2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award – Second Round

The Lonely Affair of Jonathan Brady, one of three novels that I had entered for the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, has made the Second Round! They had 5000 entries for each category and cut that down to 1000 (I know still a long way to go!). The First Round judging was based solely on the 300-word pitch, which is a lot harder to write than you think! Every word has to count and has to entice the reader to want to read the novel. Think of a back of the book blurb – if that doesn’t convince you to open the book in a few seconds, then you will set it aside and pick up the next book.

Here was my pitch:

THE LONELY AFFAIR OF JONATHAN BRADY

All it took was one look through a rearview mirror to convince Jonathan Brady that Cabrina Chaval loves him like no woman before has ever loved a man. Twenty-two years ago, during her debut in The Magic Flute, she picked him out of the audience. He was sixteen at the time, too young to understand the implications of that look – the way she poured out her heart, her soul to him. Now she’s contacting him again. This time, it’ll be different. This time, he’ll be ready to accept her outpouring of love.

Through a series of coincidences, Jonathan Brady, an economics professor who paints houses during the summer, convinces himself that Cabrina Chaval, a former opera singer and well-known socialite, is in love with him. This is reinforced when she sits beside him at a funeral and later invites him to paint her house. Because of her prominent position in society and since she’s still married, he accepts that their love must be kept secret. The only person Jonathan shares this secret with is his mother, who after taking him to see The Magic Flute, blackmailed him into breaking up with his girlfriend shortly before she died.

While recapturing the innocent love of two sixteen year olds and coming to terms with the incestuous love between a mother and child, Jonathan Brady passes through the five stages of love – from heightened awareness, to playful pursuit, to courtship and romance, to jealousy and suspicion, to reconciliation and acceptance – all unbeknown to Cabrina Chaval.

The Lonely Affair of Jonathan Brady is a story about love and betrayal, about second chances and believing in something with your entire heart despite all the evidence to the contrary.
* * *

Since entering the contest, while pitching the novel to agents, I have already amended this, by cutting out the line: "The only person...she died."  

The Lonely Affair of Jonathan Brady, was an "almost finalist" for the 2008 Wisdom-Faulkner Novel contest.

*Update:  A revised version with a new title, The Resurrection of Jonathan Brady, just advanced to Round Two 2012.  Compare the two pitches. The novel was also short listed for the 2011 Wisdom-Faulkner Novel contest. 
**Update: The Resurrection of Jonathan Brady just advanced to the Quarterfinals of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2012!

***For 2011, another novel The Boy Who Shot Santa also made Round Two.

The judging for Round Two will be from February 25-March 14 and will be based on the 3000-5000 word excerpt, starting on page one of your novel. My excerpt is 4,089 words. Anything past that I felt was not an effective place to stop since it’s in the middle of a scene that's building to a climax. You have to end it at the right place, so the reader wants to know what’s going to happen next.  (** for 2012 I went further and it was 4,987 and that made it the the Quarterfinals; it was also heavily revised 4 more times!)

So do I, as I anxiously await for the results that could take me to Round Three. Not bad for an expat writer based in Borneo! But can The Lonely Affair of Jonathan Brady go all the way? For now I’m taking one round at a time and keeping my fingers crossed.

*Here are six lessons I learned from joining Amazon competition.

Here are links to some of my author-to-author interviews of first novelists:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize.

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey.

Preeta Samarasan author of Evening is the Whole Day. 

Chuah Guat Eng,  author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change. 

Plus:

Five part Maugham and Me series

Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I 

The Star 29 January 2010 Reading Room Review of Tropical Affairs

Lifestyle: Bookshelf
Reading Room book reviews



http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2010/1/29/lifebookshelf/5483532&sec=lifebookshelf

Here are links to some of my author-to-author interviews of first novelists:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize.

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey.

Preeta Samarasan author of Evening is the Whole Day. 

Chuah Guat Eng,  author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change. 

Plus:

Five part Maugham and Me series

Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I 

Expatriate Lifestyle -- January 2010

In case the print is too small or too faint. Listed in alphabetical order.

