Where did the year go?! I think that’s the side effect of being busy or active - time seems to fly. That being said, 2018 brought fun, laughter, peace, joy, food, love, travel, games, adventures, and most importantly, great changes. Authorpreneuring If anything, I’m incredibly grateful for all the opportunities for this year - aside the many panels and boothing experiences, I was able to finally finish the first (unedited) draft of ‘The Saccharine Vote’, so I’m looking forward to another journey of sorts to come soon! EVENTS - #BUYSINGLIT 2018 Second year running! Am so happy that this event managed to come together to become another annual anchor in my calendar. We didn’t booth this year, but Kenny (Books Actually) gave us the opportunity to sell our books once again with the rest of the Books Actually titles. Unstable Foundations, my debut comic, was also launched during this festival with the rest of the Phase 2 COSH titles then. This festival is shaping up to be pretty amazing on its own, with its own identity. Looking forward to seeing more in the years to come! ALL IN! YOUNG WRITERS FESTIVAL Thanks to Carlo, the Book Council, and the organizing committee behind All In!, Pulp Toast became a partner to 2018’s All In! Young Writers’ Festival again. Apart from taking selfies with raised eyebrows, Wayne, Mickey, and I were given the opportunity to either speak or moderate various panels this year - be they about storytelling and writing in various genres, formats, rejection, and mentorship. READ! FEST 2018 Sometimes, milestones tend to breed more milestones. The launch of Unstable Foundations later led to more events - READ! Fest 2018 being one of them. The Tiger got to give a workshop on partnership a couple of times, while I managed to get a spot to speak about Unstable Foundations and talk a little bit about creating Heritage comics with the rest of COSH. ILLUSTRATION ARTS FESTIVAL Jerry dragged us into organizing committee status this year. LOL. On top of the added responsibilities, it was a hectic time running between both booths for the Ronins and COSH Studios. Regardless, it was still valuable experience - an event to learn from and look forward to in the years to come. 24-HOUR COMICS DAY Like IAF, I found myself in a more administrative / organization role for 24-Hour Comics Day as well. It was definitely an experience - staying in LASALLE overnight and watching all the students and participants go through with their works. What was more amazing was how everyone still came together after 24 hours of blazing through their comics for the final photo. NANOWRIMO 2018 I left my Municipal Liaison position a couple of years back to concentrate on working with Jerry and Wayne, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy Nanowrimo for the wonder that it is! Our usual spot has been closed for a while, so we’ve moved Write-In operations to Chevron House this year instead. PUBLISHED WORKS - UNSTABLE FOUNDATIONS I’ve said it once and I will always say this - Elvin Ching (a.k.a. Zeropointfive) is a sweetheart. Unstable Foundations - the comic we have been working on for COSH Studios - was released at the beginning of this year. After that, it was just a series of panels and launches talking about this piece. While Unstable Foundations is my first foray into comic-writing, it’s also my first solo writing project, so the stakes just got higher, among other firsts. First mention in The Straits Times, first panel invitation, first time working with a distributor. And hopefully, the first of many to come. Thank you all once again for your support, feedback, and encouragement for this comic! PULP TOAST / ROTI BAKAR #4: THIS IS A TEST It’s amazing that we have made it this far. When I first started Pulp Toast, I thought it was going to be just single print runs for a couple of issues before we were done. Once again, thank you all for supporting Pulp Toast (we even got our first overseas order this year!) - and here’s to many more to come. Friends & Family New friends, and spent more time with the Valkyrie Knights, the Ronins, and my family. I wouldn’t say we had a particularly good year (I’ve been to the hospital multiple times this year - as a patient and a visitor), but I’d say I’m still grateful for how well we managed to recover after. TABLETOP ADVENTURING Perhaps the greatest thing to happen to me this year - I finally got into a longer-term RPG group. I had a single session about 2-3 years ago with a few friends, but nothing really panned out after. This time, however, I pretty much dove in - 3 different RPGs on my roster at the moment, with about 2-3 more games I have yet to read up on on my end. Regardless, to this group of adventure capitalists, thank you all and here’s to more adventures! Adventures! I was blessed enough to get a few trips in this year - not including the most frequent trips to Petaling Jaya to visit the Tiger - and whether or not they are out of or still within the country, I’m glad I managed to loosen up and have some fun. That being said, I’m definitely looking forward to Nihongostan 2 and Comic Fiesta 2018 - can’t wait for the rest of December! FEED ME-NANG #2 What can I say? We got hungry again. LOL. This time, the Tiger and I went to celebrate Eugene and Katrina’s wedding. And while the rest of the girls added more food to the list to eat, we emerged with a valuable piece of advice to manage about 12-15 meals in the span of 32 hours. “Eat Faster.” OSAKEJIAK! 18 This trip was many things - New sights, new sounds, new food, new company, and a test of patience. Haha. Despite it all, I was glad I was able to bring my mom and cousins on this trip - we’ll definitely be back to Japan again, perhaps with our sights set on new locations. # 2018 has been fun-filled and action-packed for me - sometimes a little too much.
That being said, 2019 is when I set out to delve deeper into minimalism, at least physical minimalism - paring things down to just what brings me joy and recalibrate my focus. Unfortunately, this means that I will be minimalizing my blog and reduce all updates to this site to just be news of any upcoming events, and interviews of fellow local / regional authors. That being said, some of my blog serials will be updated and put into eBooks available for download. The first of these books will be available for download when my email newsletter is sent out! Once again, thank you all for your support. While we mark this close to a part of this website, I do hope to see all of you again on our new email list. Sign up to receive news of my works-in-progress, trips, tips, and whatnots here.
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