Borneo Expat Writer: Attracting Success

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

2012-01-02T02:55:00.000-08:00

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. 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!

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2012

2011-12-30T04:55:00.000-08:00

It's that time of the year again to dust off your novel or overhaul it. The competition is pretty stiff from all over the world but it's a good opportunity to work on your pitches and your excerpts which you'll be sending to agents anyways. So clean it up and take your best shot, whether your novel is unpublished or self-published. The question is will readers love it?

Find out by entering it in the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for a chance to win one of two $15,000 publishing contracts with Penguin USA and distribution of your novel on Amazon.com.

(23 Jan-5 Feb unless full) First Round : Amazon editors will review a 300-word pitch of each entry. The top 1,000 entries in each category (2,000 total entries) will move on to the second round.
(23 Feb) Second Round: The field will be narrowed to 250 entries in each category (500 total entries) by Amazon top customer reviewers from ratings of a 5,000 word excerpt.
(20 March) Quarterfinals: Publishers Weekly reviewers will read the full manuscript of each quarterfinalist, and based on their review scores, the top 50 in each category (100 total entries) will move on to the semifinals.
(24 April) Semifinals: Penguin USA editors will read the full manuscript and review all accompanying data for each semifinalist and will then select three finalists in each category (six total finalists).
(22 May) Finals: Amazon customers will vote on the three finalists in each category resulting in two grand prize winners.
June 16th Voting ends. Grand prize winners will be announced.

Last year, one of my novels advanced to Round Two.
The previous year, another novel also advanced to Round Two.

This is also a great way to get your 2012 Leap Year off to a great start. All the best, and may the best novel win. Hopefully one of ours.

--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!

Matlan Marjan, a Malaysian Shakespearean Football Tragedy

2011-12-28T18:33:00.000-08:00

*For zoom, click on article, then right click, click view image, click zoom

This is my article from the November 2011 issue of Esquire Malaysia. You can only grow if you learn from your past mistakes. If not, then you're doomed to repeat them until you do learn...

I found this article on Matlan a challenge to write since I don't follow football. But Esquire asked me to write it with a literary approach. Luckily I was living in Malaysia when Matlan scored those two goals against England and when the scandal broke out so I knew the background. Now I had to do a lot of research, find the story, and a theme . . . The day (the year actually) Malaysian football died...

*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!

The Kuching Writing Workshop, Dec 17, 2011

2011-12-23T23:44:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday was the “Turn your Personal Experiences into Published Articles” workshop in Kuching. The turnout was about half of what we had in KK due to it being a last minute arrangement and too close to Christmas. It also fell on finals day at Open University (and at least one other university); so many people who had expressed an interest couldn’t attend. Those who did make it, including Charles from Miri, got a lot of writing done. In fact Charles, who had attended the same workshop in KK in August, felt this one was better, maybe because he completed his first draft.

In KK, like many writers who only write on computer, he seemed to have trouble writing longhand. Writing longhand, however, can be liberating. You just keep going to the end instead of reworking the beginning over and over to perfection (some never get to the end and just give up on the story.) At the workshop, after all the pre-writing prompting that we use on your story, by the time I let them write, after they had already been thinking about narrative for about an hour, they were raring to go.

Charles did bring me another story to edit, which is the best way to improve as a writer. Get some direct feedback, some guidance to take your writing to the next level. Consider it an investment into your writing future. When I began, I hired someone to critique my first 20 or so stories, and the better ones ended up in that original collection Lovers and Strangers (1993 Heinemann Asia).

Also attending the workshop was Allen, a photographer interested in travel writing, and Jasmine who has an interest in copywriting and who first came across me on a Malaysian airlines flight when she read my short story, “Merdeka Miracle” that I wrote with Lydia Teh and Tunku Halim. Brenden, who’s studying in KL, was the youngest, who I first met at the 2009 MPH Short Story workshop in Kuching.

In the afternoon session we had Edrow who not only came with his 18-year-old daughter Joan, but had already completed a novel and had even been submitting it to UK agents! After the workshop we talked about the whole finding-an-agent process and some alternatives. It can take some time and plenty of rewrites. Then there was my French friend Annie, who wrote a nonfiction manuscript about her experiences in Borneo, and writes a blog. She has already blogged about the workshop, which she called “so refreshing; a tonic boost really.”

As I told the participants at the beginning of the workshop, you may know the beginning of your story as you begin to write today, but you may not know the full ending—where that story will take you years from now. I used the “Mat Salleh” story from Lovers and Strangers Revisited as an example. That story had its beginning when I visited my ex-in-laws in Malaysia for the first time while still living in the US. I then took two correspondence courses offered by Writer’s Digest, one on the Short Story and the other, Advanced Short Story.

Getting some helpful feedback, I kept reworking the story, glad that I had kept a journal and took a lot of photographs. When I moved to Malaysia, “Mat Salleh” became not only my first published short story in Malaysia, but also my first published short story in the UK—in My Weekly (they even ran the story with colour photos). When it was published in Lovers and Strangers (1993 Heinemann Asia), I thought that was the end of the story, especially after a pair of publishers bought out the publisher and dropped its Writing in Asia series.

Twelve years later “Mat Salleh” and the revised collection, Lovers and Strangers Revisited (2005 Silverfish) was taught at USM in Penang. The collection was republished a third time by MPH in 2008 and even went on to win the 2009 Popular Reader’s Choice award. I thought that was the end of the story—a rather nice ending, too. But Lovers and Strangers Revisited got translated into French as Trois Autres Malaisie.

Then I got an email last week and that old version of “Mat Salleh” in that original collection caught the eye of a film director at Ohio University in the US and they wanted to film the story. After talking to the head of the film department, I suggested that for their purpose, the revised version of “Home for Hari Raya” might be a better choice, and they loved it. So you never know the full ending of your story, where it’ll take you over the years and even decades, but the beginning you can start at a writing workshop. You just need to get it started and see it through completion, draft after draft.

So, what have you written lately? If you lack the discipline to start something new on your own, then sign up for one of my workshops. Or any workshop that just happens to be in your area. Good luck with your writing!

*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!

Ohio University to Adapt “Home for Hari Raya” into Screenplay and Film!

2011-12-21T03:49:00.000-08:00

My Leap Year just took a leap forward after meeting someone new, Frederick Lewis, a professor of film/video at Ohio University who contacted me last week regarding the possible filming of one of short stories. We discussed on the phone what they were looking for and I clarified which book he had read the story from—it was the original collection of Lovers and Strangers (1993 Heinemann Asia) that they had at their library (just as I had blogged about), and not the 2009 Popular Reader’s Choice Award winning Lovers and Strangers Revisited (2008, MPH)

Lewis, who has received numerous grants, awards and nominations for his independent documentaries, has also received praise from film festivals for the full-length feature Trailerpark based on a short story collection by acclaimed author Russell Banks, which was made by 70 of his students for an advanced narrative production class.

Lewis had previously brought some Ohio University students to Kuala Lumpur a few summers ago, and, coincidentally, to Sarawak, on the island of Borneo where I happen to live, though we never met. He told me via email and also on the phone that he is trying to bring students back to Malaysia in December 2012, during their break, to shoot a short film. He said that my stories from Lovers and Strangers have come up in their research and conversation while looking for a short story to adapt into a screenplay and film.

After discussing what he was looking for, I suggested that “Home for Hari Raya” instead of their original choice “Mat Salleh” might be a better fit. So I sent him the link from Istanbul Review, which had published it online in May 2011 (I blogged about that too) and the link to the story behind the story.

Four days after receiving the revised Lovers and Strangers Revisited version of my story, Lewis emailed and said, “My students love ‘Home for Hari Raya’. They are going to begin work on adapting it into a screenplay.” He then added, “The story contains all of the elements we agreed we wanted more than 6 months ago when we started the search.”

He said the screenplay has been assigned to OU student Margaret Babington, who will be contacting me as the screenplay progresses. Jeremy Parolini, who is doing a degree in Media Management, will be the producer. Lewis will begin working on the Education Abroad proposal with a goal of shooting this in Malaysia next December. This will involve working out the logistics—how much the trip will cost each student, where they will stay, and where they will shoot. They will be working with the local film industry and liaising with Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM).

Ohio University, by the way, has strong ties to Malaysia, going back 30 years. As many as 2,400 Ohio University alumni live and work in Malaysia—the University's greatest concentration of alumni outside the United States. The present Tun Razak Chair in Southeast Asian Studies is Habibah Ashari, director of the International Education College (INTEC) at UiTM in Shah Alam.

“The next 3-4 months will determine whether we get our proposal approved and can recruit students for the production phase,” Lewis added. For some of the students and their parents, it’ll be a dilemma, since it may be the first time they’ll spend Christmas away from their families—half way around the world in Malaysia. But it's too good of an opportunity to miss, not to mention that, well, Malaysia is the tropics and the tropics trump Ohio winters every time!

My fingers are also crossed. Although this may not be Hollywood calling, I’m still looking forward to working with Frederick Lewis and this team from Ohio University. The fact that I grew up in Ohio and attended Miami University (in the same MAC conference), gives the story—about three Malay sisters returning home for Hari Raya following the death of their father—an interesting twist for Ohio University, or as Lewis stated, “A very pleasant bonus!”

Not a bad way to end 2011 and kick off 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!

Leap for Success this Leap Year—2012

2011-12-14T02:38:00.000-08:00

Yes, 2012 is a Leap Year when February will finally have 29 days again. This is particularly special for those born on that day—now they can celebrate their birth on their actual birthday. Why not make this year special for you, too? How? Well, you can start by changing your routine, by doing things differently or doing different things—maybe the things you’ve been putting off for years, even decades.

You may have set New Year resolutions in the past only to have them fizzle out by mid-January. So this year, start earlier and get a jump on everyone else. What’s holding you back? Is it your self-esteem? Here’s a fun, productive way to raise your self-esteem, and not a bad way to end 2011. Make a list of your top 25 accomplishments going all the way back to school if you want. Do it chronologically for a nice trip down memory lane. I first did this in 2006 and then expanded my list to 50, adding in quite a few that I had overlooked in my previous list.

As you complete your own list, you’ll already be thinking about what you can do for 2012! Here are six ways to make your Leap Year special. In fact, these six things alone will not only have a profound effect on your 2012, but also your life!

1) The books you read. What books have you been meaning to read but haven’t gotten around to? What books will help you in your career? What books will get you thinking in a new, better way. What books will help you out of a rut? What books will help you with your finances? What are the books that others have been strongly recommending? Set a goal to read a half hour or an hour a day, a book a month.

2) The places you visit. The best way to get out of rut is to go someplace new, even if it's not that far away. Get in your car or hop a bus or take a short flight. Can even be a day trip, or a weekend get away. Three day holidays are ideal. Check your calendar and plan ahead. Set a goal to visit one new place a month or one new country a year. Or take a couple of weeks (or a couple of months) for some serious traveling, though that will take more planning and more money. But if you plan ahead and economize, there are some good deals out there.

3) The people you meet. Are you always hanging around the same people, having the same conversations? Then meet some new people! How? Attend a workshop or a seminar, or go to a conference and meet people who may share your same interests. Or take up a new hobby, like photography or flying or scuba diving, or enroll in a course and study a new language or anything else that interests you.

4) The thoughts you think. Pick up some personal development CD’s and listen to them in your car as you drive back and forth to work. How many hours are wasted stuck in traffic? Not any longer! Pretty soon you’ve be thinking about yourself in a whole new way. You’ll start to see opportunities that have been there all along. Why spend the rest of your life complaining about how bad things are? How is that helping you or your spouse and family? Instead of focusing on what’s wrong in your life (and the world around you), start appreciating all that is right and start seeing the possibilities!

5) The decisions you make. Get in the habit of making decisions, even small decisions. If you’re forever putting off decisions, well that is your decision—to put them off! This year, see how many decisions you can make in one week. Can you make six decisions each day—three in the morning, three in the afternoon? How about six impossible things before breakfast? Deciding on one impossible thing, after really thinking about it, may make that impossible thing, very possible. Maybe not right away, but you’re stepping in the right direction the moment you start to make some decisions with your life.

6) The actions you take. We all talk about what we want to do, but do we actually take those steps to do them? Or are we resigned to the fact that our goals are merely pipe dreams? Only one way to find out! Decide on a new course of action for 2012, make a plan how you can accomplish it, then get started while the thought it still there. Today, do the very first thing that needs to be done. Often it’s a click away. Do a little research and find what you’re looking for. If you need to make a phone call, pick up the phone. Then follow your plan through to the end. If you fail, well at least you tried. Now you can try it again in a new way and make better decisions! Put your whole heart into it!

So end 2011 by making a commitment to yourself that 2012 will be like no other year. This is the year that it will all begin for you. Already you’re making a list of books you want to read; the ways you can meet new people; the self-development tapes you want to check out (to change the way you always think); the decisions that you've holding off on (aren’t you tired of procrastinating?); and the action steps you plan to take, so you too can leap forward for success in 2012.

