I
first met Chuah Guat Eng, if I’m not mistaken, when Sharon Bakar invited both
of us to read our respective work at a Reading@Seksan event in Kuala Lumpur in
2009. I had also picked up a signed copy
of her first novel, Echoes of Silence
(1994, 2008), which has the distinction of being the first novel written in
English by a Malaysian woman. Her second novel, Days of Change
(2010), a sequel, made the long list for International Dublin Literary Award in
2012. She is currently working on Whispers of Truth, her third novel that
continues the series.
Guat Eng read English Literature at University
of Malaya Kuala Lumpur, German Literature at Ludwig-Maximilian University
Munich, Germany, and received a Ph.D. in 2008 from the Universiti Kebangsaan
Malaysia for her thesis, From Conflict to
Insight: A Zen-based Reading Procedure for the Analysis of Fiction. She was a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at
Universiti Putra Malaysia from January 2011 to March 2013, focusing on
Malaysian novels in English. Currently
she teaches part-time at University of Nottingham Malaysia and at the Faculty
of Cinematic Arts, Multimedia University Johor on subjects related to
literature and creative writing.
She has also published three collections of
short stories, Tales from the Baram River
(2001), The Old House and Other Stories
(2008), and Dream Stuff (2014).
Praise for Echoes of Silence…
‘…an
intellectual as well as a tender novel about
love…entertaining...intelligent…well-crafted…’ – T. Dorall, New Straits Times
‘…more
postmodern than at first appears…the most accomplished Malaysian novel to date,
a new and cultured voice…’ – Jun Mo, Far
Eastern Economic Review
“In
March 1970, as a direct result of the May 1969 racial riots, I left
Malaysia.” Thus begins Echoes of Silence, the story of Lim Ai
Lian, a Chinese Malaysian. While
studying in Germany, she falls in love with Michael Templeton, an English
gentleman brought up in the district of Ulu Banir, where his father, Jonathan
Templeton, owns a plantation. While
trying to solve a murder, Ai Lian, learns about racial prejudice, truth and
deception, womanhood and love, and how past silences can echo into the present.
RR: Your self-published novel Echoes of Silence is often cited as the
first novel written in English by a Malaysian woman. Since then there have been several others,
including Preeta Samarasan’s Evening is
the Whole Day and Bernice Chauly’s Once
We Were There.
Self-publishing
a novel nowadays, even via e-book, often makes financial sense for a number of
writers. Some have even landed a traditional
publisher because of their self-publishing success. What made you decide to self-publish your
first novel in 1994? And your second
novel in 2010? What have you gained and
what had you lost, if anything, in choosing to self-publish your work?
Guat Eng: In 1994, I couldn’t find a single publisher
based in Malaysia interested in publishing novels; all major publishers (e.g.
Heinemann) had either shut down or severely curtailed their Malaysian
operations, perhaps because of political unrest as well as the extremely
restrictive Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984. Of the UK and US publishers I approached,
only two responded, one from each country. Both wrote glowingly about the parts that have
to do with the colonial past but couldn’t see the point of the parts about
contemporary Malaysia. Both suggested I
rewrite the novel focusing only on the colonial past, the Japanese Occupation,
and the Emergency. Since I saw no point
in writing that kind of novel, I chose to self-publish – not because I wanted
to see my name in print, but because I already knew I was going to write a
sequel and feared that if I didn’t have the first one printed and out of the
way, I would be fiddling with it until Doomsday – like Mr. Casaubon in Middlemarch.
In
2001, I accepted an offer by a local, well-established publishing house to
publish my collection of retold Sarawak animal stories, Tales from the Baram River. It
was such a bad experience – they gave me 10 complimentary copies and thereafter
never responded to my queries about sales and royalties – that I’ve
self-published all my fiction ever since.
What
have I gained? Mainly peace of mind. But also the joy of working on the production
– discussing fonts, layout, type of
paper, and so on – with my choice of desktop artists and printers. And the sense of achievement from
successfully promoting and selling my books.
