Georgette Tan

Category: work

The October 2023 Review
Report is late because my time is entirely consumed by Nanowrimo.

Site News & Updates

A number of my pages or blog entries now have a new addition on top of the page:

Clicking it will open up a hidden section describing the changes to that page. The reason for this is because I’ll be updating any relevant posts with new information from now on. It seems redundant to create a whole new page for something that might be more fitting for a social media post (and if you’re reading this, you know I don’t really do social media anymore). It’s something called a digital garden, where something is planted and then tended to as necessary. Updated pages will be listed on my main page.

Work

This month sees us wrapping up ‘Inside SSPCA‘, a magazine released during Asia for Animals 2023. You can read more of my thoughts at the links, and download the digital version here.

The other thing at AfA was my first ever gig as a conference rapporteur. The job scope for a rapporteur is to sit in on papers being presented and capture the main points. To an extent, it was similar to a reporter’s job except you record more things, not just the parts that will make it into your article. The points are then compiled into daily reports.

For AfA 2023, we have a stagger total of 80 papers across three streams. There were three rapporteurs and three reports across three days of the conference. For most part, I was typing down notes and squinting at the projector far in front of the Grand Hall at BCCK. These don’t get immediately resolved into points that I would send in, which meant we spend a good hour at the end of the conference day getting our notes into some semblence of order.

These notes are meant to go to the organiser, and subsequently to any stakeholders up the pipeline. In our case, we were asked to compile points from Day One and Two for a minister to catch up on before he arrived to close the conference.

It was a gruelling introduction to rapporteur work because it was a huge conference. I was invited back to rapporteur for another conference with only one stream and two days, and the workload looked manageable by one person. However, I knew I would be exhausted from coming out of one market and needing enough rest for the next.

Markets & Bazaars

Some of the new owners of my preloved books.

I participated in two markets this month. The first was the second edition of Trunkie Junkie, which took place at Cafe Cafe early in the month. Once again, I teamed up with my pal Ronnie. The crowd was awesome. We sold a lot more than we did in the first Trunkie Junkie, and saw a lot of friends and other book lovers. Happy to have let go a good number of excellent titles.

The Pay Day Bazaar at La Promenade Mall was a marathon (6 days) where Trunkie Junkie was a sprint (6 hours). I was eyeing it but didn’t want to go out alone – I only had so many books. Once I learned that a friend has secured a table, I asked if I could have a corner.

The bazaar was a relatively tiny one (3-4 tables), but there were several other events happening at the mall on the first weekend. We did pretty well, and I sold nearly half of what I had in my stock, which leaves me with the interesting problem of not having many books left to bring to the next market. These titles didn’t move through three markets, and I don’t expect them to do too well in any upcoming ones. I’ll probably do a last ditch, either at another upcoming market as a supplementary product, or put them online.

The bazaar was comfortable. The mall’s social media people took photos and updated every day. Eve and Irene were cold all the time, and my running joke was, “I’m not cold, I’m fat”. Overall, it was 6 days across two weekends of catching up with all the news because I didn’t spend a lot of time with either of them since I left The Borneo Post.

But it was a full time job, and I needed 2-3 business days to recover after each weekend.

Our table at the mall. Photos courtesy of La Promenade.

Gaming

This month on Palia, I’m focused on building my home. This involves grinding for gold through hunting and farming, and collecting enough resources to build pieces of furniture. Above is what you see when you enter my house. It’s still a work-in-progress and I’ve tweaked it since. And everyone here is a zookeeper – the starred (high quality) fishes and bugs can be used for display, and if we’re not desperate for gold, it goes on display. I’ve seen far larger collections than mine forming a labyrinth over the player’s plot, least you think this is a lot of tanks.

At the same time, I’m bidding a “goodbye for now” to Storium. The momentum ended when I had to step away in July, which I felt little guilt for doing because it was hitting summer when the whole site just seems to go into hibernation.