In fact, why wait every four years? Why not try this every year!
—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!

My Copy of Trois autres Malaisie has arrived!

2011-12-07T19:07:00.000-08:00

My copy of Trois autres Malaisie has arrived! The whole process, from the initial contact by Editions GOPE to explore the possibility of translating Lovers andStrangers Revisited into French to my receiving this copy took about one year.

Although the cover is the same, it’s not—it’s better (though it's not as sharp in jpeg, above). But holding the books side by side, you'll see (and feel) the difference. The cover is now glossy, which makes the colors appear more alive and the woman more real; her exposed eye seems even more mysterious. The cover type is also bolder and stands out, though my name is smaller (on the spine, too). The thickness is about the same, even though there are three less stories; the height is shorter. Inside, other than the obvious language difference, you'll notice another big difference. There are ten illustrations from different artists and a hibiscus is used as a colophon (to denote breaks such as major scene changes).

Also, in back, Editions GOPE, has added illustrations and a synopsis of several of their books, including Trois autres Thailande and Le Monde de Suzie Wong, the French translation of Richard Mason’s The World of Suzie Wong. This is good; it means that in future books and in new editions of past books, Trois autres Malaisie will be added, too. There is also Trois autres Malaisie translator, Jerome Bouchaud’s Malaisie: Modernite et traditions en Asia du Sud-Est.

The stories are regrouped into three sections: The Malays, The Chinese, The Indian. Since the majority of the characters in “Neighbors” are Chinese it’s placed at the beginning of the Chinese section. Here is the table of contents (I added in the original titles—some I could guess at, most I could not)

LA MALAISE…

Mat Salleh (Mat Salleh)

Les pierres saintes (Smooth Stones)

Le regard (The Stare)

Les vendredis (On Fridays)

Hari raya (Home for Hari Raya)

Symetrie (Symmetry)

Naufrage ( Only in Malaysia)

LA CHINOISE…

Les voisins (Neighbors)

A l’hotel de la gare (The Station Hotel)

Le guetteur (The Watcher)

Les amants anonymes (Lovers and Strangers)

ET L’INDIENNE…

Le futur avocat (The Future Barrister)

La chambre de grande soeur (Sister’s Room)

Teh-o a Kuala Lumpur (Teh-o in K.L.)

*Here’s the link to the excerpts, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books in English, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia, and my website

Creative Writing Workshop—Torture or Fun?

2011-12-06T19:06:00.000-08:00

Creative Writing Workshop—three words that can send shivers down people’s spine! Is it the word “creative” that scares you? Often I’m told, “I’m not very creative,” and they cringe at the thought, as if being creative is an affliction akin to some tropical disease. Or is it the thought of “writing” that's haunting you? I know back in school the thought of writing was often equated with torture doled out by masochistic teachers bent on ruining our lives or at least killing a few of our precious weekends. Then there’s the “work” part in workshop that doesn’t sound terribly exciting. Who wants to pay good money to “work?” There’s also the money issue. In reality, though, who are you paying?

Yourself actually.

That’s right. You’re paying yourself to show up for the workshop and invest your time to do something that you’ve been meaning to get around to for far too many years. Ever since you’ve had that nagging idea that you want to write something, or that you have a story to tell. It’s not necessarily that you want to be a writer, but just maybe you want to write about what happened to you a long time ago, something that changed you, made you a better person or a little wiser or a little more cautious or very grateful. You've been thinking, if only I had the time. The workshop will give you that time!

When people ask me, “Are you really going to make us work?”

I reply, “No, I’m going to make you play!”

Writing is playing with words, playing with ideas, playing with memories. No one is asking you to write a masterpiece, let alone a book. Just play with your ideas, play with the memories of the events in your life, the significant events that make you special. That make you think.

“You mean I have to think, too?”

Relax, we have pre-writing techniques that will help you think, help you to remember, like clustering or mind mapping, or free writing. Pretty soon you’ll have ideas gushing out of you, long forgotten memories from your childhood or when you were an awkward teenager. Soon you’ll be recalling events in your life that you either learned from, that helped get you through a difficult time in your life, or maybe even some hilarious mishap that wasn’t all that funny at the time, but now looking back, it cracks you up just thinking about it. At the very least, you survived it, or maybe even had the last laugh!

Or maybe you shared a special moment, something spiritual or even miraculous that you want to share with your friends, family, even the world. The Chicken Soup for the Soul series is filled with such stories that move us in so many ways. Many of those stories were first published elsewhere, like in your local paper, under the first-person or a nostalgic section where you get to write about what happened in those days long gone by…

Have you ever done anything interesting? That’s what got me writing my first narratives that make up Tropical Affairs: Episodes from an expat’s life in Malaysia. I was lucky enough to take part in some movies while living in Penang (Hollywood came to me!), so I wrote about my involvement. Basically I narrated what I did. Unlike writing the short stories in Lovers and Strangers Revisited, there were no inventing characters, creating scenes, or any plot developments. This was relatively easy, straight forward.

Then I started to look around my life to see what else I could write about. Around that time, we had a baby, so I wrote about the silly things that our baby cum toddler did, and the silly things I did too as a new father.

I then wrote about my experiences being a teacher, being a writer, being an expat, being myself, and at times, being out of luck—my misadventures! Misadventures, I soon learned pays really well. When things go wrong and you can laugh at yourself over it, and if others can laugh and learn from it too—now that’s marketable. I even published an article for Quill “Making Money from Your Mis-adventures”

Just recently, to pick myself out of some doldrums, I did something rather fun, I compiled a list of my top 50 achievements. Back in 2006, I compiled a list of 25 and expanded it to 50. It really got me thinking about my life. Try it!

Of course, another fear we all risk at writing workshops is being “exposed”, found out that our grammar is horrible! Welcome to the club! Everyone present feels the same way. You are not alone. Far from it. When I decided to become a writer, I naïvely thought that being a native speaker, with a university degree and a fairly decent grade point average and even getting some of my early work published, that grammar came second nature to me—like breathing; that I didn’t have to even think about it. So I didn’t.

Then a well-meaning friend asked me if I’ve ever heard of the term “dangling modifier”?

Vaguely, I did, though I had no idea what it was. Curious, I looked it up. Oh my god, I’ve been breaking that rule all my life! I flipped through the grammar section of one of my English text books and found all kinds of interesting terms and rules that I shamelessly broke, not knowing they were rules! Infinitives, anyone? Surely my teachers weren’t that bad, or maybe, I got a little careless over the years like bad posture.

Admitting my utter ignorance, I sucked it up and relearned some basic grammar. You don’t have to know all the rules. Grammarians don’t even agree on many of them. Can you split an infinitive or not? We can split an atom, but an infinite? Well I do, when it serves my purpose. Let the grammarians decide if I’m right or wrong. All I want to do is tell my story.

For my Creative Writing Workshops, we don't focus on grammar. That comes with revising, later. All I want to do is help you to write your own story, to help you get it out of your system onto paper, where you can play with it (I was going to say “work with it” but who wants to work?) and make it even better. The more times you go over it, rewrite it, read it our loud, and keep smoothing out the wrinkles, the closer you'll be to getting it published—if you want to. Not all workshop participants want to publish their work. They get their pleasure out of merely writing it.

By the way, this is how all writing begins; a writer gets an idea, plays with it, writes it down, and voila! They’ve written something. It may not be a masterpiece (that may come later, after they revise it over and over, or get some editing help) but it’s a start, and getting started on your idea, your very own idea based on your very own personal experiences, is why you should attend a creative writing workshop. Besides, you might even have some fun (and meet some kindred spirits who never realized writing was so much fun either). You might even at admit, at least to yourself, that you actually like writing, and that you got something to show for the time (and money) spend at the workshop. If not a complete first draft, something well underway that you can finish off when you get home. And if you sell it, you could recoup your investment! Who knows, you might even turn your idea into a book!

And all those years, you thought writing was torture. Shame on you!

*UPDATE: THREE DAYS REMAIN to the “Turn Your Personal Experiences into Published Articles” workshop in Kuching-17 December 2011; NO DEPOSIT REQUIRED!

SEE YOU AT THE WORKSHOP!

**Here's the link to the full workshop announcement and the writing tips, and other workshops.

**Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.

Take the Fear out of writing and replace it with Fun at the Writing Workshop in Kuching!

2011-12-02T05:53:00.000-08:00

Created by Jenny! Thanks!

Take the Fear out of writing and replace it with Fun!

Don't be intimidated by the word "creative". It's just plain writing!

*UPDATE: THREE DAYS REMAIN; NO DEPOSIT REQUIRED!
SEE YOU AT THE WORKSHOP!

**Here's the link to the full workshop announcement and the writing tips, and other workshops.

***Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.

Borneo Post: Writing Workshop in Kuching--17 December 2011!

2011-11-29T23:55:00.000-08:00

*To enlarge, click, right click, view, zoom

Are you serious about writing?

Are you up to the challenge?

Turn your Personal Experience into

Published Articles!

ROBERT RAYMER takes you through the brainstorming

and the writing process to produce a complete first draft,

if you're up to the challenge!

Take the Fear out of writing and replace it with Fun!

*UPDATE: THREE DAYS REMAIN; NO DEPOSIT REQUIRED!
SEE YOU AT THE WORKSHOP!

**Here's the link to the full workshop announcement and the writing tips, and other workshops.

***Don't be intimidated by the word "creative". It's just plain writing!
****Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.

Creative Writing Workshop—Kuching! 17 December 2011

2011-11-27T02:26:00.000-08:00

Are you serious about writing?

Are you up to the challenge?

Turn your Personal Experiences into

Published Articles

ROBERT RAYMER takes you through the brainstorming
and the writing process to produce a complete first draft,
if you're up to the challenge!

Take the Fear out of writing and replace it with Fun!

*UPDATE: THREE DAYS REMAIN; NO DEPOSIT REQUIRED!
SEE YOU AT THE WORKSHOP!

When: Saturday, 17 December Time: 9.00-12.00 or 2.00-5.00pm (one session/two-time slots) *register 8.30/1.30		Cost: RM120 adults/ RM90 students (full-time), above age 14
Who: 14-70+ years old, plus your friends and relatives	Where: Kuching, Open University Malaysia, Sarawak Learning Centre, 9 1/2 Mile, Kuching-Serian Road
Next: Email your name, contact phone number, email address, and your preference morning or afternoon session to robert@borneoexpatwriter.com


Not Sure?	Why not treat yourself or a relative to an early Christmas present or get a head start on your New Year Resolutions!

Areas of learning: pre-writing techniques, probing questions; 5Ws and IH; primary and secondary emotions; sensory details; narrative structure; organising and outlining; four killers of narratives; and some valid reasons for editing-it's not just about grammar!

Writing tips: Links to Robert’s article in The Writer on pre-writing techniques, (click, right click, view and zoom to read) and the expanded version in Quill Annual 2011 , “Judging Tips” , "The Power of Five", "Writer Envy-Get Some Editing", “Tree Methodology” and “Prove Them Wrong!"

Challenge: Start and complete the first draft of your narrative in the workshop and have a final draft before the New Year to start your New Year in a new direction!

Workshop Bonus: Plan and start an additional piece of fiction.

Help your friends and relatives find out about the workshop by sending them this link! Thanks!

Bonus New Year Tip: A fun way to raise your self esteem and build your confidence for the New Year! And Leap for Success in the upcoming Leap Year.

Bio: Named as one of the “50 Expats You Should Know” by Expatriate Lifestyle, American Robert Raymer has taught creative writing for 13 years at two Malaysian universities, has judged short story competitions including the 2009 MPH National Short Story Awards, published over 500 short stories and articles, and conducted numerous workshops on creative writing.

He is the author of Spirit of Malaysia, Tropical Affairs: Episodes from an Expat's Life in Malaysia and Lovers and Strangers Revisited, winner of 2009 Popular-The Star Readers Choice Awards, taught in universities and translated into French.

Robert’s interviews and book reviews can be found on his website http://www.borneoexpatwriter.com

* Comments from recent workshop participants (below article) and a link to the actual workshop in Kuching.

**Here's the link to the first KK workshop, the second KK workshop, and the third KK workshop.

***Here's my workshop with Malaysian Nurses Association and International Tuition School in Kuching.

****If you are interested to bring my workshops to other organizations or associations in Sabah/Sarawak/West Malaysia/Singapore/Brunei for 2012 please contact me at robert@borneoexpatwriter.com Thank you!

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

“Dark Blue Thread” published in Westerly 56:2

2011-11-24T16:43:00.000-08:00

Westerly 56:2, a literary journal in Australia, with the tagline “the best in writing from the West” arrived in the mail yesterday. It was a special issue of Westerly, “South/East Asia”, and it contained my Malaysia-set short story “Dark Blue Thread” from Lovers and StrangersRevisited.

It’s always exciting for the author to get their hands on that first copy, a validation. For years I believed in the story, which had a lot of early success as noted in The Story Behind the Story, but then I kept changing the characters' names and finally overhauled the story, adding more backstory and a whole new ending that doubled the length of the story. This was the version I had believed in and frustrated me that it wasn’t getting out of Malaysia.