I
don’t feel I’ve lost out on anything – at least, not anything that I care
about, since I don’t write and publish for fame and fortune. My books have generally received favourable
reviews. Several of them have been used
as texts in universities, and my novels have been the subjects of academic
papers. In 2015, the National Library of
Malaysia bought 500 copies of Dream Stuff
for distribution to their district libraries. Echoes
of Silence is currently being translated by an Italian publisher for
publication as an e-book to reach the Italian-speaking world. Earlier this year, I’ve had to reprint Echoes of Silence and The Old House and Other Stories because
they had sold out and people kept asking for them. I am content.
RR: Yes, having that control can be rather ideal,
especially when your book goes out of print and the publisher is reluctant to
print another edition or they get taken over by another publisher. Heinemann Asia (Singapore), which had
originally published my collection of short stories Lovers and Strangers, had been bought out twice in fairly short
order and dropped their entire fiction line to concentrate on business-related
books.
For
both of your books did you work with an outside editor or rely on your own
editing skills?
Guat Eng: I’ve always
edited and proof-read my books myself. Professor
Quayum of the International Islamic University Malaysia offered to edit The Old House when it was first
published; his only complaint was that I had left him nothing to do. I can’t say I’ve ever wished I had used the
services of an editor. It sounds like
arrogance, but it isn’t. I just feel
strongly that if the book gets a bad review or is universally disliked, I want
to be able to hold myself – and no one else – accountable.
RR: I hired an American editor to rip apart my
first book Lovers and Strangers, long
after it had been successfully published, when I had an opportunity to revisit
the stories for another publisher. Like
most writers, I have blind spots; also what may seem clear to a Malaysian
reader, might be confusing to someone who has never visited Malaysia. A detailed critique made me reconsider adding
another scene or a flashback or a back story or extending the story beyond the
original ending – some stories doubled in length, which I blogged
about in the series The Story Behind the Story. My efforts
were rewarded when it won the Popular Reader’s Choice Award and was translated
into French. Setting aside your ego to
have someone critique your published work, let alone your first or second or
third draft, is a humbling process.
Do
you recommend that young Malaysian writers or writers no matter their age
consider self-publishing their fiction today, which seems more acceptable and
common place than in the past? A common
lament is that most self-published books tend to lack rigorous (let alone)
basic editing. Other than, perhaps, working
with an editor (ideally one with suitable publishing experience, especially
if you’re writing fiction), what else would you advise those wishing to
self-publish in today’s market?
Guat Eng: I wouldn’t recommend self-publishing to just
anyone, least of all young writers. Self-publishing is essentially a business
enterprise, and those who want to take that route should have some
entrepreneurial experience, inclination and/or skills. Anyone can get a book printed. The hard part
is planning and managing its distribution, marketing, promotion, and sales – as
every publisher knows.
RR: My advice for seeking a local publisher in Malaysia or Singapore is to make sure you know what you are getting into. Google the publisher and also look for
complaints; far too many writers think they have signed with a legitimate
publisher but failed to read the fine print and had to fork over hefty fees and
the editing was non-existent. The whole
experience was horrible. If you can’t
find their books in a bookstore, that’s often a big clue. Also make sure you understand the royalty
structure, or you might end up with a handful of copies and nothing else other
than excuses. Ideally contact some of
their published writers and ask, off the record, their experience. If they’re getting a raw deal, they will tell
you. They may even recommend another
publisher, one you hadn’t even considered, based on the experience of their
own writing friends, which led me to MPH and a two book deal.
How
did you end up studying German Literature at Ludwig-Maximilian University in
Munich? How has that experience of
studying literature and living in another culture, one quite different from
Malaysia, benefited you as a writer? How
long were you away?
Guat Eng: I learned German as an undergraduate in
University of Malaya Kuala Lumpur and at the Goethe Institute (GI) in my
postgraduate years. In 1970, I was given
a GI scholarship to study for the Major Diploma in German Language and Culture in
Germany, first in Murnau and then in Munich. A few months after the sessions in Munich began,
I got so bored that I (rather cheekily) asked the Director if I could attend
lectures at the nearby university instead, but still sit for my GI diploma exam
at the same time as my classmates. To my
surprise and undying gratitude, he arranged for me to get a DAAD (German
Academic Exchange) scholarship. For the
rest of my three years in Germany, I attended lectures, seminars and tutorials
on German literature as a regular student of the prestigious Ludwig-Maximilian
University, but was allowed to sit for and obtain the GI Major Diploma in
German Language and Culture.
