Going French—Via Borneo: The Serpentine Publishing Road of Lovers and Strangers Revisited

“You’re revising it?  I thought you just send them the book?” a fellow American writer in Borneo replied a year ago, when I mentioned that I would be busy the next two weeks revising all the stories for Lovers and Strangers Revisited.  I had just told him that it was confirmed that Éditions GOPE will be translating my collection of Malaysian-set stories into French.

       

“Yeah, you could do that,” I could’ve replied, but instead, I told him that I saw this as an opportunity to improve the stories for future markets.  I want the best French translation out there and the best English version, too.  Now that I’m getting the book into Europe, other readers might recommend it to other foreign-language publishers in nearby countries, especially those with an interest in or ties to Malaysia or Southeast Asia.

         

Writing from Borneo (or anywhere) is never a straight path to publication; it’s more serpen­tine like a meandering river through the lush tropical jungle, often invisible at times and then there it is.  Just as quickly it’s gone, elusive as a pesky mosquito that you have in your sights just as it’s about to draw blood.  You strike, positive you got it, but then, how in the world did you let that opportunity get away?  When it comes to writing, I’d rather not miss those opportunities, so I keep revising those stories.

         

Twenty-five years ago, I took my writing itch from Madison, Wisconsin to the tropical island of Penang, off the west coast of Malaysia.  “Mat Salleh”, a short story about meeting my non-English-speaking-in-laws in Malaysia that I wrote for a correspon­dence course quickly found a home in the New Straits Times.  I sold it again a few months later to My Weekly in the UK, for my second short story sale and second overseas publication.  I knew I was onto something. 

         

In addition to selling more short stories in Malaysia, I sold stories to literary journals and magazines in Singapore, Japan, France, Denmark, India, Australia and United States.  In 1993 I compiled 15 of my Malaysian-set short stories into a collection, Lovers and Strangers for a Singapore based publisher Heinemann Asia.  A few years later the publisher was bought out and then another publisher bought that one out and my collection was orphaned.  I con­tinued to revise my stories, selling them locally in Malaysia/Singapore as well as overseas, mostly in Australia and the UK. 

         

In 2005 a Malaysian professor contacted me about including the collection in his course on postcolonial writing, so I convinced Silverfish, a Malaysian publisher whom I had pre­vious­ly worked with as an editor for an anthology, to republish the stories—but first I wanted to overhaul them.  I knew I could make the stories better than merely revising them as I had been doing all along over the years. 

So I hired an American editor living in Malaysia to rip them apart, even though all but one had been published.  Many of the stories had been published several times in several countries.  It was a humbling process.  I then revisited each story—from the initial inspiration to some of the original settings—and renamed the collec­tion Lovers and Strangers Revisited.

After moving to Sarawak, the Malaysian part of Borneo, I encountered some distribu­tion problems getting the books to the Borneo bookstores, so I agreed to buy out the last of the old stock and switched publishers.  Thus began another round of self-editing before submit­ting the collection with an additional two more stories written around the same time to be published for the third time by MPH in 2008.

         

When someone blogged about the fact that I revised my published stories, several writers seemed to take offense.  One author from Australia said she would never do that with her collection, but after I clarified my reasons, she added that she sort of wished she had done the same because she knew she could’ve improved them.

         

For me, that first collection back in 1993 was the best version—at the time.  But after teaching creating writing and grammar for over a decade, plus revising all of my students work (and my own), I became a better writer.  Now it was merely applying what I was teach­ing and being honest with myself.  Is that the best you can do?  I felt vindicated when the collec­tion went on to win the 2009 Popular-Reader’s Choice Award for Fiction.

         

To help publicize the latest collection, I wrote a blog series The Story Behind the Story for all 17 stories, separating fact from fiction and noting the significant changes that led to their various publications.  While making comparisons between the first collection and the latest collec­tion, I was surprised by how much the stories had truly evolved.  It’s not just the details, the preciseness of language, but significant changes in the beginnings and endings; changes in points of view; and changes in verb tenses from past to present . . . . Some of the stories doubled in length; they had whole new scenes added on at the end, or back-stories weaved throughout the story to make them more complete.