Persistence does pay off, so does rewriting. The final rewrite came earlier this year, when I went through all of the stories in Lovers and Strangers Revisited again before passing them to Editions GOPE for the French translation, Trois autres Malaisie. I wanted the best version out there both in English and in French. Ironically, “Dark Blue Thread” was one of three stories left out of Trois autres Malaisie (since the theme was similar to another story, “Only in Malaysia” that was added to the MPH version of the collection). Editions GOPE wanted to keep the length of the collection down—seems translating into French adds about 20% more words.

Then Westerly, after accepting it, gave me another chance to revise it, so I went through the story again, tweaking it here and there, and now I have this latest testimony to the endurance of those short stories from Lovers and Strangers Revisited that I first wrote over 20 years ago that are still being read today.

*** 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 for Trois autres Malaisie.

Boy Swallowed by a Python

2011-11-23T17:07:00.000-08:00

A 16-year-old boy was found dead in Malaysia after being swallowed by a 10 meter-long python. Camping in the jungle is always a risk, even on a school outing to a national park. I don’t wish to name the national park to give it any bad press--I spend four wonderful days there and even used it for the setting for one of my short stories. I once sketched out a story about a man on a death wish who gets swallowed by a python, so this story struck close to home. Besides, this could happen anywhere where pythons live.

In the late 1980’s, a man was attacked behind his rural house and the photo was on the front page of all the newspapers with the python wrapped around the man with its head over the man’s head and shoulders where it apparently became stuck—it was a rather large man. (Yes, this was the inspiration for my story idea.) I’ve also seen photos of a python trying to eat a wild boar. So a boy would not be a too big of a problem.

I’ve also seen plenty of photos of children and adults being cut out of crocodiles, including one at a different national park taken days before I had visited there with my then 16-year old son, and we had even come upon crocodile on a trail; it was crossing an old river bed into the nearby sea. The moment it saw us, it fled. It was either him or us.

At a third national park, a park ranger told us about how we had just missed a ferocious fight between a python and a proboscis monkey in plain view. At the same park, as far as I know, a python still lives beneath a popular canteen feeding off the rats and perhaps a stray monkey or two.

In my 25 years of living here, I have heard plenty of stories of adults being killed by wild boars, elephants (they grab you by the trunk, throw you down and stomp on you) and of course tigers.

Anytime you go into the jungle and camp you’re at risk, but the odds of you seeing a python, a wild boar, an elephant, or a tiger are quite rare, let alone being attacked by one. So don’t worry too much about it. Enjoy the beauty, but also don’t take unnecessary risks.

As for me holding that crocodile, that wasn’t in the jungle or along a river but on the set of Anna and the King, also filmed in Malaysia The handlers were right beside me along with a couple of edgy elephants that looked like they too wanted to have a go with me.

As a father of three boys, my heart goes out for the parents. This is an awful way for your child -- for anyone -- to die.

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 for Trois autres Malaisie.

Introduction and Excerpts for Trois autres Malaisie

2011-11-19T18:57:00.000-08:00

228 pages, 13x19 cm, ouvrage illustré.

Trois autres Malaisie is printed and now available! Editions GOPE has just provided me the introduction to Trois autres Malaisie, written by the translator, Jerome Bouchaud, as well as the excerpts to four of the stories.

Orders for Trois autres Malaisie, the French translation of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, a collection of short stories set in Malaysia and winner of 2009 Popular-The Star Reader's Choice Award, can now be made at:

ACHETEZ TROIS AUTRES MALAISIES, 17.90 € (-5%, LIVRAISON GRATUITE)

Click on the middle book will link you to the introduction and excerpts of four of the stories. Editions GOPE is offering free shipping to anywhere in the world and 5% discount. The books are now available.

Again, please inform others who speak French, even as a second or third language (or are learning French), and who has an interest in Malaysia or would like to know more about it. Think of your family and friends back home or those living overseas, even those who might have been here years ago or are thinking about visiting someday. Or send them a copy of Trois autres Malaisie as a present! Thank you!

Here's an update to the French blog about Trois autres Malaisie.

La Malaisie vue de l'intérieur avec 14 nouvelles de Robert Raymer.

***Here's also the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books in English, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia.

A Fun, Practical Way to Raise Your Self-Esteem and Build Your Confidence for the New Year by Listing Your Top 25-50 Achievements!

2011-11-16T21:42:00.000-08:00

Here is a quick practical way to raise your self-esteem and build your confidence for the New Year (or anytime of the year) which I first learned from Jack Canfield. Just list your top 25 achievements. Then billionaire Bill Bartmann recommended listing your top 50 achievements (you can go all the way back to primary school!) to remind yourself of who you are and what you’ve done.

This list is really you, and not how you might be feeling right now, especially if you’re achieving less than you think you deserve, or not doing as well you know you can. In life, we all go through our ups and downs, but dwelling on those downs when you are down, really down, can be fatal, especially during the holidays. This is when you need a quick pick me up to raise your self-esteem, and that’s what your list of achievements is, your very own reminder of who you are and what you have done and what you are capable of doing in the future.

Now and then, when things are really going bad, you may need to dwell on your list to remind yourself what you had to go through to achieve what you accomplished, and then apply that same skill, perseverance, and tenaciousness again to get you back up to where you belong.

By the way, your list has no bearing on anyone else (doesn’t mean you’re better or worse than anyone else); others may not even care one twit about your list, other than a passing curiosity—Oh, I didn’t know you did such and such…What they really care about is their own list and that’s perfectly fine!

So, if you want to start feeling good about yourself, I urge you to compile your own list—you’ll be surprised by how many you've forgotten about. Even if you’ve already done this before, try it again (I did back in 2006 but then revised and expanded it from 25 to 50 and added stuff that I did forget.). Then every now and then, when you’ve had less than a perfect day and you’re getting down on yourself, review your list and start feeling good about who you really are, the person who has already done so much in your life and is capable of doing a whole lot more.

Good luck with this—it can be a real eye opener and a rather nice reminder, too! At the same time, be grateful for those who may have helped you along the way. Rarely do we achieve anything totally on our own. I know I had plenty of help along the way, even when backpacking solo or writing my own stories…

In case you are curious about my list—here’s my top 50 achievements. I was tempted to start with 9^th grade, my first big accomplishment, winning some school award, but I ended up starting after I graduated from Miami University, in chronological order. My latest achievement is finding myself on Wikipedia, but that’s merely an offshoot of having my collection of short stories translated into French, my last major achievement so far.

1) Backpacking solo through Europe for three months, after my initial plans fell through.
2) Moving to Colorado from Ohio and working for Kinko’s and rising to assistant manager by age 23.
3) Climbing Long’s Peak in Colorado.
4) Negotiating a manager deal to take over the Madison store (and getting a company car with a two month break to travel -- at age 24!)
5) Backpacking solo to the Far East and Southeast Asia for two months.
6) Spending ten days in China, soon after it opened up to the West (arriving April 1,1980).
7) Speaking at a national convention for Kinko’s.
8) Backpacking around the Yucatan Peninsula and Mexico for a month.
9) Becoming a Regional Manager for Kinko’s and setting up ten stores (eight on my own).
10) Retiring from Kinko’s with a full-fledge retirement party at age 28 (to move to Malaysia and write).
11) Driving across the US and then backpacking seven months on my own, en route to Malaysia.
12) Surviving dysentery in Nepal and making my way to Malaysia (to a rural kampung past midnight) to recover.
13) Publishing first short story, “Mat Salleh” in New Straits Times and also My Weekly, UK (with color photos of my first wedding).
14) Being the Coordinator of Malaysian-American Commission of Educational Exchange in Penang for two years.
15) Being a tango dancer in the film Indochine.
16) Having my first son, Zaini, and having the article about his birth published and used by the delivering doctor in his Lamaze classes.
17) Being a stage manager for Penang Players (with no experience, turning a nightmare into triumph).
18) Playing Santa Claus, as a last minute replacement (another nightmare and triumph).
19) Publishing Lovers and Strangers with Heinemann Asia.
20) Giving my first talk in Malaysia/Singapore at 1993 Singapore Book Fair.
21) Being featured for the first time in a newspaper or magazine, Her World, November 1993.
22) Being an extra and working behind the scenes in Beyond Rangoon.
23) Being an extra in Paradise Road.
24) Surviving a divorce and a custody battle and getting back my son Zaini!
25) Taking Zaini to the US for Christmas (when my lawyer told me it would be impossible—it took six months of planning and legal maneuvering; I only got permission via my ex-wife’s lawyer on the eve of our flight).
26) Being an extra in Anna and the Kingi.
27) Setting up creative writing course for USM in Penang where I taught for ten years.
28) Being a single father for four years (I had Zaini during the week and he was with his mother on the weekends).
29) Marrying Jenny in Sarawak and having two more boys, Jason and Justin.
30) Publishing “When Tastes Collide” (“Cross Cultural Dinner”) in Reader’s Digest, April 2004.
31) Being the editor of Silverfish New Writings 4.
32) Being tennis doubles champions at USM for three straight years, after injuring my ankle in the semi-finals.
33) Publishing Lovers and Strangers Revisited (SF and MPH)
34) My short story “Neighbors” being selected to be taught in SPM literature throughout Malaysia.
35) The Lovers and Strangers Revisited book launch sponsored by Penang Players, who read excerpts of four stories and did a play reading from an adaptation of “Neighbors”, with over 100 in attendance.
36) Buying first house with Jenny, moving to Sarawak, and decorating it in record time since Jenny was seven months pregnant.
37) Putting up a website and finding a way to the Maui Writer’s Conference (after I had initially canceled).
38) Writing “Merdeka Miracle” with Lydia Teh and Tunku Halim for Going Places in one month of frantic writing with two writers I had yet to meet.
39)Lovers and Strangers Revisited winning 2009 Popular Reader’s Choice Award.
40) Hiking the 7-hour “Big Loop” with Zaini at Bako National Park.
41) Publishing Tropical Affairs: Episodes from an Expat's Life in Malaysia.
42) Giving my first full day creative writing workshop at Unimas.
43) Being chosen as one of “50 Expatriates You Should Know” by Expatriate Lifestyle (January 2010)
44) Being interviewed on the national TV talk show Kuppa Kopi.
45) Having my 100^th short story published.
46) Publishing Spirit of Malaysia.
47) Having my 500^th publication.
48) Giving my first two-day workshop for Malaysian Nurses Association.
49) Living as an expat for 25 years in Malaysia
50) Having Lovers and Strangers Revisited translated into French.

*Update: Within a month of posting this, I got a new one, Ohio University is adapting my short story "Home for Hari Raya" into a film! Now I can add this to 2012! When you focus on your accomplishments and look ahead, they expand! Also check out Leap for Success this Leap Year with five practical tips to make 2012 your best year ever. Good luck with your own list and 2012!

**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.
--Borneo Expat Writer.

Robert Raymer on Wikipedia!

2011-11-15T05:30:00.000-08:00

Wikipedia has just accepted my profile! Always wanted to end up in an encyclopedia someday. . . . This was first proposed by Jerome Bouchaud, the French translator of Trois autres Malaisie, during our meeting in Kuching. Initially, I thought it was a great idea, but then later, when Jerome sent me a mock profile, I was slow to respond. Had some self doubts. Perhaps I was just waiting for Trois autres Malaisie to finally come out.

Jerome, who has access to the inner workings of Wikipedia (there are certain steps you need to follow to get yourself and what you post approved), will now translate this into French. The profile, for the time being, is considered an “orphan” since there only a few Wikipedia links to it, such Living People, the Year of my Birth, American Writers, and Miami University Alumni, but hey, it's a start.

Still it feels cool knowing that it is there and that it’s been approved by Wikipedia. This was something I learned from Joel Roberts: Own Your Credentials. Sure, others have accomplished way more than I ever will, but then, you never know what will happen in the next twenty years. I feel like I'm just waiting to break out; have felt it for years. The potential has always been there. Just need to keep at it; keep knocking on doors, keep writing, keep publishing more books.

For those who would like to get their hands on a copy of Trois autres Malaisie, please go to this site. Or if you’re interested in the English versions of my other three books, then try here. Thanks for checking me out on Wikipedia. No doubt I’ll be soon seeing you there, too, if you’re not there already. Who knows what the future holds for us…

Here's a link to my article "Getting Known Through the Media"
--Borneo Expat Writer

***Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.

Advance orders for Trois autres Malaisie!

2011-11-09T18:03:00.000-08:00

228 pages, 13x19 cm, ouvrage illustré.

ACHETEZ TROIS AUTRES MALAISIES, 17.90 € (-5%, LIVRAISON GRATUITE)

Please inform others who speak French, even as a second or third language (or are learning French), and has an interest in Malaysia or would like to know more about it. Think of your family and friends back home or those living overseas, even those who might have been here years ago or are thinking about visiting someday. Or send them a copy of Trois autres Malaisie as a present--Christmas is coming up soon! Thank you!

