It’s 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday. Why am I up at dawn? I’m squeezing in a morning run before 90 degree heat coupled with 90% humidity strikes here on the equatorial tropical island concrete jungle of Singapore. I get some of my best inspirations for thickening plot, fleshing out characters, and enhancing settings while I’m running and NOT thinking about my novel. Not kidding, I often stop several times to write my random thoughts in my notepad app. What do you do to get your creative juices running?
Category Archives: Expat in Singapore
Good morning, Singapore!
15The picture is self-explanatory
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(My second meme ever. I’m on a roll!)
So…why did I start this blog? Eight months ago my husband and I decided close up house and shop and life, all the while yelling “I’M GOING ON AN ADVENTURE!” Seriously, this was said many, many times. My almost twin brother even wrote a going away speech for me based on it. I’ve had many adventures so far, from the plethora of malls and hawker centres (think really cheap food courts with…interesting food) in Singapore, to Viet Nam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand.
BUT my biggest adventure has been a writing adventure.
I’ve spent the last eight months pouring all I have into writing my current novel, then revising and editing and re-writing—a labor of love and pain and sweat and tears and lost sleep that leaves you utterly drained (I SWEAR I rarely rhyme!). I want to write fun (and short!) things outside of a novel, about the struggles and (occasional) joy of a writer’s life. I want share my work with the world. I’m also kind of a random person and my head is often full of thoughts that I’d like to unleash on the unsuspecting internet every once and a while. Lately these thoughts have been around living in the singularly unique Singapore and things I miss from home (Madison, Wisconsin).
Mostly I want to write randomness for fun and hopefully connect with other writers and photographers and travelers and crazy, random people such as myself.
So what have I been up to in Singapore for the past eight months….
7So my husband and I re-located to Singapore for his work. I, on the other hand, have not been working. So what HAVE I been doing? Sitting on the beach? I mean, Singapore’s a tropical island on the equator. 
(Singapore doesn’t really have those. This is what surrounds most of the island.)
Hanging out by our fancy pool?
(I don’t really DO tanning)
Watching loads of Asian TV? Eating at all the hawker centres? Learning Singlish?
Nope and nope and nope.
So what have I done? Well, I kind of wrote an novel. And by kind of, I mean I actually wrote a whole novel that’s been edited and re-edited and re-edited and getting pretty close to done. Surprise!
More details to come!
P.S. Oh and also traveled a lot and met loads of awesome people, so there’s that, too.
Sarah J. Carlson 