As
a writer, the most obvious benefit of my stay in Germany is that I could use
Munich as the setting for the beginning of the romance between Lim Ai Lian and
Michael Templeton in Echoes of Silence.
It was, for me, the perfect setting. Not only because I had firsthand knowledge of
the places I mentioned; but, more importantly, because Munich is vital to a major theme embedded in the narration of their relationship; namely, the post-1969
non-Malay Malaysian’s feeling of disempowerment due to no longer being able to
claim any place on earth as their homeland. In Munich, where they are both strangers
but where Ai Lian feels slightly superior because she has been there longer, her
self-confidence allows her to be confident of
Michael’s love for her. However, in London and Ulu Banir, where Michael is at
home but where she feels like an outsider, her loss of self-confidence causes
her to question the sincerity of his love, his morals, and his trustworthiness
as a human being.
My
immersion in German language, literature, literary traditions, art and music has
benefited me as a writer in other, subtler and more profound, ways; as have my
travels both within Germany and to other European countries. Perhaps the most significant benefit is that I
liberated myself from the Anglo-American influences that had coloured so much
of my upbringing and earlier education. I
left Europe with a clearer, surer awareness of my historical and cultural
identity as a Malaysian – an awareness that has influenced all my writing.
RR: All writers, ideally, should live overseas
for an extended stay—a year or two, at least; you gain so much more perspective
about the world at large and about your own country. You view it differently, for better or
worse. More importantly, you no longer
take things for granted, and you often come away with a deeper understanding and
better appreciation for your own roots.
You referenced ‘May
1969’….Your opening line in Echoes of
Silence states matter-of-factly, “In March 1970, as a direct result of the
May 1969 racial riots, I left Malaysia.”
Yet it seemed to me that you wrote very little about it or how it had
affected the main character or her family directly or indirectly other than her
“leaving Malaysia”. This was a watershed
moment, so even her returning to Malaysia should have been emotionally difficult,
so I was expecting a flashback scene or a long reflection about what had
actually happened to her or her family (or even a distant relative)…
Guat Eng: The whole novel is about the psychological impact of the May 1969 racial riots and
its repercussions all the way down to 1994, when the main narrator begins her
story….Those who have no memory or experience of life in Malaysia during and
after May 1969 tend to imagine there was violence all over the country. The truth – based on personal experience,
various official accounts written after the event, as well as unofficial
accounts gathered from friends and acquaintances who had personally witnessed the
violence, or whose friends and acquaintances had fallen victim to it – is that
the riots were concentrated in a few places, mainly in KL. For the majority who lived outside the
immediately affected areas (and even those who, like me, lived in KL at that
time) the reality was first the shock of a total media blackout, and then the
slow seepage of news about a curfew. In
short, we saw no violence, not even on TV. We learned about the violence and
its inter-ethnic nature from hearsay. And
we were mainly concerned with how to overcome the everyday problems caused by
the curfews, making sure we stored up enough food and never got caught out of
doors during curfew hours.
You
may ask why, since I was writing in 1994, I didn’t do the necessary research so
that I could satisfy readers who want to see their imagined reality confirmed
by fiction. The simple answer is that I
wasn’t interested in creating more imagined realities. I was interested in recreating the “felt”
reality of the psychological violence done to us by the “blanket of silence”
(to use my main character’s phrase) cast over all of us: not just the tightly controlled media but also
the laws prohibiting gatherings of more than five people, the spreading of
rumours, and the raising of “sensitive issues”. The last prohibition was the most devastating;
the term “sensitive issues” was never properly defined, which meant that no one
could find closure because no one dared to speak about anything to do with the
riots, race relations, and the fact that those responsible for the violence
were never identified and brought to justice.