Here's a link to meeting with the translator, Jerome Bouchaud. And an update to the French blog about Trois autres Malaisie.

La Malaisie vue de l'intérieur avec 14 nouvelles de Robert Raymer

*** Here's also the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books in English, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia.

Creative Writing Workshop Three in Kota Kinabalu

2011-10-26T18:34:00.000-07:00

The third creative writing workshop in Kota Kinabalu was the smallest of the three, but that was to be expected, since it required, ideally, either a first person narrative or a short story from either the first or the second workshop sent in advance. Some, who had promised to attend, never got around to it, while others seemed under the impression that they had to attend one of the other workshops despite it being made clear in the announcements, that that was not the case. Ideally, it would be better, but if they had a story to submit, they would have benefited like all the others.

In fact, there were a couple of new faces, guests brought by others who had no story. They just came along to learn. Several of the participants, at least six, did manage to attend all three workshops, including Tina Kisil, whose book Footprints in the Paddy Field had recently won second prize in the 2011 Popular-The Star Readers’ Choice Awards for nonfiction. This time she was trying her hand at fiction.

Before the workshop, I found out that several of the participants had been encouraging one another to take advantage of having a published author go over their work. They even exchanged their stories to get some feedback. As agreed, I received most of the manuscripts, 3-5 pages, about a week in advance of the workshop (ideally I wanted two weeks and did get some—thanks for those who submitted their work early). Initially, I didn’t plan to line edit the stories; I just wanted to give them my overall impression and point out story or logic problems and suggest how to correct them as I did with MPH short story contest workshops in Kuching and Miri, but since I was getting mainly first person narratives (some very intriguing), what they really needed was some serious editing! Especially some of the short stories! They were almost there, but...

During the workshop, I went over the bigger issues of each (so everyone else could benefit) by projecting their story on a white board and using a marker. An overhead projector would’ve worked better because every time we moved the text, the old markings got in the way, so there was a lot of erasing. Now we know (and now we know where to get an overhead in KK!) With the help of Jude, the organizer, we tried to minimize the movement between paragraphs (that some stories required).

After asking the participants in advance, many agreed to have their stories sent around to the others so they would have a chance to read them before the workshop. That helped to make most of us familiar with the story, so I could concentrate on their problems such as generalizing too much at the beginning, or not starting close to the action, or going off on tangents, or creating needless confusion by jumbling dialogue or using pronouns with no clear antecedent.

I kept stressing that if you anticipate that people are going to ask you questions while reading your story then you should answer the questions such as “Who is this character? Where is this story taking place? When did this happen in relationship to the other events?" By answering these 5-W questions before readers have a chance to ask, you’re not only making it easy on them but you’re also eliminating needless confusion. This allows the reader to get caught up in your story, in your characters, instead of pausing to scratch their heads.

After going through all of the major issues for everyone’s benefit, we broke for tea, and then I gave another jumpstart topic “He/she kicked in the door,” which I brainstormed for them. While they worked on this and tried to produce a complete draft by the end of the workshop, I then met with each participant who had submitted their story, so we could discuss the rest of the editing that only concerned them. This way no one was wasting their time waiting for me; they were all busy writing.

For many of them, meeting one on one was an eye opener; it probably felt like they were back in school, though I never experienced any teacher going over my story in such detail until years after I graduated and took a writing course! It’s not grammar mistakes that I’m pointing out, except when they were present; it was stylistic mistakes of using vague or wrong word choices, or trite expressions, or combining or separating sentences for effectiveness, or cutting out unnecessary words, or rearranging their sentences to increase clarity or effectiveness.

Now and then all writers need to go through this. I know I sure did when I first set out to make myself a writer, and later even paid someone to rip up my already published Malaysian short stories so I could sell them overseas and produce a better collection of short stories as I did in Lovers and Strangers Revisited. Now I work with both published and unpublished writers as I blogged about earlier.

At the end of the workshop the writers agreed to meet in the future to push each other in the right direction to improve their writing, something we all need now and then, a push to get started and another, often a bigger push, to keep your writing going. This is what I set out to achieve in my three creative writing workshops in Kota Kinabalu.

* * *

*Here is a blog about the third workshop from one of the participants. It's always exciting (and scary) to get feedback so fast! I have my perception of how it went, but what really counts is how they saw it! (Looks like we even chose the same photos! Decided to add one more...) Yes, I agree, it can be embarrassing to have your mistakes pointed out but we're all making mistakes, and often the very same mistakes, too! It's a good way for everyone to learn.

Here's another blog from another participant.

**Here's my workshop with Malaysian Nurses Association. Another with International Tuition School in Kuching.

***Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.

If you wish to contact me for a creative writing workshop at your school (for your staff or students or both) or your association, I can be reached at robert@borneoexpatwriter.com

*Announcement: Workshop coming to Kuching 17 December 2011

A French Update and a Tribute to Translators

2011-10-23T19:52:00.000-07:00

Here is the revised cover for Trois autres Malaisie, the French translation of Lovers and Strangers Revisited. Also, for those who read French, here is the latest update of the book’s French blog

I’m told that Trois autres Malaisie is still under proofreading and it should go under print by the end of October-early November. The next post on the book blog will be a short bio of the translator Jerome Bouchard, who I met in Kuching back in June. According to the publisher, Editions GOPE, too often translators work in the shadow of the writer and don’t get the exposure they deserve. I have to agree. Often it’s the translator who finds the writer and introduces him to the foreigner publisher in the first place.

This is what happened in my case, and this is exactly what happened in the case of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, according to Coelho’s biography, A Warrior’s Life by Fernando Morais. It was the translator Alan Clarke, an American who came across Coelho’s first book The Pilgrimage in Portuguese and offered to translate it into English. Coelho was not impresses and told him, “Thank you for your interest, but what I need is a publisher in the United States, not a translator.”

Clarke was not put off and replied, “All right, then, can I try and find a publisher for the book?” Twenty-two publishers turned Clarke down before someone at HarperCollins said yes. The book, under a different title, didn’t sell. Undaunted, Clarke translated The Alchemist and offered it to HarperCollins and the rest is history.

Sometimes it's a matter of perseverance, even in translation.

*For advance orders please follow this link. The publisher is offering free shipping and 5% discount.

**Here’s also an update to the French blog about Trois autres Malaisie.

***Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.

1899—A Good Year for Writers

2011-10-19T16:43:00.000-07:00

The first novel I ever read was by the German author Erich Kastner, Emil and the Detectives, published in 1929 and set in Berlin. The book has been translated into 59 languages and made into numerous movies both in German and in English. Kastner was born in 23 February 1899.

1899, as it turns out, was a rather fine year for writers, including a couple of Nobel prize winners like the American Ernest Hemingway who was born July 21, 1899 and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Then there is the Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata, born 14 June 1899, who won Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968.

Also born in 1899 was the British writer, Nevil Shute, who wrote A Town like Alice, born 17 January 1899, the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, born 24 August 1899, and the Russian Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita, born in 22 April 1899.

Not a bad international cast of writers for one year.

***Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.

Congrats to winners of 2011 Popular-The Star Readers’ Choice Awards

2011-10-18T22:13:00.000-07:00

I’m a bit late on the news—I think it’s been out about a month now, but congrats to Lee Su Kim for winning the 2011 Popular-The Star Readers’ Choice Awards for fiction with Kebaya Tales, Amir Muhammad for coming in second with Rojak: Bite-Sized Stories, and third, Malaysia-born Singaporean Christine Lim Suchen’s historical fiction A Bit Of Earth.

For non-fiction, the winners were Chan King Nui’s From Poor Migrant To Millionaire, Tina Kisil’s Footprints In The Paddy Field (2010), and Jasmine Yow’s Behind That Shiny Resume. I’ll be seeing Tina this Saturday (22 October) when she attends my creative writing workshop in Kota Kinabalu, so I’ll be able to congratulate her in person!

Last year, I did manage to attend the 2010 awards when my book Tropical Affairs was nominated. Although the book didn’t win (I did win in 2009 for Lovers and Strangers Revisited!), I had a good time meeting with fellow writers Lydia Teh, Khoo Guat Choo, Peggy Tan; and also Christina Chan and the students from SMK (p) Sri Aman, Petaling Jeya, who were adapting my short story “Neighbours” (which I just blogged about yesterday for being used as an assignment in a TESL Masters program ) into a play.

***Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.

Short story “Neighbours” used as an e-couse assignment!

2011-10-18T04:05:00.000-07:00

This is for those who have always wondered how their short story would look like as an exam question, or in this case, as an assignment worth 40% of their TESL mark! I’ve been fortunate that quite a few of my stories from Lovers and Strangers Revisited have been taught throughout Malaysia in various universities, private colleges and even SPM literature (secondary school), and one story was even picked up by the University of Cambridge International Examination (CIE), an excerpt from an earlier version of “Waiting for My Father to Crash” from 25 Malaysia Short Stories, Best of Silverfish new Writing 2001-2005. A check for £170.00 is now on the way, thank you. (It was supposed to be three times that amount, but I just found out today that the exam question was never used electronically - on the web or for CD's - just as a printed examination paper.)

Yet, in all this time, I’ve never actually seen the exam question of any of my stories or how it appeared in the actual examination until today when I stumbled upon an online link for an e-course via Asiaeuniversity, out of Kuala Lumpur that used my short story “Neighbours” in their TESL Masters program. This is the same story that was taught in SMP literature 2008-2010, published in Thema in the US, adapted as a play, and the subject of the 2010 New Straits Times article, “Are you Mrs. Koh?” Here is the Story Behind the Story link, too.

ASSIGNMENT 2 MAY 2011 SEMESTER
SUBJECT CODE	:	ETL642
SUBJECT TITLE	:	Teaching Literature in English As A Second Language
LEVEL	:	Master

INSTRUCTIONS TO STUDENTS

1) This assignment carries a 40% weightage towards the final grade.

2) Your answers should be typed on A4 paper using I Times Roman, 12 font sizes and 1.5 line spacing.

3) Your answers must be submitted to your Academic Facilitator before / on EXAM WEEK.

4) Online students to submit as attachment to email: secs@aeu.edu.my

A. THE TASK

This assignment is based on a practical experience where you are required to plan, teach and reflect upon a literature lesson. To fulfill this requirement, submit a bound portfolio to your facilitator based on (a) planning, (b) teaching and (c) self-evaluation of a single lesson based on a given short story. For this assignment, you are required to read the following:

(a) The short story Neighbours by Robert Raymer. [attached]

(b) Material in reading package assigned for the course, as well as other reference texts on teaching short stories to ESL students e.g. Benefits of Using Short Stories in the EFL Context by Erkaya (2005).

As you plan your work you are encouraged to think about the Malaysian ESL learner and how you, as a teacher, can facilitate students’ interactions with the text. You may draw ideas from reference texts on the literature instruction, discussions with colleagues and your own classroom experiences. [40 marks]

B. GUIDELINES FOR ASSIGNMENT Use the following guidelines to complete this assignment. The portfolio that you are required to submit should include all of the areas listed below (1-5) and there is no page limit. Organize your portfolio using appropriate headings and section markers.

1. Identify a group of students

To begin, identify a group of ESL students (minimum 4) whom you can teach for a period of 40-60 minutes. They may be students from your class or young adults who live in your neighbourhood. Write a detailed description of these students, including language proficiency (their grades for UPSR/SRP/SPM), family/socioeconomic background and reading interests.

2. Write a lesson plan

Write a lesson plan to teach the short story Neighbours by Robert Raymer. You can either use the whole story or part of it for the lesson. The plan is for one 40-60 minute lesson, inclusive of one or two activities. Organize your written lesson plan according to the (i) objectives, (ii) steps and (iii) assessment format. Remember to cite references for photocopied or downloaded material.

3. Give a rationale for selected activities

Using your knowledge of the pedagogy of literature and your students’ background, give a rationale for your choice of activities included in the lesson plan.

4. Teach your students

Teach the students using the lesson plan you prepared (as in 2 & 3) above. You are required to make an audio/video recording of the lesson. (Reminder: you are required to use the short story Neighbours for this lesson.)

5. Evaluate your lesson

Write an evaluation of your lesson based on the audio/video recording. Remember that this assignment is based on experience and learning, and that you will not be penalized for having conducted a lesson that has a few flaws. Listen to yourself in the taped recording (audio/video), concentrating on your instructional language, interaction with text, student response as well as pacing. Focus on what happened, and not on what you wish you had done. Present your evaluation in the form of a reflective personal account using the structure below.

(i) Teaching Effectiveness: What did you do to find out if objectives of the lesson were achieved? What was the most effective part of your lesson? What did you plan or do that worked particularly well for your students? What went wrong? Was the short story appropriate for the students level of English proficiency? What did you do to help students understand the story? Did you explain literary elements well? What did the assessment show?

(ii) Assessment of Learning and Student Response: How did you ascertain that students understood and were able to apply what they have learnt in the lesson? Which literary elements of the story did they understand/not understand? What did your students think or feel about the short story you chose? Did you plan activities that were interesting for your students? How did they respond to the activities you had planned?