Truth is I’m tired of trying to get things going, and I’m tired of waiting around for other people. This is an acceptable past time when I don’t have anything better to do, but I’m back to working on my own creative writing and I cannot multitask the same set of muscles on different projects. Plus, the likelihood of completing my own projects is 100% on me and not divided between a few players who has other priorities.

Coming Next
- NaNoWriMo 2023: I didn’t think that I would want to dive headlong into another month of writing so soon after Stories on Fire, but here I am. I’m updating this 18th Nov and have plenty to say but it’ll have to wait until December. Meanwhile, feel free to add me as a buddy.
Links Roundup

A no-commentary list of articles and media I found interesting enough to share on my Discord server.
November 18, 2023
Inside SSPCA – the magazine

It gives me great pleasure to share with you this year’s issue of Inside SSPCA, which debut during Asia for Animals 2023 – Oct 11-13.

It was a great deal of fun (and some level of stress) to put together. While it tapped into an existing skill set, it also forced me to think beyond the level of just a writer or just a copyeditor.

I’m grateful to Dona Drury Wee and Gracie Geikie for giving me this opportunity. Shoutout to my excolleague Antonia Chiam for being the best (and first!) official assistant I ever had, and to Stefanie Sim for the beautiful layout and graphic design work. Big thanks to everyone at Place Borneo, especially Emma ZA who coordinated with all the necessary people for us and always had time to address my unexpected problems during the conference.

Print issues are very limited, but you may touch mine if you ask nicely. Meanwhile, here’s the pdf version.
Fediverse Reactions
October 23, 2023
The August 2023 Review
August was full of waiting around.

Work

So this month, I’m working on a small magazine as its editor. It’s likely going to be a one-off, although the clients suggested they might want to publish more regularly in a year. This is all good with me and my assistant editor. It uses a skill set we already have, with additional aspects to learn. Our timeline did fall out the window though. Because we needed to reach out to a lot of busy people, we’re still waiting to hear back from most of them while working on things that are within our control. I expect that September is going to be very busy since we will need to start finalising some of those pages for our layout designer.

TTRPG

While I have not played a game this month due to scheduling conflicts, it turns out that we’re going to Seni Kita by HAUS KCH. Eric will be running a couple of games on the weekend of Sept 16-17, and I will be talking about TTRPG as a subculture in Kuching and why women should play. More about that when the time draws near, but we may have 1-2 slots available at the table on both days if you want to check it out.

Gaming

Since my last update, I’ve been enthralled with two games, namely Dave the Diver, and Palia.

Dave the Diver and business partner Cobra in a boat at night.

Much have been said about Dave the Diver. It’s an underwater exploration game and a restaurant management game. There is a vegetable and fish farming component, and some mini games. The underwater part was educational since the creatures you meet there are mostly real sea creatures. The loading screen helpfully introduces you to the denizens that you will spear or that will try to kill you. The NPCs are quirky and memorable. There are loads of cutscenes and they are all awesome and hilarious. I finished it fairly quickly and kept on playing to collect a few other creatures that eluded me.

And then came Palia.

My Palia avatar waving at the “camera” from somewhere in the village.

At time of writing, Palia is under open beta, so some things still break, and some skills don’t seem worth developing (looking at you, Furniture Making), it’s a nice, no-stress, game where you can explore the world and build your character at your own speed. Quests unlock as you level up your skills or discover something in the world, and are not time-sensitive. If other players are involved, it’s more about cooperation than competition. I haven’t opened Steam since Palia came out in closed beta.

r/Writers Discord

When I joined the r/Writers Discord, I did not expect much. The subreddit was okay, moving at a speed that I was comfortable with. I’m aware there are other writing subreddits, but I didn’t want to overwhelm my homepage. One of the mods started a Discord and I was one of the first to join. Before long, I volunteered to manage the channels and community. Now it’s my favourite Discord server and writing community – with a range of writing and publishing experiences, and people who are friendly and generous with their knowledge.