42. Robert Raymer (US)
As an academic, Robert teaches creative writing at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. As a writer, his stories have appeared in The Literary Review, London Magazine, Going Places and Reader's Digest. Lovers and Strangers Revisited (MPH 2008), his collection of 17 short stories set in Malaysia, won the 2009 Popular-The Star Readers Choice Awards. Tropical Affairs: Episodes from an Expat's Life in Malaysia (MPH 2009) is his latest book. His blog on writing can be accessed from his website http://www.borneoexpatwriter.com


Matt Bellotti wrote in his Editor's Note, "Our first ambitious editorial project of 2010 sees us delve deeper into the expatriate community here in Malaysia than anyone has ever delved before.

Having asked our friends and contact network for nominations, and after doing our own research into 'Who's Who' when it comes to expatriates, we have complied am impressive list of individuals...These are people who are not just successful in their own fields, but they have come to a foreign country and achieved the remarkable. They do the extraordinary as well as the ordinary...

Many of our entries we'd never heard before this project. You will see for yourself what a remarkable group has been selected and hopefully appreciate just what a diverse and dynamic bunch of expatriates they are..."

He also stated that their 'working list' was nearly 150 strong.

This article led to one international interview (though it has yet to come out) and as a guest on the talk show Kuppa Kopi.  See "Getting Known Through the Media."

*Here's an update - it's official Lovers and Strangers Revisited is going French!

*Update, the 20th anniversary of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, my collection of short stories set in Malaysia

**Update: Book orders for Trois autres Malaisie.   E-book orders.  Or recommend it to your friends, especially those who would like to know more about Malaysia or have an interest in Southeast Asia.

  

Here's a link to the intro and excerpts, and to four reviews of Trois Autres Malaisie in eurasie.net, Malaisie.org, easyvoyage.com, and Petit Futé mag.

***Here’s an update to the French blog about Trois autres Malaisie and my meeting the French translator Jerome Bouchaud in Kuching, and my involvement in a French documentary for Arte (June 2017) on The Sensual Malaysia of Somerset Maugham.

Here are links to some of my author-to-author interviews of first novelists:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize.

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey.

Preeta Samarasan author of Evening is the Whole Day. 

Chuah Guat Eng,  author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change. 

Plus:

Five part Maugham and Me series

Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I 

The Writer – Four Years to Publication!

Funny how these publishing things turn out. Nearly five years ago, 27 January 2006 according to my records I received the good news that The Writer has accepted by article “How to Overcome the Fear of Writing through Pre-Writing.” Originally they weren’t sure if they’ll be using the piece in their magazine or on their website. Then they decided in the magazine and even paid $350 for the article on 26 May 2006, bless their hearts.

I told my writing friends to look out for it, but it never came out. Maybe they decided to use it on their website, but I got caught up in more important things, like this massive move from Penang (Peninsular Malaysia) to Kuching (Borneo) in October, a new teaching job at Unimas in December, and a new baby in January 2007 and never checked, after cashing the check. If I wasn’t paid, I would have been checking it constantly!

Month after month, year after year, I did check each issue of The Writer. During that time they also changed editors, and I’ve experienced being lost in the shuffle before when a new editor takes over. It happens. Sometimes I’ve even benefited when a new editor takes over and they discover me! Eventually, I just gave up on it – after all, I did get paid!

Two days before Christmas I got an email from one of their editors informing me that they’ll be using my article in their May 2010 issue! Nearly four and a half years after they first accepted it! Of course I’m bowled over. Great news! The original article, adapted from my creative writing units, was about 2500 words, which I had cut down from about 4000 words) and then they’ll be cutting that down to 1695 words to make it fit on two pages, which is fine since it serves their needs.

Two days ago I got my first look at how they edited it, now titled, “How to Use Pre-Writing Techniques to Get Started”. I didn’t compare it the original because that's always a painful process. So I read it as it’ll appear in The Writer. Naturally I recognized my own writing (but had forgotten what I had written!). I know of at least one section that got lopped off at the end, an essay sample on how to overcome the fear of writing written within the article. I did recommend a couple of changes because of repetition, which may have been in the original version, and they suggested another change, too. Later I’ll get to see the galleys before it goes into print, glad for this second chance, glad to have another look at it.

In the brief bio at the need of the article they’ll be naming my two MPH books and my website, and no doubt I’ll attract something good out of that. Already I’ve mentioned three other articles that I’m planning to send them, two of which began in this blog and a third, from The Quill, linked here, too.