(iii) Improvement: If you were asked to do the lesson all over again, what would you do differently? How would you change or improve upon your approach to the teaching of the short story your chose? What advice would you give a colleague about teaching short stories to ESL students?

C. SOURCES OF INFORMATION

It is important to always cite the sources of your information in your assignment. Note that if your work is found to be a result of plagiarism and/or copying, it will be rejected and you will be given zero marks (0) for this assignment.

END OF QUESTION FOR ASSIGNMENT 2

NEIGHBOURS A short story by Robert Raymer (Follow the link to the story. The MPH version has been revised and is now present tense.)

# # #

With the new French version out any day now, should be interesting if any of stories from Trois autres Malaisie gets used in an exam. Just remind me to charge them!

***Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.

Thanks, Steve, and thanks for your lessons of success

2011-10-16T18:25:00.000-07:00

I've been reading so much about Steve Jobs lately, wondering how one man can change the way we live. I live in Borneo and up to a couple of weeks ago, I was probably one of the the last people on the planet with a college degree and a decent income who had never, ever owned one Apple product. Not that I didn't want one, just never got around to it for one reason or another. Then my wife, bless her heart, told me she wanted to buy an iPad. I scratched my head and thought, why? Although I knew about them, I had never really seen one in operation. Besides, my wife rarely had time for her laptop, so why an iPad? The following week, she came home with one, and I asked her point blank, "What are you going to do with it?"

She had no idea; if she did, she wasn't telling me. But I knew her, and I knew she would find a way, and the next day, after consulting a friend of hers at work, she started to download things on it, and soon our two boys, age 7 and 4, were flocked around her as they played games, both fun and educational. They also had illustrated children books read aloud to them. The possibilities for iPad, even in Borneo seemed endless, and my wife was just getting started. She even takes it to bed with her like a book and places it safely on the nightstand.

I admit, I felt a little jealous. I was losing my wife and my whole family to iPad! How could I compete?

Then Steve Jobs died. Like any good American (or any good citizen of the computer and internet-connected world), I followed his career from the beginning, the ups and downs. Amazed that he got booted out of Apple, the very company that he co-founded. Talk about being stabbed in the back! Loved Toy Story, and all the Pixar films. Amazed that he was back in Apple, on top. Then the new products came, changing how people communicated with one another, how they did their work, and how they listened to their music. Basically, I was extremely impressed how one man can change our world and then be taken from us so quickly!

But Steve Jobs will never be gone. I felt his spirit last night, as all four of us, for the first time, lay in our bed with the iPad and had Hansel and Gretel read to us. The children were a little anxious when the birds ate the bread crumbs and Hansel and Gretel lost their way. Then the witch planned to eat poor Hansel, and all seemed lost. But, through a surprising turn of events, Hansel and Gretel found their father again. They had made it back home. Our boys were relieved, happy and sleepy, too. So was I, but then it dawned on me this morning that Steve Jobs had made it home, too. In more ways than one. He had also made it—before it was too late—into our home here in Borneo as well, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Thanks Steve for the inspiration. My children also thank you for Toy Story and for iPad! Don't worry, Steve, even in Borneo, we'll keep your spirit alive for the next generation. Our kids will insist upon it..

* * *
Later this morning, call it fate, I came across this article by Carmine Gallo, which I'll share in case you missed it. Not a bad way to start your day...

Steve Jobs and the 7 Rules of Success

By Carmine Gallo

Steve Jobs' impact on your life cannot be underestimated. His innovations have likely touched nearly every aspect -- computers, movies, music and mobile. As a communications coach, I learned from Jobs that a presentation can, indeed, inspire. For entrepreneurs, Jobs' greatest legacy is the set of principles that drove his success.

Over the years, I've become a student of sorts of Jobs' career and life. Here's my take on the rules and values underpinning his success. Any of us can adopt them to unleash our "inner Steve Jobs."

1. Do what you love. Jobs once said, "People with passion can change the world for the better." Asked about the advice he would offer would-be entrepreneurs, he said, "I'd get a job as a busboy or something until I figured out what I was really passionate about." That's how much it meant to him. Passion is everything.

2. Put a dent in the universe. Jobs believed in the power of vision. He once asked then-Pepsi President, John Sculley, "Do you want to spend your life selling sugar water or do you want to change the world?" Don't lose sight of the big vision.

3. Make connections. Jobs once said creativity is connecting things. He meant that people with a broad set of life experiences can often see things that others miss. He took calligraphy classes that didn't have any practical use in his life -- until he built the Macintosh. Jobs traveled to India and Asia. He studied design and hospitality. Don't live in a bubble. Connect ideas from different fields.

4. Say no to 1,000 things. Jobs was as proud of what Apple chose not to do as he was of what Apple did. When he returned in Apple in 1997, he took a company with 350 products and reduced them to 10 products in a two-year period. Why? So he could put the "A-Team" on each product. What are you saying "no" to?

5. Create insanely different experiences. Jobs also sought innovation in the customer-service experience. When he first came up with the concept for the Apple Stores, he said they would be different because instead of just moving boxes, the stores would enrich lives. Everything about the experience you have when you walk into an Apple store is intended to enrich your life and to create an emotional connection between you and the Apple brand. What are you doing to enrich the lives of your customers?

6. Master the message. You can have the greatest idea in the world, but if you can't communicate your ideas, it doesn't matter. Jobs was the world's greatest corporate storyteller. Instead of simply delivering a presentation like most people do, he informed, he educated, he inspired and he entertained, all in one presentation.

7. Sell dreams, not products. Jobs captured our imagination because he really understood his customer. He knew that tablets would not capture our imaginations if they were too complicated. The result? One button on the front of an iPad. It's so simple, a 2-year-old can use it. Your customers don't care about your product. They care about themselves, their hopes, their ambitions. Jobs taught us that if you help your customers reach their dreams, you'll win them over.

There's one story that I think sums up Jobs' career at Apple. An executive who had the job of reinventing the Disney Store once called up Jobs and asked for advice. His counsel? Dream bigger. I think that's the best advice he could leave us with. See genius in your craziness, believe in yourself, believe in your vision, and be constantly prepared to defend those ideas.

Carmine Gallo is a communications coach, a popular keynote speaker and author of several books including The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs and The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs. His latest is The Power of Foursquare (McGraw-Hill, 2011).

*** Here's the link to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and Trois autres Malaisie..

The Novel Project: The Expatriate’s Choice

2011-09-29T02:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, after “The Woman on the Ferry” the excerpt from my Penang-set novel, The Expatriate’s Choice, was published in the New Straits Times, I thought it might be a good idea to put that story in the context of the first chapter (since six pages precede it) and show the character’s state of mind as he boards the ferry to Penang.

After a gap of five years, as I worked on other projects that have done well this year in the Amazon and the Faulkner-Wisdom Novel competitions, I finally picked up this novel, originally titled Tropical Moods. Then over several drafts, I ruthlessly cut 100 pages out of it—one fourth the length, though in actuality about 10% of the words.

Here is my pitch:

The Expatriate’s Choice

Having your fate hinged on the erratic behavior of an expatriate

who has nothing left to live for cannot be good…

The Expatriate’s Choice (82,500 words) was a semi-finalist in the 2011 Faulkner-Wisdom novel contest, the first book in a potential series set in Southeast Asia. The second book, The Girl in the Bathtub, was a short-listed finalist in their 2011 novel-in-progress category.

Set on a tropical island in Malaysia over a period of nine days culminating with the Chinese New Year, The Expatriate’s Choice revolves around six desperate and lonely people whose lives are about to explode. Distraught over catching his wife in bed with a former boyfriend, Steve Boston flees the US and arrives in Penang at the legendary E & O Hotel only to become entangled with a Eurasian woman. The woman’s own messy life has become even more complicated by her father washing ashore. Her father’s death is linked to a well-connected American expatriate who’s seems to know everyone’s business and finds a way to use it against them. When the expatriate’s wife and his over-protective mistress both decide to leave him, Graver’s past that he has carefully cultivated begins to unravel. With nothing left to live for except an elusive treasure buried by the Japanese at the end of World War Two, the expatriate makes a choice—a series of choices—that affects all those around him, including Steve Boston who is caught smack in the middle with a gun aimed at his head.

Chapter one:

THE EXPATRIATE’S CHOICE

Wednesday, 10 February 1988

The East has always attracted that strange beast called an expatriate, one of those lonely, alienated men who often have nothing left to live for. Either they’re hiding from their troubled past, seeking some self-indulgent pleasure, or searching for a mythical treasure—or perhaps a little of each, thus adding to their array of problems from the bad life choices that they’ve made. One of my own bad choices, other than marrying Patricia four years ago, is fleeing half way across the planet from her. The alternative would’ve put me into prison.

While boarding the ferry to Penang, I lag behind the other passengers, feeling a distinct uneasiness, an urgency that penetrates deep inside me, something I haven’t felt since I was a teenager in my maddening quest to get laid. Then I realize why I’ve come. A cat, when ready to die, goes to a corner and waits. I’ve come to my own corner of Southeast Asia, or more precisely Patricia’s corner, a tropical island off the west coast of Malaysia.

Death, when I think about it, does seem logical. Already I’ve left my wife, left my business, left my country . . . . Is that the real reason I’ve come? Is that why I’m here? Not entirely convinced, I lug my oversized suitcase to the side railing where I playfully consider the options. Drowning, I conclude, would be the easiest . . . . There’s no poison to find. No weapon to procure. No high place to seek out. No special timing involved . . . . A ferry jump also smacks of intrigue. Some young, ambitious detective bucking for a promotion may suggest that perhaps I was pushed. In any language that translates into murder. The local press will have a field day. With an American involved—identified from the name tag on my luggage—the international wire service will pick up the story. Headlines will glare:

AMERICAN BUSINESSMAN DROWNS IN MALAYSIA

POLICE SUSPECT MURDER

Even if the papers tone it down to FOUL PLAY, it will still grab people’s attention; maybe even Patricia’s. Someone may recognize my name or maybe even the name of our business and point it out to her. At least here in Malaysia, like those expatriates from long ago, I can die anonymously, buried in an unmarked grave in some overgrown cemetery that people rarely visit, resting in permanent peace . . . . Maybe, I don’t even have to die. Just fake my death. Disappear. Change my identity from Steve Boston to someone else. Someone already dead. Thus, no divorce proceedings. No lawyers. No past to deal with. Just start from scratch here in Penang as a tropical virgin.

I wipe the perspiration from my forehead as I glance at the other passengers already seated. An elderly Chinese man strokes the gray strands of hair sprouting from a chin mole; a stout, turbaned Sikh shuffles his thick sandaled feet; and a woman in a blue and gray sari with a gold ring through her nose nods at him respectfully. Sitting in front of them, three school girls in matching turquoise pinafores giggle at two boys snapping chewing gum. An Australian serviceman casts stern looks at the boys, while a pair of laid-back backpackers takes it all in. Plenty of potential witnesses—about two hundred—to confuse the truth.

I can just picture the look on Patricia’s pretty freckled face when she finds out where I fled to: her beloved Penang, her birthplace, where she lived the first six months of her life, the daughter of an American couple who met and copulated in the Peace Corps. My death will cast a pall on her treasured memories of having been an exchange student here and returning later with her boyfriend Martin. The same Martin I caught her fucking in the backseat of her car. In our car. All Patricia ever seemed to talk about was Penang. But now she will no longer be able to think about her precious Penang without thinking of me.

An old Chinese man munching on sunflowers seeds spits the shells onto the wooden deck. He pauses to look at me but continues adding to the mess he’s creating. The throbbing motion of the ferry as it leaves the mainland port of Butterworth only adds to my restlessness. Lost in my thoughts, I stare blankly out at the sea. Another passenger bumps into me but keeps going as if I’m no longer there. Patricia used to do the same, as if I were a misplaced chair that’s constantly in the way.

I peer over the side of the ferry at the green water churning to white. Pieces of wood, bits of styrofoam, and a colorful array of plastic bags are being sucked in by the advancing ferry and spat out. Beige foam covers patches of the sea like icing. Despite its filth and drifting flotsam, the sea still holds a special allure. Admittedly I feel drawn to it, drawn to its eternal patience, its willingness to accept me on my own terms. It’d be easy to yield to it . . . . If I concentrate hard enough on the same spot, I can even see my pitiful self in the water, see my image spiraling downwards, my arms fully extended above my head, my hands reaching, grasping for the surface as I sink deeper and deeper.

I find a foothold on the railing and step up to get a better look at the sea. The ferry suddenly lurches and I’m thrust forward. To keep from being tossed over the side, I tighten my grip on the ledge, my knuckles turning bone white, and brace myself. Heart thumping, legs shaking, I hold onto the railing longer than necessary before I ease myself back down. I avoid the gaze of those around me lest one or all of them were watching.

Spotting an empty seat between two Chinese men, I drag my suitcase and sit down with a muted thump, putting on hold any further speculations on this silly notion of suicide. Really, I’m not in the mood.