RR: During
Operation Lalang in 1987, my ex-wife was a reporter for New Straits Times, so we were very aware of those restrictions, and
how vague they were. Anything could be
misconstrued as racial bias or sensitive,
even when writing about something as innocent as hawker food in Penang. If you happen to mention “Malay” and the word
“pork” too close together, there you go…
Guat Eng: As you
may know, the post-1969 emergency laws were never repealed even after we
returned to parliamentary rule and, starting with the curtailing of the
autonomy of institutions of higher learning (Universities and Colleges Act
1974), the ensuing two decades saw a progressive tightening of pre-existing
laws prohibiting and inhibiting freedom of speech and information, increasing
episodes of repressive police action (e.g. Operation Lalang in 1987) against
political opponents and the media, Constitutional amendments diminishing the check-and-balance
power of the traditional rulers, and – to top it all – executive interventions
in the justice processes that undermined the independence of the judiciary, all
of which enabled the ruling party’s rampant acts of corruption to be hushed up.
Writing Echoes of Silence in
1994, the main questions I found myself asking were: Why have we, the citizens of the country, accepted
these further assaults on truth, justice, and rule of law since May 1969? Is it because we have been
psychologically impaired by the post-riot blanket of silence that denied us the
means to find closure? Is it because of the perceptions of authority we have inherited from
our pre-colonial and colonial past? Or
is it our various cultures and our individual psychology that make us willing
to accept and even actively contribute to the silences – the misinformation,
disinformation, and the withholding of information – that frustrate the quest
for truth and justice? And what are the
psychological effects of being party, voluntary or otherwise, to this stifling of
truth and this extinguishing of the healing light of justice?
Given the multiplicity of punitive laws (e.g. the
Sedition Act and the Internal Security Act) against freedom of thought, speech,
and publications in 1994, I couldn’t have written openly and directly about
such issues. So I made use of the murder
mystery form for my exploration.
RR: Thanks for clarifying that….I read in a book
review about your interest of narratology – the study of narratives and
narrative structures and how they affect our perception. According to Jonathan Culler (2001) “narrative
theory requires a distinction between ‘story’, a sequence of actions or events
conceived as independent of their manifestation in discourse, and ‘discourse’,
the discursive presentation or narration of events.” Can you elaborate on how your interest in
narratology affects you as a writer or even as a reader? (No doubt very similar
to how someone’s interest in cinematography affects how they view films.)
Guat Eng: I define narratology
as a study of anything that has to do with narration, or creating a narrative. It is not a fixed “Literary Theory” but an
ongoing discourse on the theorization and systematization of critical terms for
the analysis of narratives. What
narratologists do, essentially, is they identify, describe, define, and give
names to the various narrative techniques authors use – “point-of-view”,
“focalisation”, “free indirect discourse” – so that literary scholars have a
vocabulary that can be used as a tool for analysis as well as a common language
for discourse. The vocabulary is
constantly evolving and expanding because as narratologists encounter new
writers, especially non-Western ones who have their own literary traditions,
whose narrative techniques do not find a perfect fit in existing concepts and
terms (e.g. “magic realism”), they may find a need to describe, define, and
give names to these uncommon narrative techniques.
I first came across the term “narratology” while I was
working on my PhD in the early 2000s, but soon realized its value: it makes me
more knowledgeable about the techniques I had been vaguely aware of as a reader
and had been applying intuitively as a writer. For instance, I discovered the difference
between “story” and “plot” between the ages of 10 and 11. My first attempt at writing a story fizzled
out because I got bored with having to think up one episode after another. A year later, I spontaneously told a story in
class that had a beginning, middle and end centred on a single issue. Proof that I was on the right track came some
years later: I rewrote it as a radio
play, sent it to the Education section of (then) Radio Malaya, and received 30
dollars for it. But that intuition-led
experience did not crystallize into knowledge until I read E. M. Forster’s
definitions of “story” and “plot” in Aspects
of the Novel, and that crystal of knowledge did not become refined until I
read what narratologists have to say on the subject.
As a reader, I’ve always seen patterns, structures,
and underlying meanings in books. I
can’t explain why. It may have something
to do with my childhood obsession with deciphering codes and solving puzzles,
and the fact that I learned Latin in secondary school. These analytical tendencies were enhanced at
university by my study of English Literature, fine-tuned by my study of German
Literature, and given new spaces to play in through my research on Asian narratology
and theories of fiction.
RR: I too studied Latin in high school for two
years and it had a tremendous impact on my English. I enjoyed the logic of the language and its
grammar and wished I had studied it for four years, but switched to French,
something I’m terrible at; I was too embarrassed to even attempt it when
visiting France while backpacking around Europe.