         

The first blog on the story “On Fridays” has been even accepted for publication by The Writer (USA) as a future Writer-at-Work piece.  The revisited stories (and even the accompanying blogs) have been taught in secondary schools, universities and private colleges throughout Malaysia.  Several stories have since been published in online literary journals in Hong Kong and Turkey; and in the Literary Review, Thema, and Aim in the US and Descant in Canada—twenty years after I first wrote them.

         

So far those 17 short stories have now been published 81 times in twelve countries.

         

Then in 2011 the French publisher GOPE contacted me; after reading two of my stories online, the collection has now been translated into French as Trois autres Malaisie, which literally translates as "Three Other Malaysia".  Reviews are just starting to come in. 

This may never have happened had I not left the wintry (and freezing) Wisconsin for the tropical (and humid) Malaysia.  I figured, even if I never published a story, I wouldn’t be shoveling any snow.  Writing from the tropics does have its benefits, though I won’t mention the mosquitoes . . . . And who knows where my stories—after having gone French via Borneo—will end up next?

Now it’s just been confirmed, MPH is turning Lovers and Strangers Revisited into an e-book! That means another round of editing (plus adding those French revisions back into the MPH book).

Already Ohio University has contacted me about filming “Home for Hari Raya”. They came across that old 1993 collection in their library and were initially interested in “Mat Salleh”, but after talking on the phone and sending them a copy of the latest collection, they settled on “Home for Hari Raya.”  A couple of those stories may be taught by another professor in their Southeast Asia Studies program.

         

Ultimately this could lead the whole collection on a homeward journey to the US, which is why I keep revising those stories. . . . I want them to be more than ready.  I’m also hoping this serpentine road from Borneo never ends . . .   

                        —Borneo Expat Writer

**Update: Here's an update to the French blog about Trois autres Malaisie and links to the first two reviews of Trois Autres Malaisie. 

**Here's the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia, and to the French translation of Lovers and Strangers Revisited Trois autres Malaisie.  Thanks for your interest!

Power of Five Your Way to Success with Passion, Patience, Perseverance

The Writer, after accepting my “Power of Five” article in Quill, asked me to cut down the original from 1100 words to 700 words so it'd fit on one page, initially a chore but once I started chopping, the article vastly improved.  It’s punchier, to the point and a timely “action” reminder for Leap Year.  This idea came out of another Quill article "Small Increments, Big Results" that I wrote back in 2009, a good example of how one article can lead to another and then lead to another.

More importantly, the moment I sent this revised article off, I sent out five other articles/ideas to other editors and I plan to submit five more today after this blog.  As I wrote in the article “Enthusiasm . . . breeds discipline, and discipline—results.”   For me, as a writer, results are publications and paychecks.  But even a non-writer can benefit from the advice.  Just apply it to your own needs.  Good luck.   

Power of Five Your Way to Success with Passion, Patience, Perseverance  

 

"I'd rather be a failure at something I enjoy,” George Burns once said, “than be a success at something I hate."  This most definitely applies to writing.  To increase my chances of success, I’ve been putting into practice what I call The Power of Five, adapted from Jack Canfield’s Rule of Five, whereby each workday, I try to send out at least five submissions—short stories, articles, or query letters to editors and agents.

I’m creating a new habit of marketing what I’ve written on a consistent, persistent basis.  Five is all I ask.  By thinking small, those Power of Five submis­sions have been adding up to 100 per month (or 40 if you work weekends).  This is a far cry from my previous marketing habit of “whenever I get around to it”, whereby months, years would go by and hardly anything would be sent out.  Now I’m excited about the Power of Five, excited by the possibilities.

Enthusiasm, by the way, breeds discipline, and discipline—results.  What you sow, you reap.  I try to squeeze in a few before breaking for lunch . . . or before calling it a day, especially at the end of the month.  When I’m on a roll those numbers escalate.  Other days can be a struggle.

Once I made the Power of Five a habit, I committed myself to doing a daily double, by also advancing a major backburner project, even if only for an hour before going to bed.  By doing this day in, day out, for an entire month, every month, those months will add up to a highly produc­tive year.  That’s the goal.