Lost in my weary thoughts, I absently study the Penang Bridge, off to my left, reputedly the third longest in Asia. I’ve seen it before in Patricia’s photos and coffee table books on Penang, though mostly while under construction. Midway between the bridge and the ferry, an unusual brightness sears its way through the clouds. The brightness grows in intensity. Finally it reveals itself in its entirety, a ball so huge and orange I can almost taste it. The sun’s rays create an illuminated path along the sea that stretch toward me like an accusing finger. Entering the path, a red and black freighter transforms itself into a silhouette. The sunlit water around the freighter shimmers in its wake. A double-decker ferry, mustard in color with black smoke billowing from its stack, creeps toward us from the opposite direction as it returns to the mainland. The ferry, like the one I’m on, has pedestrians on top and cars and motorcycles below. Thinking photograph, I reach for the camera inside my suitcase. At that very moment the Chinese man sitting next to me spits on the floor. The spit’s sheen against the dull planks holds my attention longer than I prefer. As I turn away, a glint of gold catches the corner of my eye.

The gold is draped around a dark slender ankle. The woman’s foot arches in and out of a black and gray low-heeled shoe. In and out . . . in and out the foot goes. It kicks itself free of the shoe, leaving only the toes inside. The leg is crossed, the foot raised, and the shoe dangles precariously from its new height. Up and down . . . up and down the foot goes. The shoe, on several occasions, comes dangerously close to dropping, but each time, the foot arches, the toes straighten, and the shoe slides back into place, securely hooked. The foot is lowered and the toes slip out, free at last. All five of them celebrate by curling up and down and wiggling from side to side, soaking up the fresh air. The ankle rotates clockwise, and then counterclockwise. With each movement, the anklet dances merrily around the owner’s ankle.

The smooth curve of the attached leg draws my gaze up the gentle slope of the calf, up and around the bent knee to a white-pleated skirt. The skirt leads directly to the thighs, to the hips, to the waist, where it abruptly ends at a navy blue blouse. Midway up the blouse my gaze is blocked when an overweight woman shifts over a seat. I lean back and forward, and from side to side, but every effort to see around the woman is frustrated by the plumpness of her presence.

Having lost all interest in the photograph, I bide my time until I can see the rest of this woman, her face in particular, if only out of curiosity . . . .While waiting, I retrieve the map of Penang to familiarize myself with the general layout of George Town, specifically the area around the jetty, Fort Cornwallis and The E & O Hotel. I look up just as the owner of the anklet makes her way toward the center aisle. As I surmised from her ankle, the woman is Indian, yet her smooth hair seems peculiar; instead of being black, it’s brown, as if she’s part Caucasian. The hair doesn’t look dyed but natural. The woman, conscious that she’s being watched, glances at me, revealing high cheek bones, slender nose, sensuous lips, dark alluring eyes, black as obsidian with a touch of mystery. She epitomizes everything I’ve read and imagined about the East, except for the color of her hair.

Intrigued, I find myself rising from my seat to follow her. Convinced that the luggage is safe since it’s bulky and securely locked, I leave it behind and gingerly step over the old man’s spit. An Indian in his late forties enters the aisle a few rows ahead of me. He’s dressed shabbily in a torn yellow T-shirt, filthy blue sweat pants, and rubber sandals too small for his cracked and callused feet. The other passengers turn and look at each of us in succession: the woman, the Indian man, and me.

Upon reaching the front of the ferry, the woman leans on the front railing and pushes her smooth hair back as she gazes out at the sea. The Indian, to my surprise, walks up to her and whispers into her ear. She cringes and shoos him away. The man notices me approaching so he steps aside and lights a cigarette, all the while ogling the woman.

Since there’s not enough space between them without me crowding in, and none on the woman’s right due to some other passengers, I settle for a spot to the left of the Indian man, glad to have a closer look at the approaching island. Despite Penang having its own airport and a bridge linking the island with the mainland, the best way to arrive on the island, at least according to Patricia, is by ferry. Only the ferry comes directly at the headland, creeping upon it slowly, thus allowing you the full experience of discovering Penang as it unfolds: its tropical ambiance, its colonial-era buildings, and its multiracial cultures of Malays, Chinese, Indian, Eurasians, Arabs, Thai, and Burmese . . . . There are a lot more high-rise buildings than I hoped to see, including an octagonal monstrosity right smack in the center of George Town that dwarfs everything else on the island.

My clothes flap in the sea breeze as I glance at the woman, still curious about her hair. Perhaps she’s part of the Eurasian community I’ve read about in one of Patricia’s books, a descendent of the Portuguese that had settled in Malacca or Kedah. Or maybe she’s a product of mixed parentage, an offspring of a colonial officer and an immigrant from Sri Lankan. Penang is famous for its mixed marriages. As far as I can tell, other than a glance or two, she hasn’t really noticed me. Who does notice me is the Indian. He draws in long and hard on his cigarette, sucking in the last remnants of charred tobacco. He flicks the cigarette butt over the railing. I follow its arc, lit red by the ash, into the sea. When I look up, the man’s eyes are fixed on me; his head cocked back with a grin. His face is gaunt, pockmarked, his eyes milky, and his teeth yellow and decaying. In a groggy, drunken fashion he swivels around and gapes at the other passengers, many of them gathering their belongings and corralling their children, preparing to disembark.

He turns his attention back to me and says in a hoarse, whispery voice, “I have what you’re looking for.”

Pretending not to understand him, I shift my gaze to the ramshackled piers jutting out from the shore. Corrugated-zinc roofed shacks have been built on top of the pier; below, sampans rot in the mud and the sewage. The moored sampans and rickety piers are reminiscent of another era. I can easily imagine the coolies unloading incoming cargo from the ships and carrying them on their bent-over backs. And the Chinese, with their long black queues, waiting tirelessly beside their rickshaws for their British Raj passengers. The British are long gone; even their name for Penang—Prince of Wales Island for the future George IV—was dropped in 1957 after Malaya won independence. Remaining behind is the faded elegance of their colonial buildings standing sentinel along the shore. But even these seem overshadowed by the octagonal Komtar, rising a full-bodied sixty-five stories to the clouds. At its base, and completing its phallic image, is a geodesic dome balled tight like a man’s scrotum after a cold, invigorating swim.

The Indian clears his throat and spits into the sea. He asks me, “You, Englishman?”

I nod but don’t bother to correct him. Ignoring him as best as I can, I continue to study the approaching island.

“My name, Raja. Your name what? John?”

“Yes,” I reply, glancing at him, reluctant to reveal my real name. John is as good as any.

Raja clears his throat again. He gazes once more at the woman and then heads back to an empty seat, dragging his rubber sandals along the bare planks, not bothering to lift his feet. Just before he sits down, he casts one final glance at her, a look suggesting he not only knows her but is expecting something from her. I wonder what it is.

The woman continues to lean on the railing, her arm closely guarding a black travel bag strapped around her shoulder. She pushes her hair aside and glances in my direction. Noticing that I’m watching—perhaps she’s been aware of me all along—she hesitates but then smiles. The smile seems friendly, spontaneous, and maybe even genuine. It takes me by surprise.

I attempt to muster a friendly smile of my own, though I’m not all that successful. Half of my mind is still on Patricia, on what she did in our car, and the business that I left behind. The woman’s dark eyes glisten as if sensing my ambivalence. She turns away. I kick myself for blowing it. Moments later, once again I glance her way. She’s rubbing her shoe against the back of the other leg causing the gold anklet to slide up and down her ankle. Up and down . . . up and down the anklet goes . . . . My gaze travels to her matching gold earrings, gold bangles, and a gold watch. No gold wedding band that I can see, though her left hand is partially blocked by the travel bag.

The ferry aligns itself with the jetty. More passengers stir in their seats; several in back are already advancing, hoping to get a jump on those still seated. I keep thinking about the woman’s smile, her hair, her anklet, and her restless feet . . . while trying to block out the disjointed thoughts about my past, about Patricia in particular. I only want to think about this woman on the ferry.

More and more passengers come to the front, crowding the area, filling the gap between us. I inch closer, but too many people are blocking the way.

The ferry docks and the remaining passengers rise.

“Move,” I tell myself and the front gate yawns open. I attempt to reach the woman if only to exchange another smile, but the surging crowd cuts me off. Passengers bump into me from all sides. I’m in their way, blocking their path. I try to follow the woman through the throng of people, yet there are too many of them separating us . . . . Before I know it, she’s gone—I’ve lost her.

Reluctantly, I retreat back to my seat to retrieve my luggage, all the while scolding myself for not acting when I had the chance and for letting her get away. At the same time, I remind myself that she’s only a woman on a ferry. Someone from a different country, a different culture, and a different race.

A complete stranger.

Several people give me irritated looks for going in the wrong direction, against the flow. I apologize and try to keep out of their way. Raja smirks at me as if I’m no better than him. Upon reaching the area where I thought I sat, I have to pause and think, was it here? Or further back? Something crunches under my shoe. The shells from the sunflower seeds. I find my seat, but not my suitcase. It’s no longer there. What the . . . ? I search under the rows in front and behind and all around the area, but I don’t see it anywhere. I look for help, but the ferry is empty except for an old man at the far end sweeping away some debris.

“Where’s my luggage?” I shout at him. “Where’s my luggage!”

The man squints at me. He holds up his hand into the shape of a cup and wiggles it.

“Me no speak English. Me no speak English.” He goes back to his sweeping.
I contemplate my predicament and can’t help but laugh. So this is what it’s like starting from scratch. One thing I do know is that I’m alive and well on Patricia’s Penang.

***Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.

The Woman on the Ferry, NST 28 Sept 2011

2011-09-28T05:36:00.000-07:00

"The Woman on the Ferry" which appeared in today's New Straits Times, is an excerpt from chapter 1 from my Penang-set novel The Expatriate's Choice. There are nearly 6 pages that precede this, which I'll post tomorrow, so for those interested, you'll be able to read the story in context. The novel is set in 1988.

***Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.

Announcing the Third Creative Wrtiing Workshop in Kota Kinabalu!

2011-09-14T08:44:00.000-07:00

As promised by the organizers at the second workshop in Kota Kinabalu in August '11:

CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP 3

with ROBERT RAYMER

www.borneoexpatwriter.com/

When: Sat, 22 October

Time: 2.00-6.00pm

Cost: RM120

Who: 16-90+ years old

Where: 7^th Floor, Wisma Anglican, Karamunsing

Next: Email or sms your name, contact phone number & email address to.................

Contact: Jude Day – 014-3514298 / jude.day@gmail.com

edit- improve - edit - improve - edit –IMprove

IMPORTANT DATES:

8 October – send a piece of your writing to jude.day@gmail.com for Robert

22 October – discussion of samples of writing: what has been done well and how the piece can be improved.

*You can come to the workshop even if you haven’t sent in a piece of writing!

Guidelines – for submitting your work:

· A-4 paper

· 2-5 pages

· Double spacing

· 1.25-1.5 margins on all sides

· Times Roman 12

· Left justification only

· Page numbers

· Title and your name on each page

· Centre the title and add your byline. For example:

Robert Raymer

Advice from Robert

Don’t give up

Trust your instincts

Write 3 or 4 drafts before submitting your writing

Proof your work before submitting it

Enjoy the process!

Organised by the KK Theatre Group, SPArKS

www.sparks.org.my

NOTE: You can attend this workshop – even if you missed the others!

*Here is the full writing guidelines and our reasons for allowing those who had missed the other two workshops to participate.

WRITING GUIDELINES FOR KK WORKSHOP

Robert Raymer

As was mentioned at the second workshop, choose one sample of your work only, either your first-person narrative from the workshop, or your “they found me” story (see Tina's sample), or if you wrote something else since the August workshop, or finished something that you started at the first workshop in April! The choice is yours. Those who missed both workshops but are still keen to join and learn, then send in your best work. If you still want to attend but opt not to submit your work and have it discussed (this is fine; it’s a personal decision), you can still learn from the process, from the mistakes or oversights of others or from what they’re doing well. I would recommend getting started on this right away so you’ll have adequate time to go through it and revise it without rushing to get it done at the last moment—remember school?

Please use A-4 (white) paper, 2-5 pages, double-line spacing, with 1.25-1.5 margins on both sides (and top and bottom) to allow plenty of room for corrections and comments. Use Times Roman 12. (No fancy fonts, which are hard to read and one side of the paper only!) Either American or British spelling is acceptable—just be consistent. And learn how to punctuate: one space after a comma, two spaces after a full stop (and only one exclamation mark no matter how exciting your point!). Do not use full justification, which spreads out text unnaturally; use left justification only. (These are standard guidelines for submissions to editors and for entering contests.) Use page numbers and put your name/title on each page. Center the title and add your byline (see above). My Story, or My Narrative or They Found Me, by the way, are not titles; they're subjects!

Trust your instincts while you write and don’t give up so easily! Ideally you should write three or four drafts before submitting it (I often print it out a couple of times to edit it again); each time you go over it, your writing will improve (and you’ll catch more typos and mistakes!). Writing is a process, a skill you can use for the rest of your life.