I run a few Discord servers, but this is the biggest one that requires more attention. I want the community to have some ownership to the place, so I always like to say the mods are here to provide support and advice if you want to run/lead something on the server, but don’t leave us holding the bag. With our membership quickly approaching 500, I think it’s time to appoint more mods and hand over some of my duties.

Other Matters
- I signed up for a challenge to write one short story every day in September. Short stories isn’t my wheelhouse, and I doubt if I’ll be able to churn one out every day, so this would be interesting. Updates here.
- Looking forward to a friend and ex-colleague’s wedding reception on Sept 2!
- Pelikan Hub Kuching on Sept 22, which you can read about in my previous blog entry linked. September is going to be busy!
Links Roundup

A no-commentary list of articles and media I found interesting enough to share on my Discord server.
August 31, 2023
The February 2023 Review

For a short month, February was unexpectedly busy.

Work

Work picked up. A friend and occasional client asked if I could write down a story for him. He had an idea but didn’t know how to flesh it out. I stopped by his new studio, listened to his pitch and was able to elaborate on it from there. A week later, I had a full story. Last I heard, they were off to pitch it to some potential funders. If all goes well, I might have a film project by the third quarter of this year.

Aunties versus…

The Aunties together with our game master Eric (centre).

Back before MCO hit, I finally got around to playing Dungeons & Dragons, and it was a good time. However, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that it’s a very male-dominated community and women generally stay away from it because it sounds like something pimply teenage males play. Should I elaborate on this one of these days? Perhaps. But for now, here’s a podcast episode I made about my first game, including some live plays. (Available wherever you listen to podcasts.)

At some point, I commented to the only other woman in my group that I would expect a D&D game to be different if a female DM ran it. She agreed. There are no female DMs in Kuching (that I know of). D&D is too complicated for my two brain cells, and after WotC’s misstep with the OGL, I found even less reason to attempt it.

However, the seed was sown. I gathered together my girlfriends who are interested in trying out TTRPGs with the intention of teaching myself an easy indie system. Eric, who is in some of my other local interest groups, happened to be a game master interested in various systems. After attending one of his games, I told him what I was trying to do and he offered to run a game for us.

We met at The Chop Shop to play an Index Card RPG adventure. We had a blast and are definitely doing it again. I have tentatively named our group “Aunties versus” because we certainly qualify for the title based on our age. Interested to try out TTRPG and can spare a weekend afternoon one of these days? Email is on the main page.

Site Matters

I received news in mid-February that my webhosting will no longer be continuing the service I’m on and their cloud hosting is far beyond my budget. I have until the end of the year to migrate, so I’m currently investigating options. I’ve had Shinjuru and Exabytes recommended to me on Malaysia reddit, so I need to find some time to sit down and make decisions.

March 6, 2023
How to save money on books

This is a companion article to my “Hooked on Books” and “Booksellers talk shop” article, published in thesundaypost, 7 June 2009, but was not reposted on the website.

It doesn’t take rocket scientist to tell you that books are expensive items if you live in Malaysia. Here are some tips on how to get best value for your money.

Buy ’em pre-loved

Locate the used book stores in town. Book Castle at Jalan Tun Ahmad Zaidi Adruce sell novels from between RM8 – RM20. Some book stores also have a section dedicated to secondhand books. Books and magazines also prove to be popular items at charity drives and boot sales, if you don’t mind them a little moth-eaten or outdated. For collectors, you may end up finding a real treasure – like early editions of classics, or a 94-year old book.

Buy sensibly

Being sensible about your book purchases will reduce regrets that come from spending money on something that wasn’t worth it. Before you buy, borrow a copy from a friend or get an opinion from someone who have read the book and have a similar taste in literature. You can also check Amazon.com or books.google.com to see if they have the first few pages available for preview.

