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OK, so I added a new section: The Shoes Are Made for Walking, a record of experiences and details of my travels. There’s still one post there, and I’m hoping to add more and more. I hope these posts can help you with your own travels!

I went to Gramedia Pondok Indah Mall yesterday and saw them: yes, the first copies of my debut novel were arriving.

My first reaction was a smile. Then I held one up, looked at it from back to front, and then put it again, walking away in a daze. It was a great feeling, watching it finally available on bookstores, about 3 years after it was written, and after problems with the previous publisher showing interest in it. So actually I didn’t know how to react, really.

Thank you to my publisher for their hard work and for helping me realizing my dream.

The Death to Come cover

The Death to Come in Goodreads.

I hope you enjoy the book.

Yes. If all goes well, my debut, the first book of The Search for Merlin trilogy will be published in December 2009. Its title is The Death to Come - a pun on EM Forster, that. Right now it’s being set, the cover’s being worked on, and such and such. So yes, I’m still nervous.

Wish me luck - and make sure you’ll get hold of a copy of it (more, if possible? Haha). Feedback is always welcome.

Now I have to finish a translation, an editing, and I hope I will be able to finish writing the second and the third books soon.

So not only we Jakartians are going to be entertained by Frenchmen Phoenix on August 1 - we will also have CUT/COPY on August 7 and… Java Rocking Land! The event will be held in Carnaval Beach, Ancol, from August 7 to August 9. The line-up boasts of the likes of Mew, Mr Big, Vertical Horizon, and also local/national kings and queens like Holy City Rollers, The Upstairs, Sore, Zeke and the Popo, Efek Rumah Kaca, Sajama Cut, Superman Is Dead, and many others. It’s going to kick ass!

I was astonished by how quick and easy their online ticketing is. First, you go to their official site. Click Tickets >> Ticket Order. Fill in your data, state how many tickets you want (the price keeps on rising as the D-Day gets near, so hurry and get your ticket now!).

Choose whether to pay by transferring money to the bank account of Java Festival Production (the name behind Java Jazz) or by credit card. I chose to transfer money (because I’ve spent too much with my credit card this month, haha). Then I faxed the receipt to them, and voila! Only a couple of minutes later, in my inbox I already got the validation code to download my tickets (which I should print on my own). Amazing!

So, I’ll see you there then guys. Somehow the names of Peter Gontha and Java Festival Pro (and Gudang Garam) make me sure that the festival won’t end up horrible like last year’s Jakarta Rock Parade.

I decided to open up a Smack Jeeves account as a home to my webcomics (and it surely saves up my webspace here, yes/yes?).  My profile is here.

Currently there are four webcomics hosted there:
The Daimon Mythology
Breathing the Driven Snow.
Funeral Pyre: a part of the Noble Book of Arthur
Uroki

And Cocona has been so kind to put two Sasuraiger fanarts that I made in the J9 fansite. It’s a great site for fellow J9 fans, so go visit it! :)

I decided to release a novel I wrote several years ago in Goodreads.  For a start, I’ll post six of the twenty-five chapters of the novel.

Read the novel here. Your comment and critics will be very much appreciated.

It’s scary to think that one of the places you think you might return to someday - the one that resides strongly in your memories - is now gone.

A neighbouring family once lived, like us, in Tangkahan Lagan/Pangkalan Brandan in North Sumatra.  When we were there, the area was a thriving one, supported by the oil industry.  But my neighbours, who just visited TL/PB again, said that there was nothing there now anymore.  Pertamina has packed up their things and left.  The housing complexes are now guarded by marines, and my neighbours had to ask for permission to enter the area.  ”My children were born here!”

So they let them in, only to find a saddening, devastated, lonely place. Where there used to be thousand of people living now are ruins of buildings that 15 years ago were still in a very good condition — many of them were new when we were there.  It’s practically a dead town.

Read the rest of this entry »

So because AniGA won’t work with the latest version of WP, I tried to switch to NextGEN. Due to my stooooopidity, it took me like 3 hours before I finally grasped what to do with the new gallery.

Try to click on the new gallery, and see whether it works (if not, just comment here!). I will upload more soon.

I am very proud to announce here that a workof a long-time friend of mine, Bayou, has been published by TOKYOPOP.  It is called The 9 Lives.  I can’t wait to get it in my hands and read it.  Maybe I’m going to review it, if I have the time to just sit and write something between my hectic schedule.

Once again… congratulations, Bayou!

I know.  The title’s silly, but this comic started out as a joke I pulled on my male friends who were confused about why girls love BL at all.  Now I’m working on the second volume, but this will come out coupled with another comic in a compilation the title of which I haven’t decided.  (Any suggestions?)

This is a rather hastily done image of the main characters.  The second character from the right is a new character, Alam.  Probably I thought about New Young Pony Club girls too much when I designed him :D  Oh well, let NYPC’s songs be his character songs then! :D