Do you think
some writers try too hard to be clever at the expense of the story; therefore,
their writing or the story suffers? Is
there a perfect balance between story and structure? Or can structure, in fact, make or define the
story, if not elevate it to something truly special?
Guat Eng: As a
critic and teacher of fiction-writing, I do often encounter writers who try
too hard to be clever at the expense of the story. However, I also find that their stories suffer
not because they use structure but because they either use it badly or neglect
it altogether. Speaking generally, I
find that when writers try too hard, it’s usually because their ego gets in the
way of the story. Some try to show how
clever they are with words, allowing their infatuation with the sounds of words
to master them when they should be exerting mastery over the precise meanings
of words to tell a story. Others try to
show how clever they are by aiming only to end their stories with a witty, unexpected,
or sensational twist – nearly always at the expense of structure and plot.
RR: I always hated that. Why ruin a good story with a horrible ending? I would tell my creative writing students,
you had an “A” going until you wrote that final paragraph or that final line –
which had nothing to do with the story.
They just pulled it out of hat to trick you! The internal logic of the story (and
structure) must hold up until the end!
Guat Eng: As a writer, I find (as I did when I was 10
years old) that I can’t make headway with a
narrative unless I have a structure. I’m
not saying it’s the only way to write; I’m saying that it’s the only way I can write. Structure (i.e. the way I
organise the different parts of my “story”) helps me to clarify and define my
discourses (i.e. the issues I’m problematizing). Ever since I read Northanger Abbey at age 14, I have been intrigued by the potential
of novels to poke fun at humanity’s willingness to confuse the imagined and the
real. From my (much later) study of Zen,
I learned that a similar intent underlies the tongue-in-cheek narrative
techniques of much of Asian “wisdom” literature (which is what gives them the
“postmodern” flavour noted by many Western contemporary scholars). It is natural for me to want to write fiction
that tends towards the deconstructive and the metafictional, and to look to
Asian wisdom literature for the scaffoldings I need for my structures. In my novels, these Asian frameworks allow me
to work historical breadth, cultural depth, and additional layers of meaning into
my metafictional discourses with an economy that I find aesthetically pleasing –
simply because they make my creative/writing process so exhilaratingly
challenging.
RR: My own introduction to Asian
writing came from a course in Japanese and Chinese studies and from reading the
required novels before I traveled to both countries in 1980. Another text that I found enlightening was Literature of the Eastern World. Just being aware that there are many ways to
tell a story (and stories that can be told about almost anything, including
gourds and silkworms) and to experiment in structure and viewpoint (as I did in
Lovers and Strangers Revisited) to
find the most effective way to tell your story or to get to a deeper story is a
great way to grow as a writer. It forces
you out of your comfort zone. You have
to read widely, though, just to be aware what is out there – Western and
Eastern! Sometimes you have to write the
story/novel chronologically first before you can restructure the scenes, so it
would all make sense, even in reverse order as Preeta Samarasan did quite
successfully in Evening is the Whole Day,
which was discussed during a recent interview.
Guat Eng:
Read at
one level, Echoes of Silence is simply
a murder mystery. But by using a structure based on an
adaptation of the Mahabharata structure, I was
able to plot my
story as an interiorized dialectical discourse spanning three time zones
(present, recent past, and distant past). The narration, while taking the reader back
and forth between present and pasts, reveals the occurrence of parallel
episodes of violence, silencing of truth, and miscarriages of justice in each
time zone; and these parallels indirectly comment on one another
through their thematic resonances and dissonances. The experiment in Days of Change was somewhat different. In this memoir-like narrative, my amnesiac
narrator uses the I Ching to trigger the
recovery of lost memories. Within the
seemingly neat 64-day framework of the I
Ching, the memories are not recalled and recorded in chronological order –
deliberately so, because on one level (the fiction-as-mimesis level), the
intention is to simulate the messy and capricious way memory works. But on another level (the metafictional level),
the smooth-flowing and even polished prose style of the narration shines a
light on the “fiction-making” way the narrator attempts to clean up confusions,
re-order events, and fill gaps left by that most unreliable of narrators,
memory. Thus structured and written as a
proto-memoir, the novel serves to subvert the faithful-to-memory truth claims of
historians and autobiographers.
