The Sun review and the Introduction to Lovers and Strangers Revisited

The Sun, August 20 2008
Lovers and Strangers Revisited
Author: Robert Raymer
Publisher: MPH Publishing

US-BORN writer Raymer has lived in Malaysia for 20 years and taught creative writing at two of our local universities. His short stories and articles have been published in various magazines such Reader’s Digest, The Expat and Far East Traveller.

This book is a series of short stories, some which the writer based on real life incidences and some as a mere observer. You get a strong feeling that stories like "Mat Salleh", "Lovers and Strangers", "Dark Blue Thread" and "Only in Malaysia" may be very personal as they all talk about an American man and his relationship with an Asian woman.

They also talk about the vast gap between both worlds in a manner that is believable and are among the best in the collection.

Another interesting story in this book is "Neighbours", which is about a man who tries to kill himself and is rushed to the hospital by a neighbour. His neighbours start gossiping about the man and his family but none stick around to tell his wife and daughter what happened when they return home.

"Waiting", on the other hand, is a bit of a disappointment. The story of a woman waiting for her father to return home only to be faced with a startling reality is all too familiar and lacks the depth of the other stories.

As a whole, the short stories are all well written and Raymer doesn’t meander about the plot, even if the stories sounds a little too personal. Read the introduction as it will give you an insight into the writer’s mind. – S. Indra Sathiabalan

It’s always nerve wracking reading the first review (all reviews) of your book. You pray the reviewer is kind and gets the details right. No personal attacks. So I was relieved by the following review, except maybe about the story “Waiting”, which was really about her waiting for her boyfriend to return; that was the undercurrent.  The story has since been published in Thema, in the US.  So far it has been published four times, in Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, and now the US.

The stories, at least the stories that involved “an American” were said to be “too personal”, and I take that as a compliment, because only one of the four stories cited, and the only story in the collection that is, in fact, factual is “Mat Salleh”. I tried to make all the others as realistic as possible by blending in “realistic” details to create realism, whether I was writing from the point of view of a Malaysian character or an American character. Since I am American, readers tend to think I’m writing about myself, thus the whole story is “true”. Instead, I was merely capturing the truth of what it can be like for an American or an expat to be married to a Malaysian to make the rest of the story seem believable, as if it were based on fact.

But, oh, the line between fact and fiction does blur, which is why I wrote The Story Behind the Story blog series of Lovers and Strangers Revisited. I was glad the reviewer mentioned the introduction, since I had put a lot of effort revising and shortening the Silverfish version.

INTRODUCTION
When I first moved to Malaysia over 20 years ago, I was fortunate to have lived in a medium-income terrace house where I had a Malay family on my right, a Chinese family on my left, a Tamil family directly across from me, a Punjabi family three houses away in one direction, and three houses in the other, a Chinese woman married to an Indian man who were both Christian. Each of the four streets in this new housing area had Malays, Chinese, and Indians living side-by-side – a mini Malaysia at my doorstep.

While living in such close proximity to my neighbours, I was able to observe their comings and goings, and they were able to observe mine. They would regularly invite me into their homes to celebrate birthdays and open houses. They would ask me about my life, and I would ask them about theirs. It was a great learning experience. I was also able to observe from close up their weddings, their funerals, their festive celebrations and their family feuds. I watched their children play badminton, squabble among themselves, and occasionally get knocked down by a passing motorcycle.

One day I came to the aid of a Chinese neighbour when I heard his persistent moaning. In an attempt to kill himself, he had drunk the weed-killer, Paraquat. He was still breathing, so I contacted another neighbour and we rushed him to the hospital. I stayed with him for several hours while he was on his deathbed. Upon returning home, I found several of my neighbours standing outside his gate gossiping about the family. When the man’s wife and daughter returned home from shopping, all of them refused to ‘get involved’, so I was left with the task of having to inform them of the man’s death. I used that experience as the basis for my story, ‘Neighbours’, now being taught as part of the sixth cycle for SPM English Literature in Malaysia.

My original goal in writing this story and others in Lovers and Strangers Revisited was to depict Malaysia not from the viewpoint of an outsider, an expat generalising from a distance, but as a connected through-marriage insider and as a neighbour. Thus I felt comfortable writing about characters like Yeoh, a Chinese man with bitter memories of the Japanese Occupation, who was being teased by the neighbourhood children in ‘The Watcher’; or an Indian child’s jealousy of her elder sister’s special treatment in ‘Sister’s Room’; or, even a Malay child’s curiosity over a dead cockroach in ‘Symmetry’.

Over the years I made numerous trips to my ex-wife’s kampong in Perak and to the kampongs of her extended family. Through her and her family, I learned how the rural Malays lived, how they celebrated with a kenduri, how they buried their dead, and also how they believed in superstitions and spirits and sometimes consulted bomohs, a traditional healer, mystic, witch doctor. This knowledge allowed me to climb inside the head of Rosmah, who was in despair over the fate of her dying husband in ‘Smooth Stones’; or Ida, who felt betrayed when her father took a second wife in ‘Home for Hari Raya’; or even Matemah, a blind, elderly woman navigating her way through a graveyard in ‘The Stare’.

