Daniel Defoe and His Novel Idea

21 Saturday Jan 2012

Posted by in Texts in Time

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Today, novels are found practically everywhere. One of my best friends, Sharyn (from Room 10), re-reads Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind every year. Another friend, Marissa Meyer, has recently seen the publication of her debut young adult novel, Cinder. Instead of writing this blog post, I should be making my way through Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim for a class on Monday. We’ve gotten so used to the idea of the ‘novel’ that most of us assume the form’s been around since the beginning of time, when really, it’s existed for less than 300 years. A baby of a form considering its beginnings in English literature started 1,000 years after the writing of the first English poem, “Caedmon’s Hymn”.

The word ‘novel’ itself is a funny thing. Before it evolved into a noun that refers to the type of books we read today, it was (and still is) an adjective that means ‘new’ and ‘different from anything seen or known before’. And when it was first established in the 18th Century by a fellow called Daniel Defoe, the novel was certainly a novel thing.

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[Giveaway] Belgian Chocolate Truffles

15 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by in Giveaways

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Thanks to all who entered the Belgian postcard giveaway! The winners (selected by Rafflecopter’s randomiser of awesome) are: Ruby, Queza, and Shannon. Congratulations! You’ve all been contacted by email, and if you haven’t received it yet, please drop me a line.

But wait, there’s more! Thanks to my lovely host and friend Maria (who runs a book blog over at Solace In Another World), I’ve had the opportunity to spend the last fortnight in Belgium, where I’ve been hugely productive (25,000-words productive!). To share my love for this country, I’m giving away a box of Belgian chocolate truffles. And to top it off, the brand is called Hamlet, so there’s our literary relevance!

To enter, simply answer the following question: Which famous playwright wrote The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark?

You’ll also have the chance to earn extra entries by doing the following:

  • +1 Follow @samanthalin on Twitter
  • +2 Tweet about this giveaway
  • +2 “Like” Samantha Lin on Facebook
  • +2 Share this post on Facebook
  • +1 “Like” this blog post on Facebook
  • +3 Subscribe to this blog via email
  • +3 Spread the word by linking to this post on your own blog/site/LiveJournal

Ready to enter? Simply fill out the following Rafflecopter form (i.e. not the comment box, though you’re more than welcome to leave a comment) by 29 January 2012. Good luck!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Writing in Unexpected Places

14 Saturday Jan 2012

Posted by in You Should Be Writing

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I’ve been lucky enough to spend the last three weeks in Continental Europe, where I’ve done my fair share of eating, exploring, more eating, and lots and lots of writing (to the extent where I’m beginning to question whether or not this is in fact a ‘holiday’). I always carry around a pen and some paper with me just in case there’s something I’d like to jot down, and to my great delight, I’ve been writing practically nonstop in all sorts of wonderful and unexpected places, such as:

  • A car driving all around Belgium (this mightn’t have been as effective if I was also the driver)
  • Trains all over Belgium
  • St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral in Brussels
  • A not-so-yummy restaurant in Brussels
  • An uber yummy brasserie in Liège

Writing in these unexpected places has reinforced my love for penning thoughts on the go, and apart from boosting my word count, I was also able to capture a bunch of things that would’ve normally eluded me. I’m not talking about writing an entire novel on the go (though maybe there are some super organised people out there who can do that), but about writing snippets of things that tend to come more easily and naturally to us when exposed to a new environment—and these snippets, small and fragmented as they are, can be really useful in improving that poem or short story or novel you’re working on. Here are five reasons why.

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