I will be
the first to acknowledge that most (or all) of my readers will never perceive
the crafting that is so much a part of my writing process, and therefore never
fully appreciate what I’m trying to do and say. Some may find the narratives confusing and
think I’m trying to be too clever by half. But not being understood is the nature of the
literary beast, and as long as my readers find my works enjoyable at the
“story” level, I’m not going to worry about being fully understood.
RR: That’s always the risk...of not being
understood, or being misunderstood, or being accused of purposely muddying
your own story to make it opaque or overly literary, thus losing your readers
in the process. Many so called “great”
books are said to be unreadable. Finnegans
Wake, anyone? Gravity's
Rainbow? I once read Moby-Dick until 50 pages from the end
and just gave up – I just didn’t care anymore if Captain Ahab got the whale or
not! Great, epic story, but tedious to a
fault, bogged down with endless mundane details about the whaling
industry. Years later, I finally went back and finished
it – I won’t spoil the ending.
In a recent interview
you said, “Wisdom, for me, means the understanding that every individual has
his or her own concept of truth, his or her own story to tell; and we must somehow
make space in our hearts and minds for all these concepts and stories without,
however, getting caught up in them.” Could you elaborate, especially in this
era of Trump, Fake News, and ‘alternative facts’ about how to avoid “getting
caught up in them”? We (at least in the
US) seem to be drowning in everyone’s concept of truth. Or is it even possible to keep straight all
of the shifting narratives, let alone all of the political or personal spins
upon spins with the so-called truth as to what really happened. Or the actual truth or even the agreed-upon
truth as to what, in fact, did take place?
Or should we even bother in the realistic fear that it will, sooner or
later, drive us all crazy – even for us expats living in Borneo? Maybe what we need to do is pick up a good
novel so we can lose ourselves in the narrative truth of the story...or just
keep working on the inherent truth of our own creation and let it speak for
itself…
Guat Eng: Zen philosophers have many ways to deal with
the issues you mention. It would take
too long to go into the various methods they recommend as means of
distinguishing the imagined from the real. But one doesn’t have to be a Zen philosopher
to ask the many kinds of questions offered in everyday discourse as means to
distinguish real from fake news: Does
this make sense? Who’s saying this? Which news media is responsible for this
report? What’s their agenda? What’s the other side of the story? What are
the political and geopolitical circumstances that might give rise to such an
action or statement? And so on.
RR: Ah, Kipling’s six honest serving men will
always get you to the truth!
Guat Eng: It seems to me there is no lack of probing questions
that one may ask. What is lacking is
usually the will to ask those questions and the determination to find the
answers. Most people just find it easier
to believe whatever their favourite politician or news media says, and close
their minds to the idea that there is always another side to the story and another
way of looking at things.
Looking for the truth with an open mind
is hard work; here’s how Gautama Buddha describes the hard work one has to do before
one accepts even his teachings:
As the wise test gold by burning,
cutting and examining by means of a touchstone, so should you accept my words
after examining them and not merely out of regard and reverence for me.
RR: Most of your professional life was spent in
the corporate world as both a writer and as a creative and communications
consultant, specialising in the development of strategies for advertising and
promotional campaigns, corporate brand building programmes….How has this
benefited you as a writer or in developing your own brand as a writer?
Guat Eng: The corporate world taught me many things
that were and remain valuable to me as a fiction writer. Probably the most important is
self-discipline: meeting deadlines, managing
time, and the sheer teeth-gritting doggedness of writing even when I don’t feel
like writing instead of waiting for inspiration. The most enduring lessons relate to the art
and craft of ego-less writing: to take
myself out of the narrative, to draw my readers in and engage them, to make
every word count, to communicate and inform, and never to show off. The most useful for me as a self-published
writer are the technical aspects of producing a printed text: reader-friendly fonts and spacing, page
layouts, paper choices, different types of binding and so on.
Apart
from the fact that I am conscious of my Malaysian identity and am not prepared
to exoticize myself or my stories simply to appeal to Western and Westernized
readers, I am not conscious of developing my own brand as a writer. Certainly, before I worked on my first novel,
I studied the market. I did research on
the types of novel being written by other Malaysian writers (there were only a
handful at that time), their subject matter, and their writing styles. I checked out what kind of novels most
English-literate readers were willing to buy and read. Based on the research, I
decided what genre I should write in and who my primary target readers would
be. But apart from the times when I am
launching a new book, I don’t spend a lot of time promoting myself or my
writings. I only give readings and/or
talk about my books when I’m invited to do so. I depend mostly on the goodwill and
word-of-mouth recommendations of friends and acquaintances to sell my books.
