 |
| Tien Chuk Temple Courtyard. |
It's strange how, with writing, certain totems come to capture a spirit
you wish to bring to a novel or screenplay. With Chinatown Nights, one
of the images that has been with me since the 1990s is this old
photograph of Tien Chuk Temple Courtyard, which a friend, Tommy Chen,
sent me years ago (he also gave me a wonderful miniature Chinese
Buddhist prayer scroll, which I still have).
There is something about the photograph, perhaps the formality of the pose combined with the shadows and the giant paper lantern, that is extraordinarily intriguing to me.
The photo captures the shadowy darkness the novel has always had, and even though there is no hint of technology about it, for me it is as if electrical sparks are about to explode across the image - perhaps because that is the energy I have always wanted for the book: the eruption and disruption of the technological revolution of the early 20th Century - and of now.
There is something about the photograph, perhaps the formality of the pose combined with the shadows and the giant paper lantern, that is extraordinarily intriguing to me.
The photo captures the shadowy darkness the novel has always had, and even though there is no hint of technology about it, for me it is as if electrical sparks are about to explode across the image - perhaps because that is the energy I have always wanted for the book: the eruption and disruption of the technological revolution of the early 20th Century - and of now.
(This post is from my Facebook page for my novel-in-progress, Chinatown Nights.
Please also see my Kickstarter campaign for the novel - watch the video and, if you can, please contribute. Thank you.)
Comments
Post a Comment
Please note that for reasons I have not been able to solve yet, I have enormous difficulty posting replies to comments - so I apologize if I don't reply!