Of marmalade, hats, tiaras and gobstoppers...

There was once a bear called Paddington, and there was once a young reader called Emma. And the two were inseparable.  

And now, in MPH Books, in Raffles City, Singapore, I'm thrilled to find my own book cosying up to this inimitable bear from darkest Peru.   

The bear called Paddington always wore a hat that hid a marmalade sandwich, just in case of emergencies.  It took no time to fall in love with the characters in these stories.  And it made me start eating marmalade - that scrumptiously bitter-sweet jam without which toast is really not worth eating! 

Thankfully, Petunia in my book does not hide anything under her tiara, or it might spoil it! Freddy, on the other hand, does keep a gobstopper sweet in his ear. But for dragons it's very important - it keeps their scales shiny and their eyes bright. You can see them clearly in Charlotte Micklewright's drawings.      

I'm now the proud owner of a beautiful Princess Petunia dress, tiara and a set of ears for Freddy. I'll be using these for school visits and readings.  Or for anyone who just fancies getting all dressed up. 
  
Here's my young friend, Kitty, wearing the costume for Princess Petunia. Great modelling skills, Kitty.  And thanks for the wonderful tailoring, Kinnetia!  

 

Friday at the printers...

I was so eager to see my book, Princess Petunia's Dragon, on the presses that I arrived early and had to sit with a cup of tea and a copy of the paper in the food centre...

But on the dot of 9.15 I went up to the printing floor. And what jolly nice people my printers are! There I was, wandering around, poking my lens into their business as they adjusted the weight of ink (or at least I think that was what they were doing). And they didn't mind in the very least.  

Below is the cutting machine with a horribly efficient blade (not my printed pages yet!)

And then, after a gap of an hour (and another cup of tea - iced this time) I was back to see the first inside page being printed! There's Petunia's head, upside down. Feeling dizzy?

David Seow arrived hot-foot from the wet market to keep me company. His presence was reassuring until he thought he spotted a mistake on the printed page. Ha! Nice try, David! 

I gathered up some rejected pages (used to get the ink just right) which I shall use for presentations.  

But the work didn't stop there.  David had plans. And we went downstairs to work on a one of his projects with a very patient designer.  It's his wonderful story, 'There's Soup on my Fly', which is being staged by The Learning Connection.

That evening was the SCBWI writers' group Christmas dinner - an extremely tasty and enjoyable celebration of a successful year. But more of that later....

Comic times with the Etherington Brothers

What better way is there to spend a Sunday morning than learning how to create a comic strip?  

And who best to learn it from? The British duo, Lorenzo and Robin Etherington at the Singapore Writers Festival.

Their energy and ideas came shooting, across the lecture room, galvanizing us all into action so that after an hour and a half some of us had already created a workable comic strip!

As you can see from the photo, Robin (right), the writer, is a comic character himself. And his brother Lorenzo, the artist, is no shrinking violet either.  

Between them they coached us in creating character, drawing thumb-nail sketches, finding the key frame and ....having fun!!  It was so well delivered it didn't matter that friend and fellow writer Evelyn Wong (above) and I are not comic strip artists, we still managed to come up with new ideas and learn from these two masters. 

So now I have new characters and stories crashing around in my head - pow, zap, wham...eek! And, of course, signed copies of their books, Monkey Nuts and Baggage (published by David Fickling Books).

Thank you, guys. Can't wait to catch up with you in another corner of the globe.

For a real lift, check their blog: http://theetheringtonbrothers.blogspot.sg/