Look out for warehouse sales

Major book stores have warehouse sales once a year. Books are really cheap then, and people can be seen shopping by the boxful. Selections range from popular to obscure, and the quality varies, but book lovers should realise that they are getting what they pay for. It’s a good time to let your hair down and let your instincts take the lead without breaking the bank (not too much anyway).

Give yourself a time limit

If you’re one of those people who can go crazy in a book store, give yourself a time limit. This will also help you prioritise where you want to browse. Set the alarm on your mobile phone to go off in 15 minutes or half an hour. When it does, head straight to the counter if you have purchases or out the door if you don’t. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.

Hard covers are for hardcore fans

Harry Potter books were released in hard cover at an astronomical sum of around RM100-120 locally. In about a year, it would be available at a fraction of the price, but no true fan will wait that long.

Books by popular authors are released first in hard cover, then in trade paperback to soak up the money of hardcore fans. Mass paperback come later, and normally go for between RM30-40. If you think paying RM32 is tough, leave the early editions to the fans and collectors.

Know where the deals are

Some book stores have a few trade paperbacks and hard covers that are sold at a vastly discounted rate. Industry people suggested that it is due to over-supply, something that is common within large book store chains.

It is usually cheaper to get a trilogy compiled into one volume instead of buying the books individually or in boxed sets. There are also offers like a bundle of three books for a lower rate.

Get a membership

If you love your books, it’s worth getting a membership at your favourite book store. The standard rate is 10%, but there are bigger discounts when sales and promotions come around. MPH doesn’t give out discounts to members of the MPH Reader’s Circle, but the amount you spend go towards a rebate that they send out to you twice a year.

Make a deal with friends

Every avid reader is a fan of a particular author, series or genre. Let them buy what they’ll end up buying anyway. You can look into collecting books that matter to you and swap with them later. More reading and less spending for everyone.

Get a library card

This should be obvious, but many readers tend to look down on library books because they’re not up-to-date enough or they don’t carry material they are interested in. While our libraries are probably not the best place to find Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, they usually have a wealth of beautiful coffee table books and reference books you can bring home and enjoy for a couple of weeks.

Go digital

To many bookworms, electronic books are as wrong as turkey ham. But e-book converts will point out several things. You don’t really need a specialised e-book reader like Amazon’s Kindle. Some e-books come in versions supported by PDAs, so you may already have a suitable device in your possession.

Websites like Project Gutenburg (gutenberg.org) have over 28,000 free books available on their site. If you prefer more current titles, they are usually some good titles available online for a reasonable price. Some authors, notably Paulo Coelho, author of “The Pilgrim”, make some of their work available to download for free from their websites.

Plus, you can carry an entire library in your PDA or reader without the additional weight.

Similarly, audiobooks are available for free at sites like librivox.org or for a price at audible.com. While the pricing isn’t any cheaper than picking up a dead tree version of the book, audiobooks are great for moments where you can’t hold a book but your brain is otherwise unoccupied (i.e. driving or doing chores). But that is a whole other article.

Go Online

There are websites that gives you a platform to trade or give away books with like-minded people. Sites like paperbackswap.com and bookmooch.com has a fairly comprehensive swap system that makes sure the exchanges are fair to both parties.

Bookcrossing.com lets you literally give away your book by “setting it free” at a public location, and allowing you to track its movements using a unique identification number… that is if the person who picked it up bothered logging in at all. But members have been known to arrange book meets or request books specifically, rather than leaving it to chance. Chances are you’ll never see the book again.

Buying books online tend to be cheaper, but watch out for the shipping rate. Most online stores offer free shipping if you spend a certain amount. It’s worth it if you’re buying a few titles you can’t find here, but if it’s one book, you might be better off hunting it down at your favourite bookstore or getting them to order it for you.

Meet & Swap

People who read most likely have friends who read too. Organise a book swap meet among your friends and ask them to bring their friends. Bring along books that you don’t mind giving away or lending off. You might go home with a few new reads and make some new friends in the process.

June 8, 2009