Beating a dead horse...or keeping it alive until it thrives...

Just came across this cool advertisement from Quill on the internet announcing the arrival of Lovers and Strangers Revisited back in 2008.  I was scratching my head, where did this come from?  Then I dug through some old copies of Quill and found it on the back page of their July-September issue!

This was the third time for publishing this book, and I remember, at the time, another publisher making a remark about another writer who was also republishing her book, "Is she still beating that dead horse?" Then I thought, well her book came out at around the same time as my book back in 1993, so this could very well apply to me.  Am I beating a dead horse? But then it went on to win the 2009 The Star Popular Reader's Choice Award and now it's looking like it'll soon be translated into French, so you just never know, do you?  Besides, individual stories from the collection are still being taught in school and private colleges, especially "Neighbours."

So am I beating a dead horse...or keeping it alive until it thrives...

This is also why I kept revising my short stories, over and over, and why so many from this collection have been published, some twenty years after they were written!  And why I keep revising my novels, The Boy Who Shot Santa, 16 times, The Lonely Affair of Jonathan Brady, 22, and Tropical Affairs, 14, because you just never know...how close you are to succeeding, to finally getting the novel just right.

I do this every year when a new round of novel contests come up and I think, well it's been a year (or sometimes several years have passed by).  Let's take a look, and right away I find better ways of saying something, or how if I did a little rearranging, a little tweaking here and there, and what if I did this or that, or added something to chapter....Then once again I plunge myself back into a novel for yet another rewrite, which I just did in December, as an investment and a vote of confidence for January and 2011.  I'm so glad I did.  I wasn't planning on it either other than a cursory glance, but instead, I spend a month overhauling it.

Writing is basically rewriting, and every time I rewrite something, I'm thinking, hey, it's coming alive.  I thought it was finally dead this time, but it's really coming alive, and that gives me hope for the New Year.  And hope is a good thing for a writer.  Hope is a good thing for everyone.  Imagine a life where you have no hope...
                                         -Robert Raymer, Borneo Expat Writer

*Just to update, Lovers and Strangers Revisited has been translated into French and will be out in September 2011.  And now "Home for Hari Raya" is getting filmed by Ohio University!

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 

Tropical Affairs: Santa Claus Forever

Robert Raymer at St. Christopher's International School in Penang

When I was asked to fill Santa’s shoes as a last minute replacement at St. Christopher’s International School in Penang, Malaysia, I tried to beg off. Who has time for this? “You’ll get to ride in a fire truck,” Angela said, twisting my arm, knowing she was running out of expats to ask.

“You mean a real fire truck?”

My adult expat eyes lit up like Christmas ornaments.

I was so excited about the fire truck and meeting Santa Claus personally (and I do mean personally), I could hardly stand still while Angela and Anni (let’s call them elves) dressed me in a red flannel Santa outfit, complete with one stuffed pillow, and an old pair of black boots. Next came a scruffy white beard and a long red stocking cap.

Only the large-buckled black belt was missing. Instead of having a black belt (not even brown), my trusty elves wrapped a black scarf around my pillow-shaped waist – a black scarf that later unwrapped itself as I stood proudly on top of the fire truck waving to three hundred and sixty expat children from all over the world.
All three hundred and sixty of them laughed as I re-wrapped my scarf. Sud¬den¬ly I had this not-so-Christmassy feeling that this was going to be very long day.

I gingerly climbed down the fire truck, careful not to fall; nor did I wish to trip as I entered the auditorium and land on my face. Just when I began to relax, my beard started to slip.

Now which of these little monsters, I wondered, was going to try to yank it off? The little monsters promptly transformed themselves into angels as they sang for me three Christ¬mas songs, including a favorite, “Jingle Bells”.

All of them sang beautifully except this cute little girl in front, who kept asking me in her skeptical five-year-old voice, “Are you really Santa Claus?”
…
Deep-down inside, having walked in Santa’s shoes, I really did feel like Santa Claus. For suddenly I had this overwhelming desire to give children all over the world, no matter their race, color or creed, new toys. I wanted to give them plenty of food to eat, and plenty of love, so they’ll grow up to be loving adults who can later bestow the gift of love onto their children, and their children’s children.

The real Santa Claus can do all that, and more. A lot more.

Beneath my Santa outfit, I was merely a humble expat trying to bring a little joy to the school children, who wanted to believe that somewhere there really is a Santa Claus. Not one who arrives in a fire truck (though that’s not a bad way to go), but in an open sleigh pulled by reindeers that can really fly.
-excerpt from "Santa Claus Forever" Tropical Affairs: Episodes of an Expat's Life in Malaysia

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