Also proof your work, especially if someone else typed it for you. Why be penalized for their careless mistakes? Even if you already write well, take the time and effort to improve your writing by taking it to a higher level. Apply the 12 Rules to Improve Your Writing Style handout that I passed out (there are plenty of other writing tips on the Internet or in bookstores). Enjoy the process of writing and take what you write seriously (but not too seriously!); if you don’t, why should anyone else care?

Please sent this to me two weeks before the workshop (via Jude) so I’ll have adequate time to go through them all. (Afterwards, do not send revised pages/copies, new versions or new stories because that will just make the process messy and troublesome for all. Nor do I want to waste an hour going through the wrong version or the wrong story!) So only send it when it is ready. For this round, I will not be doing a full edit, just making general comments for the workshop (concentrating on the first two pages where narratives/stories often go wrong); still this is time consuming and often requires me to re-read your manuscript a couple of times and think about ways it can be improved! Also bring an extra copy to the workshop for you to make comments on! And extra paper for notes and reminders and ideas while we’re discussing the other work. Since it’s far easier to spot mistakes in other people’s work than your own (even when you’re making similar mistakes), please offer your gut-level constructive suggestions. Others will appreciate it. You can also learn from these comments and then apply them to your own story.

After the next workshop, after you have had time to make any suggested changes, then I will be willing to do a full line edit with comments at a reasonable rate (based on double-space pages) for this and for any future work. I have done this for years with students and even published authors. This is also what I did when I first began to write—hired someone to help edit my work; we all have our blind sides when it comes to our own writing. Again, this is optional, but highly recommended for those who really want to improve their writing.

Looking forward to reading your work and seeing you again in KK for our next workshop.

* Here's the link to the third workshop.

**Here's the link to the first workshop in KK

***If you know of other organizations or associations in Sabah/Sarawak/West Malaysia/Singapore/Brunei that would be interested in having me for workshop, please contact me via my website: www.BorneoExpatWriter.com Thank you!
****Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.

*Announcement: Workshop coming to Kuching 17 December 2011

Cross-Cultural Education

2011-09-14T06:55:00.000-07:00

Recently I found on-line links to two of my old articles, both dealing with cross cultural issues. One is “When Tastes Collide” from the My Story section of Readers Digest Australia, April 2007. This was reprinted from the international Reader’s Digest April 2004. Originally the article appeared New Strait Times back in 1992, a very early version of “Cross-Cultural Dinner” now in Tropical Affairs, about cooking spaghetti for my former mother-in-law, who spoke no English. I sure got an education that day!

The second article, “How to Choose a College in the US after GRE”, also originally published in the NST in 1993 from the days I was coordinator of the Penang branch of MACEE (Malaysian-American Commission of Educational Exchange). Most students whom I was advising were clueless about how to go about choosing a college in the US (we have far too many to choose from and US is a huge country) so I thought this would be of great help to them. In fact, I made it a standard handout for each student who came through our doors.

This article has been reprinted numerous times on various websites and blogs and as a “guest” on RxPG back in 2006, even though I was totally unaware of it. At least they gave me full credit. Other places just took it and posted it as if they wrote it themselves! I'm sure their heart was in the right place: they were trying to help students get a clearer picture of the whole studying in the USA process, including taking those dreaded GRE exams.

In additional to these I’ve found about a dozen other NST articles scanned from the original newspaper from the early to mid-90’s, the original versions of those found in Tropical Affairs. Back then, I was onto something and was pumping them out with regularly right up until I began to teach writing at USM. After that, I mostly concentrated on writing novels whenever I wasn’t backed up marking writing assignments.

I admit I felt weird when I first came across all those NST articles, like a trip down memory lane, including some about my son Zaini when he was just a toddler. Now he is turning twenty this year. Where has the time gone?

***Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.

Don’t Monkey With the Monkeys!

2011-08-31T21:03:00.000-07:00

Jason with monkeys at Penang Botanical Gardens

Recently while in Penang, we decided to play tourist with the boys and did the usual things, visited Penang Hill, posed with a python draped over our shoulders, road in a trishaw, ate a lot of food, and took photos of the monkeys at the Botanical Gardens. The boys even posed by a band of monkeys that had spread across the road in front of us. That’s when the trouble began. First the monkeys scared off Justin, age five, and then one started to take swipes at Jason, age seven. The monkey kept advancing on Jason and it got awfully close before I charged in to distract it, to allow Jason time to escape. Two monkeys then charged at me.

I wisely backed off and showed my empty hands. I thought that was that. But the monkeys kept lunging toward me, their teeth bared. We couldn’t get around them since they blocked our path. Jenny, realizing how dangerous this was becoming, urged all of us to back up and go another way. The lead money kept lunging toward me, baring its teeth, and then the other would do the same. I kept my eyes on both of them, as I carefully edged backwards, not trusting them, not wanting to trip and fall either.

Finally we put enough distance between us. When a sandal-clad, bear-size gentleman with a camera approached, I warned him about the less-than-friendly monkeys; his exposed toes looked like fair game. He shrugged it off and thought the best advice would be to charge the monkeys to scare them off if they decided to attack him. I told him that I tried that approach and they weren’t particularly fazed. Following my advice he did veer away from the road and then found a bench to sit down on and proceeded to take their photographs. The monkeys gamely posed for him. They did the same for us, too, before they changed their mind and went after Jason.

Mother and baby

Later, at another section of the Botanical Garden, we came upon the same pack of monkeys. They were easy to identify since there were seven of them, plus one was carrying a baby. They were on a fence, and when they saw us, saw me and Jason leading the way, they started to climb down the fence and made their way toward us. Why us, I wondered, and then I remembered that earlier we first came upon this batch on the other side of the gardens. They were climbing down a tree on top a small hill. Jason and I had climbed it to get a better look at them and snapped some photos. They obviously got a pretty good look at us too, and maybe they wanted some payback so they decided to block our path. Monkeys, I’ve read about on numerous occasions while living in Malaysia, have a good memory and they will take revenge out on those who try to disturb them. They say making direct eye contact is not recommended.

Having lived in Penang for 21 years, never before had I had any real problems with the monkeys, but there is always a first. Later, I found out they had become quite aggressive over the years and many of the monkeys had been moved out.

As we got in our car, the boys still wary of the monkeys, and several of the monkeys still straddling the fence watching us, we decided to have our own revenge. We noticed that the monkeys were positioning themselves by a guard rail near the exit of the parking area. We slowed down as we passed by, and from the safety of our car, we all made monkey faces at the monkeys. They were not impressed. Of course we were being silly. Yet we had such a good laugh and were glad to leave the Botanical Gardens in good spirits.

Not only did we make faces at those monkeys, we also had the last laugh.

***Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.

Creative Writing Workshop in Kota Kinabalu (Round Two)

2011-08-17T00:44:00.000-07:00

Robert Raymer making a point

On Saturday, 13 August, we had our second creative writing workshop in KK, “Turning your Personal Experience into a First Draft of a First Person Narrative.” At the earlier Universiti Malaysia Sabah workshop we had an extra two hours but at the first SPArks workshop in April 2011 we didn’t have enough time to do the subject justice, so it was good they invited me back.

About half of the participants from the first workshop had returned including Tina Kisil whose book Footprints in the Paddy Field was nominated for 2011 Popular-The Star Reader’s Choice Award for nonfiction, Farida Shukoor, who initially contacted me in 2009 about coming to KK (I taught her son at USM), Jude Day who made the arrangements for both of our workshops, and Lo Sin Yee who again flew up from Miri and even brought one of his works for me to edit (as originally planned before we added a third workshop). There was also Mark Storey who had arranged the UMS workshop back in April. Several others, however, missed because of either exams or Ramadan, something we failed to consider when we chose the date. Fortunately others filled the vacancies so we nearly reached our target of 24.

Making full use of the four-hour allotted time, we devoted three hours to the narrative that they chose to write, after generating 15 topics for them to choose from. For those who seemed to have forgotten that they had lived a full life of significant experiences, I read them something that I wrote for my creative writing students at two universities (and expanded it by a paragraph):

Typical experiences

If you’re a typical student at a typical university, you’ve already accumulated hundreds of experiences that have made an impact on your life. You’ve made and lost friends; done things you’re either proud of, ashamed of, or regretted; been punished for doing things you weren’t supposed to; felt guilty over things no one knows about; been blamed or wrongly accused by a sibling, a friend, or a parent; been scolded (and punished) by a teacher for being late, not doing your homework or being part of a noisy classroom; fought with siblings, friends, or enemies; been bullied by older or bigger children (including relatives); survived a crash in a car or motorcycle or bicycle; moved with your family to another house or lived away from your parents; been propositioned by someone from either the opposite or the same sex; considered running away from home (even if you only made it next door or to a relative’s house); taken something that didn’t belong to you (which you had either kept, returned or threw away); felt like you wanted to die because you were embarrassed or angry or frustrated; and grieved over the death of a pet or a relative.

For those of you who have taken part in extra-curricular activities such as sports, or choir, or belonged to some association or club, or have won an award, or have been praised for making something creative or for having a talent like singing or dancing or drawing, or have had the opportunity to travel around your country or overseas, then you’ll have plenty more experiences to write about.

If you’re older than your typical student you’ve probably had jobs, been engaged or jilted, been married or separated or divorced, had babies, raised children, bought and sold or crashed cars, and even bought a house. Not to mention the thousand other life experiences you’ve had in your thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, and do I hear seventies?

* * *

I then asked them to choose one topic that they’ll be working with for the pre-writing process. I kept stressing that they choose their topic carefully. A good topic often chooses you. Maybe there’s an unresolved issue from your past that needs addressing. Some topics, I told them, especially if they had a traumatic experience like a death of someone they were close to, or were molested as a child (which is, unfortunately, increasingly common), will not be easy for them to write, but in doing so, it would be therapeutic for them. Later, if they wish to share it or publish it, others can benefit from it, as I blogged about regarding a short story that I wrote based on one of my relatives.

During the pre-writing process, I gave them plenty of prompts to explore and flush out, not only the details but also people’s motivation and their emotional state. This forced them to think about, not just themselves and what they did or what happened to them, but also to consider why they did those things and why others acted the way they did. This was a real eye opener for them, to consider what all was going on in other people’s lives and their own, thus establishing a cause and effect relationship.

Later, I asked them, “Had you written off the top of your heads, would you have considered any of this? Therefore your narrative would have been far different, not as fully developed, nor as interesting for those who read it.” Before I finally let them write that first draft, when I had them raring to go, I asked them to outline the main points, which helps them to think through the narrative from beginning to end, thus improving its organization. This is often the stage that my students would back away from their topic, realizing that they chose one that really wasn’t all that significant. It’s always better they find this out before they invest several hours writing and rewriting. Even better, if they chose the right topic from the beginning! Sure enough one of the participants asked if he could switch topics!

After spending a full hour writing out a first draft (or taking it as far as they could), we took a break, then we dabbled with some fiction via the topic “They Found Me”, which is the crux of many short stories and best-selling novels, easily adapted into children stories, thrillers, sci-fi, and mysteries. Two of my recent blog posts, on The Shack and the short story “Mr. Penumbra” are essentially “they found me” stories. In The Shack (which I recently read and Sin Yee brought a copy with him from Miri) in more ways than one -- in the beginning and also at the end, a series of them!

Usually, when time is permitted, we’ll read samples, as we did for my two-day workshop with the Malaysian Nurses Association But this time around we’re saving them for a third workshop in October/November. Two weeks prior to the workshop, the attending participants will be sending me a typed version of either their narrative, their “they found me” story, or someone they may have started and finished from the first workshop, then I’ll go over the first two pages as I did for the MPH-Alliance Short Story Awards workshops in Kuching and Miri when I was one of their judges (which I blogged about in the first workshop—this way I'll make sure I get only one from each!).

Later, if any of the participants are interested, I’ll be editing their revised post-workshop versions at a special rate, something I highly recommend, something I did when I first came to Malaysia and wrote the short stories that later became Lovers and Strangers Revisited, now being translated into French. And did it again when I first revisited the stories, even after they had already been published, many several times in several countries. As a writer, we do have our blind spots to our own stories, even when those stories are close to our hearts—the narratives of our lives—like those that we explored in this second creative writing workshop in Kota Kinabalu.

--BorneoExpatWriter

*If you know of other organizations or associations in Sabah/Sarawak/West Malaysia/Singapore/Brunei that would be interested in having me for workshop, please contact me via my website: www.BorneoExpatWriter.com Thank you!

** Here is a link for a blog post about this second workshop from one of the participants.
***Here's another link from another participant.
**** Here's the link to the third kk workshop. 22 October 2011!

*****Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.

*Announcement: Workshop coming to Kuching 17 December 2011

The Month of August and my 500th Publication!