The real reason I’m doing this is to face my fears (of writing and marketing) so I can tame it.  You can never truly eliminate fear, but you can keep it under control (a whip and chair also helps).  There’s a fine line between success and failure and that difference is often fear.  We fear, on a subconscious level, both success (all that hard work to get there and the pressure to stay there) and failure (being called a loser or a washed up writer).  That explains why we sometimes “drop the ball”.  Why we suddenly misplace important information that’s critical to our success (a document, an email contact), or procrastinate until the last moment, thus guaran­teeing a rush job, assuming we even complete it.  Or we make our­selves “too busy” to get around to the important career-defining stuff.

“Look at all that work piling up—I’m way too busy to write a book!”

Busy doing what?

These are self-sabotaging actions caused by our unconscious belief system that we “don’t deserve success”, or “that we’re not good enough” or we’re afraid we’ll be “exposed as a fraud”.  Who me?  A best-selling, award willing writer?  Ha! 

 

Writing can be scary, but the only way to overcome fear is to face it, acknowledge it, and do what you fear—write that book, contact that agent, market your work—and have faith in your own ability.

It all begins with passion!  If you don't have passion in what you do, you won't have the patience to complete it, nor the perseverance to see it through to its ultimate success.  This stuff is not easy, but it is doable.  For many writers it's routine.  It's all about your attitude, isn't it?

Besides, on the other side of that fear, on the other side of that self-imposed brick wall, is what you really want, right?  Fear never gets you anywhere.  It merely holds you back, paralyzes you into inaction.  So now I focus on what I want to achieve and give myself deadlines to accom­plish it.  I have faith that my passion, my patience, and my perseverance will see me through.

So what five submissions can you make today (or this weekend) that will take you a step closer to achieving your goals?  Write it down and take immediate action.  The longer you delay, the more you guarantee it won’t get done.  Again, it’s that underlying fear of success/failure that’s holding you back.  Do it now while the thought is there and Power of Five your way to success.

      —Borneo Expat Writer 

Link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and to the French translation of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, Trois autres Malaisie. Thanks!

Creative Writing Workshop—Torture or Fun? Quill Jan-Mar 2012

 

*December 2011 workshop in Kuching

Link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and to the French translation of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, Trois autres Malaisie. Thanks!

Trois Autres Malaisie—Another Review in Malaisie.org

Trois autres Malaisie, the French translation of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, not only has a second review in Malaisie.org but my Wikipedia page  is now in French Wikipedia!

*Here’s the first review on eurasie.net 

**Links to the intro and excerpts, and also to order as well as my meeting the French translator Jerome Bouchaud in Kuching.

***Link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and to the French translation of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, Trois autres Malaisie.  Thanks!

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2012-Round Two

My Leap Year 2012 just got off to a good start, not only did I get my first French review of Trois autres Malaisie the French translation of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, but also my novel The Resurrection of Jonathan Brady, which was short listed for 2011 Faulkner-Wisdom Award, just made it to Round Two of  the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2012.

Round One was based solely on the 300-word pitch.  There are 5000 submissions, and 80% didn’t get through.  Your pitch has to be well written and it must stand out. The good thing about this, it forces the writer to zero in on what their book is about in a way that captures the reader’s attention.  If you don’t, they won’t even bother with your novel.  This is true for agents, too (and for publishers).  Accept it, and nail that pitch!

Here’s what worked for me (268 words):

The Resurrection of Jonathan Brady

A story about lonely hearts, second chances, lost teenage love,

and the delusional, idealized love of erotomania…

         All it took was one look through a rearview mirror to convince Jonathan Brady that a well-known socialite Cabrina Chaval is still in love with him.  During Cabrina Chaval’s debut in The Magic Flute twenty-two years ago, Brady was only sixteen, too young to understand the implica­tions of that look—the way she poured out her heart, her soul to him.  Now she’s contacting him again. 

         When Cabrina Chaval invites Jonathan Brady, an economics professor, to paint her house during the summer, he convinces himself—through a series of coincidences—that she truly does love him.  Because of her prominent position in society and the fact that she’s still married, he accepts that their love must be kept secret. 

