more than once a decade and as such, it was a momentous event. It meant that I would sleep alone. So before he left, I ensured that I would be prepared. I bought myself a can of Mortein. It's not as if we see many spiders, in fact we've spotted only 3 or 4 over the last 6 years, but you can never be too sure...

And what do you think happened on Tuesday night?

Yep. I was attacked by a spider. Just after I bludgeoned it with my black Roman sandal, on which the silly thing left a pulpous mass, (you can tell I'd never be a Buddhist), the paranoia set in. Note this: there had been NO spider activity in the appartment for at least a year. None. And now, THIS!!! So the question was: how did they know??? How did they know that I'd be alone tonight??? They know everything.

They are eight-legged demons.