Interactions & Intersections (both auld & odd)

 Ovidia--every other Tuesday

I was going to write about all my 2024 goals (category 1: health/ category 2: writing/ category 3: life--yes I over plan but doing this helps me decide what's Not worth doing before I start!) but reading Jeff's lovely take on auld/ odd acquaintances made me decide to think about crossings and connections over the past year.

One of the best was getting to meet up with some of the MIE family at Crimefest and at Bouchercon!

It's a strange sensation, meeting up with people who you feel you know so well and spend so much time with. Reading their serious/ humorous/ reflective/ intellectually stimulating/ politically stirring/ passion & curiosity triggering/ daily life recounting blog posts almost daily means I get to spend more thoughtful 'in depth' connection time with them than with many of my neighbours who I see pretty much daily. 

Most of my physical life daily interactions revolve around the weather: 'alamak, raining again,' 'Yah lah, what to do? At least not so hot hor,' 'clothes cannot dry leh,' 

and dogs--the joy of my daily walk/jogs is meeting and greeting Lola, Lucky, Sam, Prince Y Paws, Jojo, Teddy and many many others. 

I know the names of more dogs than humans, but our conversation seldom goes beyond 'what a good boy/girl you are!' 'oh what a lovely poo!' 'can I get a lickety-snuzzle?' which kind of matches my Facebook interactions, come to think of it! 

But I learn about books, events, films (thanks Kwei for that--I'm learning, though slowly!) and get to peep into daily life in writing spaces all over the world, thanks to the MIE blog.

Thank you to all of you here, if I've not said it enough. It was lovely meeting you all in person, even if at every first meeting you don't feel quite real--like you're the Live Action rendering of a favourite anime running in my head. 

But it's always good to see you.

Then I got to meet my lovely editor Krystyna Green in person after years and years of talking (well, me fussing, griping, grumping, delaying...) online exchanges. This is us, taken by Amanda Keats--another book creating superpower--looking over London from the top of the Constable/Hachette offices in Carmelite House on the Victoria Embankment.

I owe it to Krystyna that my 'History Tree Mystery' series exists. 

After writing 'The Frangipani Tree Mystery, I'd vaguely planned 'The Hibiscus Bush Mystery' (colour mutations leading not only to hibiscus blossoms ranging from white to maroon in colour but also variations in their leaf patterns) and 'The Butterfly Vine Mystery' (kueh deliberately poisoned by replacing butterfly pea flowers with deadly blue delphiniums).

It was Krystyna who said, 'I think the titles should all have TREES in them,' and I realise now what a genius masterstroke that was. Following my own undefined path, I would be scrabbling for botanical parts by now (The Ginseng Root Mystery, anyone?) with no obvious identifying link between the books.  

As it is, I've not run out of trees yet and the books are a joy to work on, given how much I love trees!

Thank you, Krystyna, for all your energy, attention and insights!

And then there are the 'real life' people who I'd lost touch with over Covid and even before.

These are a few of the people I saw almost daily for a while--then hardly or not at all for the past forty years...

Once upon a time we were all medical students. Now they are all doctors and yet we're somehow still friends! One said he remembered we talked in the corridor after my viva voce while he was waiting to go in and I told him I'd said (when asked what I wanted to pursue) that I didn't want to stay in medicine because I wanted to write books... I don't remember that exchange though it's certainly how I felt then--and somehow it happened!

So maybe what we put out there in the world does happen. So I'll say it out loud here and everywhere--may we all be safe, strong and unstoppable when it comes to shaping the lives we want for ourselves!