RR: You
were once a guest speaker at the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival in
Bali. Tell us about your experience and
why you feel writers must make an attempt to attend these literary festivals (or
not). What are the drawbacks, if
any? Any plans to return to Ubud in the
future or to any other upcoming literary events?
Guat Eng: I was invited to the 2014 Ubud Writers & Readers
Festival….If there were any drawbacks, I no longer remember….All I remember
now is that I had a great time, made some new friends, and sold some books. I found the whole event very well organized,
loved my accommodations, and apart from some confusion over transport on the
first day, really have nothing to complain about.
It’s
a good festival to go to for book launches, networking, and self-promotion,
which is what such festivals are designed for, and I would certainly recommend
it to anyone who has such intentions and aims. But even if one didn’t have such intentions,
or, like me, were not much good at networking and socializing, Ubud is
definitely worth going to.
The
programme allowed time for my own explorations, which I took as much advantage
of as I could. The highlights of my
visit were the connections I made with the locals and Indonesians from other
islands, who took me to the art and craft museums. The local people are very friendly; the most
memorable parts of my stay there are the chats I had with the taxi drivers,
especially the one who drove me to the airport for my return flight, who, as an
artist in his own right, gave me an insider view of the life of local artists
and the state of the local art.
I
never attend literary festivals and similar events unless I’m invited, but always
accept invitations when my schedule permits.
RR: For me, attending a conference is just a
great experience all the way around, whether it’s speaking on a panel at a
conference in Kuala Lumpur or attending a major conference on my own dime in
Hawaii – just to be around other writers.
It was definitely worth the investment when I attended the Maui Writers
Conference in 2006, which had about a thousand people from all over the US and then
me coming from Malaysia. You’re from where? Meeting Pulitzer-Prize-winning writers, Oscar-winning
screenwriters, award-winning novelists, plus editors from major publishing
houses and literary agents from New York (I attended several pitching
sessions) and then listening to their experience, their advice, and picking up
signed copies of their books….Quite heady experience. Graham Brown, one of the unpublished writers that I hung
out with, met his agent at another conference and sold two novels and then
co-wrote some books with Clive Cussler, proving making-face-face-contact can be
invaluable, so long as you have the goods to back it up.
Attending a
conference overseas can be expensive, but if you book low cost flights early, take
advantage of early-bird specials, split accommodation and car rental (if necessary)
with other writers (I contacted the organizer in Maui and they found me someone
with the same idea), or tie it to a planned vacation or a business trip or stay
with a relative or friend living in the area...it can be done. If you do this too often, you can also go
broke, so choose your conferences wisely, or find a way to get yourself invited
as a guest speaker!
What
advice would you give writers who are struggling to finish (or even seriously
start) their first novel?
Guat Eng: Here are 5 tips:
1. Don’t
talk about it, do it.
2. Set
a time-table for the completion of first draft of the novel, and organize the
rest of your life around it.
3. Keep
your project a secret. Don’t keep
showing people bits of your work-in-progress and asking for opinions. You don’t want to be distracted by too many
opinions. Listen to what your heart (your
innermost self) tells you.
4. If
you get stuck, it’s probably because you haven’t been listening to your
innermost urgings. Stop. Listen to what you heart wants you to write. Then write what it tells you to write. No more. And no less.
5. When
the first draft of the whole novel is near completion, start a search for a
good reader (not an editor; that should come later). If anyone is recommended, check with other
writers who have used their services. Settle
on the one you can trust to be sensitive to and supportive of what you are doing, willing to give honest and constructive criticism, and able to make reconstructive
suggestions while giving you the leeway to reject the suggestions if you don’t
agree. And yes, be prepared to pay them
in cash for time spent and services rendered.
Other Interviews with First Novelists:
Golda
Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey.
PreetaSamarasan author of Evening is the Whole
Day.
Five
part Maugham
and Me series
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