While recap­turing the innocent love between two sixteen year olds and coming to terms with the sudden loss of his domineering mother, Jonathan Brady’s delusion takes him through five distinct stages of love—from Heightened Aware­ness, to Playful Pursuit, to Courtship and Romance, to Jealousy and Suspicion, to Reconci­liation and Acceptance—all unbeknown to Cabrina Chaval.

Through a chance meeting, Cabrina Chaval begins to reconstruct Jonathan Brady’s life and, in the process, elevates his love for her to its penultimate stage—Eternal Love.

The Resurrection of Jonathan Brady (96,800 words) was named a short-list-finalist in the 2011 Faulkner-Wisdom novel contest and an earlier version, under a different title, an almost finalist in their 2008 contest.  It also placed fourth in the 2008 National Writers Association novel contest.

#  #  #

Compare this (if you want) to the version that got through to Round Two for their 2010 Award, though under a different title.  Minor changes here and there, except for an additional paragraph that wasn’t in the original.  Those minor changes do add up!

Here’s also the link to the pitch that made it through to Round Two in 2011, a different novel.  I have since overhauled that and re-titled it to The Mother of that Boy since the book is more about the mother than the boy.

So that’s three Round Twos in a row.  For the Second Round judging the field will be narrowed to 250 entries in each category (general fiction/young adult) by Amazon top customer reviewers from ratings of a 5,000 word excerpt (about 18-19 pages.)  The Quarter Final Results will be posted on 20 March.  That date is already circled on my calendar. It's time to move into those upper rounds...

What would truly make this Leap Year special for me is to breakthrough in even a bigger way with an agent and a two book deal.  That’s my major goal for 2012, one of the reasons I’ve cut back on blogging.  Instead I’ve now spending that time (including some overnighters) rewriting three novels and part of a fourth for both the Amazon contest and James Jones Fellowship.  Sent in four entries last night, a two-page outline and 50 pages of each, which I’ve been going over and over again the last two weeks, a culmination of a very tiring two months.

But I’m just getting warmed up.  If I’m truly going to make this year special, I have to do what it takes.  Pull out all the stops and take some serious risks.  That’s exactly what I’ve been doing the last few months.  How about you?  What are your plans for 2012?  A good confidence builder for me was listing out my top 25 achievements (which I stretched to 50) and that really got me thinking about my life and the direction that it's heading.  If you've never done that, or it's been a while, I highly recommend it.  It definitely raises your self-esteem because its proof that you have accomplished some things that you're  proud of.  (It doesn't matter what others think; these are your accomplishments.  They can list their own!)

Good luck, especially for those of you still in the running in the Amazon contest or are considering joining next year, and for everyone else, too!  Let’s make this Leap Year special for all of us!

                —Borneo Expat Writer

Trois Autres Malaisie Gets Reviewed on Eurasie.net

Trois autres Malaisie, the French translation of Lovers and Strangers Revisited was just reviewed on eurasie.net by Emmanuel Deslouis on 15 February 2012.

Here it is for those who can read French (sorry, I don’t either, but please pass along to any friends who do, especially if they have an interest in Malaysia or Southeast Asia.  Thanks!)

« Trois autres Malaisie » de Robert Raymer

éditions GOPE, 216 pages.

mercredi par Emmanuel Deslouis“Tout voyageur qui met un pied en Malaisie s’aperçoit assez rapidement que le pays a – au minimum – trois visages principaux : malais, chinois et indien. Une composition triple qui découle de siècles de commerce, d’échanges et de rencontres. L’auteur de ce recueil de nouvelles, Robert Raymer pouvait difficilement échapper à cette tripartition. Qui donne lieu à des variations très différentes les unes des autres. Côté malais, on assiste à l’arrivée d’un étranger à la peau blanche dans sa belle famille malaise. Et on réalise qu’il est fort compliqué d’être un « mat salleh ». Le choc des cultures, bien entendu, mais aussi celui des traditions, présenté dans une autre nouvelle, où de jeunes musulmanes vont avoir toutes les difficultés du monde à lutter contre les traditions. Dans la partie « chinoise », changement de ton : l’heure est aux relations amoureuses... qui tournent mal. Un couple d’amants tombe dans les excès de la routine jusqu’au déchirement. Un second duo se retrouve de manière effrayante au-delà de la mort. Enfin, la partie indienne nous présente une histoire effrayante : celle d’un avocat, assis devant le comptoir d’un bar, et dont l’ivresse cache un terrible secret. Au final, un enchevêtrement d’histoires qui glissent entre les cultures, les langues et les traditions. Très dépaysant."                                                                                                                                                   

                 
*Here’s a link to the intro and excerpts, and also to order as well as my meeting the French translator Jerome Bouchaud in Kuching. 