2011-08-10T00:55:00.000-07:00

“Capturing the Spirit of Malaysia” published in the July-August issue of Senses of Malaysia, which I posted yesterday, is my 500^th publication, and it falls on August, too. I love August, my birthday month, which over the years has often been a good month for me as a writer. August is a big month this year for Malaysians, too. Not only is it the fasting month of Ramadan, but also its Hari Raya and then Merdeka! (Malaysian’s Independence Day).

Last August Cha: An Asian Literary Journal accepted my 100^th short story sale, “On Fridays” and even linked it with the blog, The Story Behind the Story. Most of those short story sales have come from Lovers and Strangers Revisited (the French translation is due out very soon, originally slated for August, though it’s looking more like September), including my last short story sale “Home for Hari Raya”. Just in time for this year’s Hari Raya.

In August 2009, I had a short story, “The Merdeka Miracle” (written with Lydia Teh and Tunku Halim) published in the August issue of Going Places, an article “Becoming Malaysianized” in Pop Club (Popular Books), and then I won the 2009 Popular The Star Reader’s Choice awards for Lovers and Strangers Revisited—a rather nice belated birthday present.

Of course for reporters and those who write weekly newspaper or online columns, 500 isn’t such a big deal. They’ll reach that in 10 years, assuming they write nothing else. My friend Mary Schneider, who I just met with in Penang and who writes for The Star (and has a birthday in August) has already passed her 700^th column! (Not easy to come up with all those ideas, she tells me.) So I have a long way to catch up to her and I began publishing years before she did. Hmm, perhaps I should look into writing a column of my own. . . . My 500 total, by the way, doesn’t include the 224 blog posts. Many in fact are actual articles that have gone onto being published elsewhere.

“Capturing the Spirit of Malaysia” will also be repeated in the August issue of The Expat (still awaiting my copy). I have another article or two that should be coming out this month (not confirmed), plus this weekend I do have a creative writing workshop in Kota Kinabalu (if you haven’t signed up, or know someone who may be interested in KK, please contact the organizers). Already this August is shaping into a pretty good month (we even spent my birthday in Penang) and there’s still 21 days to go! Of course my birthday wish this August is an agent and a book contract for one of my novels (two did rather well in the recent Faulkner-Wisdom novel contest). That would make this particular August absolutely divine…

***Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.

Capturing the Spirit of Malaysia-Senses of Malaysia July-August 2011

2011-08-09T07:03:00.000-07:00

*Here's a link to Table of Contents and sample pages with more great photos (taken by others!)

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

Mr. Penumbra--Another Writer Creates His Own Publishing Break

2011-08-02T05:59:00.000-07:00

I love it when writers—instead of complaining about the state of flux the book publishing industry is and worried about where it’s going—create their own breaks. Recently I blogged about the amazingly swift ride of The Shack from a homeless, self-published book to 15 million sales. Then today, following a lead on a publisher that still accepts unagented novels (hey, I got two agents reading two of them right now but it could takes months before they decide!), I came across Robin Sloan’s short story "Mr. Penumbra's Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store". I dare you to read it right now and see if you’re not impressed and richly rewarded—it’s a fun read (you're pulled in fast), topical, mysterious (sorry no sex but it does lead to chance encounter that does lead to an actual date—we can imagine the rest), with plenty of clever wordplay by someone incredibly talented and confident and can pull it off. If you like books and bookstores this is for you. If you like what they do at Google (or have no idea—it’s scary), that’s in the story too . . . . Even Sherlock Holmes buffs will get a kick out of this – check out the buttons on the coat!

Robin Sloan not only got the short story selling on Kindle, he put it on Kickstarter (if you don't know what that is, check it out; a great concept like a start-up company with a guaranteed market-in-progress), and that led to an agent and a novel deal with Farrar Straus Giroux. I’m thinking, how he do all that so fast? This is like finding your way around one of those brick walls designed to stop people, as in Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture. If you’re over 30 like me (inside joke from the story), it’s about time we learn from those under 30 who are doing some amazing things on the internet and are getting their books published (and not just online). If we can’t beat them (we’d look pretty silly trying), then join them. It’s about time . . . before we get even older and start to all look alike (again from the story). This is also a way for us to achieve a type of immortality—yes, from the story. What can I say, been thinking about this story all day long and it’s been a really busy day because tomorrow I’m going on vacation for a week!

So have fun, read it, read some of the comments, too (plenty of encouragement and helpful critiques), and start thinking about all the possibilities in your own writing. It all begins with a good character and a good story; and yes, just maybe the internet will help you achieve your dreams. But first, you got to do the hard work and write and then market what you write. (If no one is reading it or even knows it exists…) Learn from Robin. That’s what I’m planning to do right now, starting with this blog post. (See I'm helping him out all the way from Borneo-- that's the internet!) He did get a book deal, right? And it’s only the beginning for this story-cum-novel. It can be turned into a series, even something interactive. . . .There’s only one way to find out what you can do with a good idea… let your imagination run with the possibilities for this story and your own. Let's see where you end up. Just maybe you can join their club and have your own published novel...

***Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.

The Shack, from Self-Published to 15 Million Copies Sold!

2011-07-26T18:32:00.000-07:00

While browsing through the list of best-selling books of all time I came across a title that has sold 15 million copies since 2007, a title and author that I was unfamiliar with. Then I read that 26 publishers had turned it down, mostly for religious concerns I believe, so the author and two friends formed a publishing company, Windblown Media to sell this one book. That makes it a self-published book, whereby they invested a mere $200-300 to promote it via a website, and then, after a predicable slow start, the book took off by word of mouth, got picked up by a major publisher/distributer, and became the best-selling book of 2008 and one of the biggest best-selling books ever, and it’s just getting started. (Give it another ten, twenty years and it’s going to double, maybe triple that amount).

The book is The Shack by William Paul Young. To put this into perspective, the sales in four years are half of those for such behemoths as Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, published in 1936; Diary of Anne Frank, published in 1947; and one of my all time favorites Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, which was published in 1960, over 50 years ago! I wonder how The Shack will fair in fifty years? At the rate that it’s going, and the controversy surrounding it—some are calling it heresay and already there are a couple of lawsuits between the author and its original publisher—it could even pull a Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, which has sold an incredible 80 million copies in less than 10 years. Having a big court case that involves a book about some thorny religious issues always helps…

Intrigued, I went to the website, read about the author, who had never really published anything before, though he always saw himself as a writer, and had written stuff on his own, including short stories. In fact, he wrote The Shack not for publication but for his children (and a few close friends), at the urging of his wife (after the accidental shooting death of the counselor who turned the author’s life around). He only made 15 copies.

Intrigued, I immediately read the forward from the website and right away I knew that I was about to read something special. It also posted the first chapter and I felt blown away by the writing, by its sense of being, sense of place; here I am in the tropics on the island of Borneo and I haven’t felt that bitter coldness since I left Madison, Wisconsin and it all came back in a flash. It was that palpable, and reminded me once again why I moved here.

Although I found the print hard to read on my computer, the typeface so small and faint, I was too caught up in the story. I was hooked. My mind was immediately made up to buy this book this weekend; I was even tempted to order it on line, something I’ve never done before, or hop into my car and track it down today (I haven’t ruled this out). I’m that eager to read the rest of the story.

For those who write, the publisher, Windblown Media, offers some advice to writers—this is from someone who walked their talk, took a self-published book to number one on the New York Times bestseller list. So follow their advice; I am. But do put all publishing agreements, even among friends, in writing.

I admit, while reading the opening to this book that I felt like I should throw in the towel as a writer. I know I can’t touch this. But then an hour later I got an email from my French publisher about the ongoing post-translation corrections, and I thought, well yes, I too am a writer. Plus one of my own novels, The Resurrection of Jonathan Brady, just did pretty good in the Faulkner-Wisdom Novel contest, thus proving, once again, at least to myself, that I can write novels. My novel also tackles some thorny religious issues, like the resurrection, though maybe not in the edgy, hard hitting fashion of The Shack. Perhaps in the two follow up books, I should make them edgier and make them controversial, too. There is still a lot I need to learn, one of the reasons I'm so keen to read The Shack.

I know, as a writer, I may never have a book that will break out on the scale of The Shack or have the impact of To Kill a Mockingbird, but then so few writers have—see the above list for yourself! In fact, many of the best-selling books and best-selling series of books (see further down the list) are children’s book! Not great literature by any means (especially books for pre-schoolers like Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat, which I love. Yet there is no denying that these powerful so-called children stories will enchant and excite a child’s heart, generation after generation, and show them what’s possible in the world, and also show them that the real key to life is in their own hands, the gift of reading and the flight of imagination.

We as mere mortals, whether we are writing for children, writing for adults, writing for our own family and friends, or just blogging, must continue to do so, or how will be ever know if we can impact the world with our very own words? Who knows what will be in our future? There’s no harm in trying, either. For me, The Shack gives me hope as a writer, and hope is always a good thing to have.

***Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.

The Novel Project: The Resurrection of Jonathan Brady Makes 2011 Faulkner-Wisdom Novel Contest short list!

2011-07-17T01:14:00.000-07:00

While contemplating editing my novel The Lonely Affair of Jonathan Brady for the 2011 Faulkner-Wisdom Novel Contest, I got a flash of insight to change the title to The Resurrection of Jonathan Brady, and everything seemed to click. The title change made me think of the novel in a whole new light, especially him dying at the beginning as well as the ending. Besides giving the novel a new focus, the title doubled as a cool metaphor.

As I wrote about it in an earlier blog about making decisions, I hadn’t worked on this novel in over a year in favor of two other novels that I rewrote for the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. But when the new title idea struck me in April, I knew it was time to act that very day. Although the novel was an almost-finalist for their 2008 contest, I wasn’t sure if I had enough time for a full rewrite, other than a quick line-edit. I then got the news that the deadline, which had already been pushed back from 1 April to 1 May, just got pushed back to 15 May! So I went for it and it turned out to be a good decision!

My Penang novel, The Girl in the Bathtub, was also a short list finalist in the Novel-in-Progress category this year, while another Penang-set novel, The Expatriate’s Choice, was a semi-finalist in the Novel category. Coincidently, I briefly met both judges, Will Murphy (Novel judge, Executive Editor at Random House) and the Jeff Kleinman (Novel-in-progress judge, the founding partner of Folio Literary Management) at the 2006 Maui Writers Conference. It’s nice being able to put a face to a name; even nicer if one of my novels had made it to the finals for them to read. (Earlier this year a fourth novel, The Boy Who Shot Santa, had advanced to Round Two of the Amazon contest and was short listed in the 2009 Faulkner-Wisdom contest.) I know I’m close, though it’s about time I found a publisher.

* Here's an updated link to the revamped first five pages of The Resurrection of Jonathan Brady.

FINALISTS NOVEL William Faulkner - William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition
All in a Name
Bad of Country
Continuities
Echoes of Love and War
F-Train
The Water Master

SHORT LIST
Aftermath, Laura Brlodie, Lexington, VA
All Jeweled Chokers, Helen Argers, Newark, NJ
Angels in the House, Marylee MacDonald, Tempe, AZ
Black Pearl, Arthur Nevis, Steamboat Springs, CO
Cooper’s War, Tim Smith, Paris, France
Don’t Cry Little Monster, Helen Krieger, New Orleans, LA
Flambeau, T. J. Fisher, New Orleans, LA
Habit, Adam Hungerford, Fairfax, VA
How to Make Moonshine, Jana Sasser, Edisto Island, SC
In the Evening, In the Morning, A. J. Harman, Arlington, VA
Jerusalem as a Second Language, Rochelle Distelheim, Highland Park, IL
Life Between Dreams, Tena Russ, Riverwoods, IL
Lucy, William Coles, Salt Lake City, UT
Memories of the Dust, Robert Wood, Chicago, IL
No, Heather Aimee O'Neill, Brooklyn, NY
Oleanna, Julie K. Rose, San Jose, CA
Playground, Edward Rowley, Glen Ridge, NJ
Practice Dying, Rachel Stolzman Gulla, Brooklyn, NY
Red Dirt, Joe Samuel Starnes, Philadelphia, PA
Rich, Martha L. Burns, La Luz, NM
Sea Level, Nancy Kilgore, Post Mills, VT
Stained Glass, Diane Manning, Houston, TX
The Edgartown Portraits, Richard Weber, Carouge, Switzerland
The Journal of Eva Hathaway, Maryanne D’Agincourt, Westwood, MA
The Patriot Joe Morton, Devault, Michael, Monroe, LA
The Principles of Mining, Sharon Thatcher & Wayland Stallard
The Resurrection of Jonathan Brady, Robert Raymer, Sarawak, Malaysia
This is Squalorville, Brian Schneider, St. Helen, MI
Various States of Undress, Roz Unruh, Hockessin, DE
Victor’s Journals, Philip Erickson, St. Paul, MN
Warming Up, Mary Hutchins Reed, Chicago, IL
Watershed, Laura Lane McNeal, New Orleans, LA
Westminster, Diane Manning, Houston, TX

—Robert Raymer, Borneo Expat Writer

***Here the link to my website, to MPH online for orders for all three of my books, including my latest, Spirit of Malaysia and for Trois autres Malaisie.