Even when I used the viewpoint of a Western character, I tried to use them almost passively, to serve the story, as opposed to having them be the centres of attention, as I did in ‘The Future Barrister’ or ‘On Fridays’, a story about Malaysians sharing a taxi, a metaphor for multiracial Malaysia, where people of various races live and work in close proximity and in relative harmony.

These pieces eventually became Lovers and Strangers, a collection of short stories set in Malaysia and Singapore, published by Heinemann Asia in 1993, and then Lovers and
Strangers Revisited, a heavily revised version published by Silverfish Books in 2005.

Revising these stories was an opportunity for me to revisit my past, not just as a writer, but who I was, where I lived, and what I had experienced and learned from living in Malaysia for nearly half of my life. Many of the memories that had inspired particular scenes, settings, or even the characters themselves, have become bittersweet, including my own failings as a husband. For one, I was no longer married to the woman that I wrote about in the semi-autobiographical story, ‘Mat Salleh’. Still, I kept faithful to the original story and to the other stories, recalling how I felt back when I first created them. At the same time, I came to appreciate these memories, particularly the kampung visits to my then mother-in-law’s house, as privileged experiences.

For this third, revised edition of Lovers and Strangers Revisited published by MPH, I have added two stories written during the same period from 1985-1990, including one set in Thailand.
One concern that I had was the fact that life in Malaysia and Southeast Asia had changed in the intervening 20 years since I began writing the first drafts of these stories. For example, the Station Hotel had been upgraded and is now called The Heritage Station Hotel Kuala Lumpur, and its lobby moved to the ground floor, inside the restaurant. I tried to keep the stories in their original mid-80s, early-90s time frame, yet at the same time, I tried to make the stories feel timeless, so even 20 years from now they would still capture the essence of Malaysia.

For me, rewriting the stories has been a culmination of over 25 years of writing, 20 years of living in Malaysia, and10 years of teaching creative writing. So far 16 of the 17 stories have been published 62 times in nine countries. Three have been translated into Japanese. Five stories have been taught in four universities in Malaysia, in secondary schools throughout Malaysia (SPM English Literature) and a high school in Canada. Lovers and Strangers Revisited is now being taught at Universiti Sains Malaysia.

With this third edition of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, I’m presenting the latest incarnation of my stories—stories that seem to have taken on a life of their own as if the characters that I had created didn’t want to be forgotten; they wanted their stories retold.

             —Borneo Expat Writer

.*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 

“Neighbours”: Story Behind the Story of Lovers and Strangers Revisited

Hearing some persistent moaning coming from a neighbor’s house two doors away, I went to investigate. With the help of another neighbor, we took the Chinese man, in his mid-fifties, to the Penang General Hospital, where he eventually died. He had drunk the weed killer Paraquat.

For me the story began when I returned to the man's house and found several neighbors gossiping. I was fascinated by all of the comments the neighbors were making, the wild speculations about the family and why the man had taken his life. Some of the things they had said were mean and spiteful. Later, when the man’s wife and daughter returned home, they quickly dispersed, so I was left with the task of having to inform them about the man’s death.

This was the story that fascinated me. The story I wanted to tell was not a first person narrative of my finding this man and all that took place that day (although later I will write about it). Instead, I chose to write about the neighbors themselves and what they said about this family in the aftermath of the suicide. When I began to write the story, after some years had passed, all the details were fresh inside my journal, including details that had completely slipped my memory. This is one of the reasons I insist that my writing students keep a diary/journal.

In writing the story, I decided to leave me, as a character, out of the story. I felt the story would be better without a Westerner or a mat salleh in it. I wanted the dialogue to be natural, spontaneous, and an expat present would alter the dynamics of the group, including the dialogue. My goal was to show how self-centered everyone was, and despite all the bad stuff being said about the man, I wanted the sympathy to shift back to him.

I purposely wrote the story in a neutral tone with the viewpoint of an observer, to avoid racial bias, so no one race in this multiracial society is talking down to another, which became crucial twenty years later when it began to be taught in SPM literature in schools throughout Malaysia. I also wanted to make the story universal, so readers around the world could relate to the characters and also learn about Malaysia, where different races freely mix and socialize, and yes, gossip.

Initially, too many people were coming and going and it was difficult to get a fix on any one character. There were far too many for a short story, so I merged a few characters to make it less cumbersome. I also slowed down the pacing by balancing it out with descriptions and even added a dog, a Pomeranian Spitz (which, I just noticed, was misspelled in the first collection!).

The original title of the story was “Aftermath” and it first appeared in Commentary, a Journal of the National University of Singapore Society, in 1990 and then in Northern Perspective in Australia. By the time the first collection Lovers and Strangers came out, I changed the title to “Neighbors”, which is what the story is about.

Over the years, I changed the names of several of the characters. Sometimes you need to trust your instincts as to whether the name is appropriate for your character. Other times, you try the name on for size and if it doesn’t fit, try another. It’s a not unlike naming your children, but in stories we usually know their character, their traits in advance so that helps.