So now I’m telling my writing friends all over again to check out their May 2010 issue! I definitely will! It feels like a whole new article sale. What are the chances that they'll pay me again? Hey, you never know. It's a New Year!

50 Expats You Should Know

What can I say? I feel ecstatic and humbled to be named as one of the “50 Expats You Should Know” in the January 2010 issue of Expatriate Lifestyle (Malaysia).  (I'm at no. 42, alphabetical order). What a great way to start the New Year! Happy New Year to all! I guess my low profile in Malaysia is starting to rise, so I’m putting extra pressure on myself to deliver a novel, one of the reasons I’ll be leaving Unimas on 1 April.

Don’t know which one will sell first, The Lonely Affair of Jonathan Brady, 21 drafts and counting, and “almost finalist” in the 2008 Faulkner-Wisdom novel contest, or A Season for Fools, which was a short-listed finalist for the 2009 Faulkner-Wisdom novel contest. A revised copy has been entered for the 2009 Bellwether Prize and it’s been revised again for two more contests in 2010. Both books are the first in a two-three book series.

Then there’s the Malaysian-set Tropical Moods, a semi-finalist in the 2009 Faulkner-Wisdom novel contest, and a fourth novel in the works, also set in Malaysia, Girl in the Bathtub, short-listed finalist in the 2009 Faulkner-Wisdom novel-in-progress category. Four novels, four decent pedigrees, but which one will finally break out from the pack and deliver a first novel deal with a major publisher in the US or UK?

It’s been a long wait, but after winning the 2009 Popular-The Star Reader’s Choice Awards in fiction for Lovers and Strangers Revisited, and now with a new book out, Tropical Affairs: Episodes from an Expat’s Life, anything can happen. It’s a New Year, a New Decade! Wish me luck. Happy reading and happy writing to all!

* Here's the link to the actual article, my part.

*Update, the 20^th anniversary of Lovers and Strangers Revisited 

Tropical Affairs: Dying Alone in a Far Away Land

-imagine an expat living in this house until he died days before I took this photo




-yes, this is the same place, turning something decrepit into something new: Ferringhi Walk

Let this be a symbol of how we can transform ourselves from what we have been up until the end of 2009, even those with seemingly no hope in sight, and, by using the same basic foundation of our lives yet with a new cosmetic outlook (happier, positive thinking attitude)imagine what we can be for 2010!

All the best! Happy New Year!!

Whenever I see an abandoned house in Malaysia, I often wonder if the former occupant was an expat like me, and did he die alone? Was he forgotten? This is a fear that many expats have – dying alone in some far-flung country. But then I met a man who did just that ten years ago: Bill McVeigh.

When he was alive, thousands of tourists would walk past his house in Batu Ferringhi without even knowing they were walking past a house. Even if they looked beyond the stalls offering souvenirs and fake watches, they would be hard pressed to make out a house sequestered behind a wall of trees and shrubbery (on all sides) that sealed off Bill McVeigh from the rest of the world.

On several occasions, I had heard about McVeigh, this modern-day recluse and his mélange of exotic animals, including otters, golden gibbons, and a hornbill, who lived in direct defiance to the hotels that had squeezed in around him. It was said that when he took walks along the beach, his two otters would follow him. When a friend of ours was visiting from Holland, she bumped into him. I knew I had to seek him out and meet him for myself.

Although his house was next to the Casuarina Hotel, finding an entrance among the shrubbery was difficult, so I went around back and eventually found an opening. The house was the size of a small cottage and looked unlivable – doors were off their hinges, windows were broken, and large parts of the roof had collapsed inside. Debris lay everywhere inside. Yet as I glimpsed through the broken bars of two moon windows, a semblance of a home emerged – scattered furniture, framed pictures, and book¬shelves full of books and magazines. I knocked on the front door and called out, “Hello?”

Drawn to a large cage with a beautiful golden gibbon, I ventured around to have a look. The double doors to the servants’ portion of the house were missing. Thinking there had to be a beach access, I circled around to the other side, where there were more cages, although each was empty. Feeling uncomfortable at trespassing, I made my way to the back gate, past an old donation box for tourists who wished to view his animals.