**Update: Here is a second review at Malaisie.org

**Here's the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and to the French translation of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, Trois autres Malaisie.  Thanks!

Borneo Expat Writer

In Two Days—Tomorrow Will Be Yesterday. So Make Today Count!

Sometimes it’s oh so easy to give up on your dreams, whether you’re an artist, entertainer, actor, performer, or writer.  You don’t seem to get the breaks or you keep shooting yourself in the foot or maybe you just don’t have what it takes to succeed, so you toss in the towel or move on . . . . Too often it’s just a matter of giving up too soon or not hanging in there long enough.  Yeah, it can be discouraging, but you just never know what’s on the other side of that brick wall that’s designed to stop you.  Randy Pausch spoke about this in his Last Lecture. 

The question you should be asking yourself is not when is this going to happen, but how can you make it happen? What do you need to do today—yes today and not tomorrow!—that will take you a step closer?  If you’re not sure, try mindstorming, or brainstorming on your own.  Mindstorm is a success-driven technique whereby you pose a question of your desire or a problem that you wish to solve and then write down 20 answers or 20 ways to move forward, and keep going until you reach 20! 

Often it’s that last one, an obvious solution that you have overlooked, like doing some research, or plotting an outline, or printing out your manuscript and editing it on paper (and away from internet temptations!), or committing to working on it a half-hour a day if that is all the time you can spare, or consider waking up an hour early and working on it while the house is quiet and the everyone is still a sleep.

Another suggestion is just to get mad at yourself for not keeping your commitments, or acknowledging the truth—even if the truth hurts—that maybe you’re not doing enough to help yourself.  Yeah, you want success bad enough, but so does everyone else, but are you willing to do what it takes?  Naturally, we’ll say, yes, of course, I’m willing to do what it takes.  If that’s the truth, then ask yourself, is that what you’re doing right now?  Is that what you have been doing this past week?  This past month?  This past year?  Right about now we start to rationalize or recite our favorite excuses about work or family or time commitments. 

We don’t hold our feet to the fire.  Instead we let ourselves off the hook and say something lame like, well if you were in my position…or maybe, it just wasn’t meant to be…or that others just got “lucky”.  I don’t think so.

To start this New Year right—a Leap Year at that—you got to take responsibility for your own actions, simple as that.  You got to say, well that was last year.  Yeah, I let myself down, but this is a new year, a fresh start to set things right.  This is what I’m going to do differently this year.  These are the steps I’m going to take starting today.  These are the commitments I’m going to make.  

Write them down now, while the thought is there…

For me, I always seem to get myself fired up when that first novel contest of the year, Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award makes its announcement. (Update: one novel just made it to Round Two 2012, so far.)  Don’t know how I missed the first two, but when the third one came around, I made sure I had a novel ready. Then last year, I got an early start and began rewriting my novels in November.  This year, well today’s the day.  Tomorrow is already too late!  You know what they say about tomorrow.  In two days, tomorrow will be yesterday. 

That’s a sad thought.  So unless you want to turn your tomorrows into yesterdays, then make today your day.  Ask yourself, what can I do right now, this very minute that will move me in the right direction, and then build on that momentum.  For me, I already began revising my pitch statements—start with something small, something manageable to get the ball rolling.  That’s all you need, a little momentum to get moving forward.  Then every day find a way to keep that momentum going, even if it’s only for half an hour.  Commit to this!  Pretty soon, you’ll start finding that extra time that you’ll need. 

Imagine if you did that every day, how this week, this month, this year will be very different from last year.  In fact this year could be your best year ever.   Just see the potential, make a plan, try some mindstorming, mind mapping, whatever works for you, and just go for it.  All the best for 2012! 
             --Borneo Expat Writer

 *Here's the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and to the French translation of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, Trois autres Malaisie.  Thanks!