While walking along the beach, I saw a scruffy westerner with a fisherman’s air about him. His white beard was short and patchy and his top teeth were missing save for a few stumps, as if someone had bashed them in; his lower teeth were intact. He was walking at a fast clip with a large black dog that struggled to keep pace. I stopped and asked him if he owned the house by the Casuarina Hotel.

“No,” he replied, “but I’ve live there – if you can call it a house.” He then looked at me curiously for awhile. “You’re Robert.”

Taken aback that he knew my name, I looked at him – amazed. He said he recognized my face from The Star newspaper; two weeks earlier, they had featured me for winning third prize in a short story contest.
. . .
Of course, Bill McVeigh didn’t actually die alone – he had his animals, including his snakes. Nor was he forgotten either. Anni had painstakingly restored the trunk back to its original condition. Whenever I saw it, we’d reminisce about him and his house. His spirit also stayed alive in my journals, in my memories, and in my writing, and now inside my book Tropical Affairs, Episodes of an Expat’s life in Malaysia (MPH 2009).

His house, by the way, survived, too, at least the foundation and some of the walls. It had been converted into a bistro called Ferringhi Walk. On the wall are framed photographs that I took of Bill McVeigh’s house, taken a few days after he had died, after the land had been cleared. I’ll even donate a copy of this article, so the patrons can read about him. Perhaps they’ll raise a toast:
To Bill McVeigh, who lived and died in a far away land.
              -excerpt from "Dying Alone in a Far Away Land", Tropical Affairs by Robert Raymer
           
 * full article, posted 15 January 2011

**Update, the 20^th anniversary of Lovers and Strangers Revisited

Here are links to some of my author-to-author interviews of first novelists:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize.

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey.

Preeta Samarasan author of Evening is the Whole Day. 

Chuah Guat Eng,  author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change. 

Plus:

Five part Maugham and Me series

Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I 

Wrriting Novels: Talent, Luck, and Discipline

I was leafing through my 2003 Novel and Short Story Writer's Market (which I'll be updating soon) and came across this quote from Michael Chabon:

"I like to say there are three things that are required for success as a writer: talent, luck, discipline. It can be in any combination, but there's nothing you can do to influence the first two. Discipline is the one element of those three things that you can control, and so that is the one that you have to focus on controlling. You just have to hope and trust in the other two."

This is so true and it gives those of us who may worry about our talent (am I good enough?) or question our luck (why is everyone against me!) Discipline also applies to many other areas. The discipline to write every day, to market your work, to remain focused on one task at a time. I wrestle with these on most days. It’s so easy while writing a novel to jump back and forth to other projects. For one, the novel takes so long and when you’re in the thick of it, you don’t see much progress, let alone an end in sight. Whereas an essay or a short story or even a blog post such as this, can be written fairly quickly. Finally, I finished something!

Many writers equate writing the novel to marriage, and short stories to the occasional fling or a one night stand. The temptation is always there (the grass is always greener on the other side…). But if you ever hope to succeed in completing, let alone selling your novel, it’s important to get back to the novel, if that is where your true heart lies, and not be tempted by all the other sideshows, too, whether it’s Facebook, twitter, blogs or email. All of these chew up your novel writing time.

Now and then, after you’ve locked in a couple of hours, you can reward yourself with a writing timeout to check all of the above. You’ve earned it. But keep it brief and then get back to your novel. If you don’t, you can kiss that sweet novel goodbye. Whatever urgency or excitement or enthusiasm you first had to get it going, will soon be gone. Out of sight, out of mind. Without that day in and day out discipline, your novel will never get written (and rewritten), let alone published and in the bookstores.

It also takes discipline to find that perfect balance for writing, for family and friends, and for living. Don’t play the martyr. Get your novel written but get a life, too!

*Update: I managed to turn that discipline into some luck, too. The Resurrection of Jonathan Brady just advanced to the Quarterfinals of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2012!  It was all those rewrites in 2010, 2011, and 2012 that got me there.

Here are links to some of my author-to-author interviews of first novelists:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize.

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey.

Preeta Samarasan author of Evening is the Whole Day. 

Chuah Guat Eng,  author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change. 

Plus:

Five part Maugham and Me series

Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I