The story originally began with a paragraph or two of description, to help set the scene, but after revisiting the story for Lovers and Strangers Revisited for the second collection, I opened the story with dialogue: “I suppose there’s a mess in the back seat!” This sets the tone of the story and pulls the reader in quicker. This is the version that was accepted to be part of the 6th cycle for SPM literature (Big L) to be taught throughout Malaysia 2008-2112.  (*Link to the story, revised after French translation.)

For the latest MPH collection, I still had some difficulty getting that initial description of their arrival from the hospital and where the neighbors lived just right, so I kept working on it. I also experimented with the present tense. I liked the effect this created and it seemed to solve some problems, too and it gave the story, and the neighbors, a timeless quality. In 2008, this was published in Thema, in the US, 20 years after I first wrote it.

There used to be an on line discussion of "Neighbours" for students and teachers created by MELTA (Malaysia English Language Teaching Association) on its forum for literature, which had over 20,500 hits and 30 pages of comments before it was archived.

Here's also a link to Denis Harry's article on Mrs Koh in NST 28 August 2010!  Comment: Are you a Mrs Koh?

Also, I’ve adapted “Neighbors” into a play, turning a tragedy into a comedy titled, “One Drink Too Many”, which had been play read twice by Penang Players. I then made a 10-page version of that, "Back from Heaven", ideal for schools or competitions.  At least one school had a good run with it. Just contact me via my website (below) or Facebook if you want a copy. A good story can be expressed in many different ways.

*Here is link to a recent Google Meet with students at UiTM-Penang during a Q-and-A session about "Neighbours" and the motivation of the various characters and why I ended the story where I did. 

Lovers and Strangers Revisited is now getting translated into French as Trois autres Malaisie.

 Here is a review in The Star (MPH) and a link to the other story behind the stories for Lovers and Strangers Revisited.

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 

"The Future Barrister": The Story Behind the Story of Lovers and Strangers Revisited

In the mid-80s I was standing outside Komtar in Penang, Malaysia at the bus stop, a rather seedy, smelly, low-lit area, late at night, when a young Indian man started in a one-sided conversation about his studying to be a barrister in the UK. He had this Clark Gable look about him, with a neatly trimmed moustache and sideburns. He was handsome and he knew it and he also had this way of winking as he talked, as if he was letting you in on a secret. He was also full of contradictions.

In the middle of our conversation, an attractive woman approached him and tried to pick him up. She totally ignored me. He dismissed her with a wave of his hand. I’m thinking, this guy is a real character! As soon as I got on the bus, I started making notes to turn him into a story. I even used one of his lines to open the story, “There are seven hundred barristers in Penang, and I will be number seven hundred and one!”

I changed the location of the story from a bus stop to a pub, 20 Leith Street, and I had him invite an American to join him at his table. I used the American as a minor first person viewpoint character merely as a witness to give the Future Barrister and his story credibility. I purposely didn’t give the American or the Future Barrister a name, though I referred to him as Clark Gable. Near the end of the story, I even say, “I was glad that I didn’t know his name.”

The biggest problem when I began to write it was the backstory, his relating about what had happened to him in the UK, why he was back in Malaysia and not continuing his studies. He mentioned he had run out of money and that there was a girl involved, Sarah. (I don’t remember if that was her actual name or if that was merely the name that I gave her in the story.) I had a feeling he was not telling me the real reason, as if he was hiding something, and that something was sinister, a skeleton in the closet. Maybe it was my imagination or the way he kept winking at me. So I needed to fill in the gaps and create a believable backstory.

Also I needed to break up his monologue into smaller chunks with descriptions that could showcase his character. I wanted to show how he interacted with the American and the other patrons, including a boy selling newspapers, dismissing him, as he did the woman at the bus stop, with a disdainful wave of his hand. I also wanted to show the irony, that he had become like the British Raj to his own people, a racist and a snob.

I entered this story in the 1987 Star/Nestle Short Story Awards here in Malaysia, but the contest got cancelled when the newspaper got cancelled for political reasons. Fortunate­ly, the newspaper got reinstated the following year, so when they announced the 1988 contest, I reworked the story – glad for the opportunity to do so. It won third place and was published in The Star.

Despite the early success of the story and it being published in Malaysia, India and Australia, I felt it needed something more. The random numbers on the lottery ticket didn’t seem all that confusing, even when drunk, so I changed them to 5355353, whereby the 3s and 5s, if published close together, could blur into one another. It was recently pointed out to me that there are a couple of thousand barristers in Penang, but that’s nearly twenty years later, so I kept the original quote.

While revisiting the story for Lovers and Strangers Revisited, I introduced a minor subplot with the American being interested in an Indian woman sitting at the next table who reminded him of his ex-wife, but who later rebuffed him. In contrast, I also added an attractive Western woman who walked into the pub with several friends, and she caught the Future Barrister’s eye. Later, he asked her to dance and she accepted. Of course, this gets him talking more about his ex-girlfriend in the UK, so more of the story, the truth, comes out.

Still the story never sat well with me. I couldn’t put my finger on it. By then I had been experimenting with the present tense in a novel that I was working on, and it seemed to solve some problems. I tried it out on “The Future Barrister” and it felt right, so for this latest MPH collection, I rewrote the story in the present tense. This was then published by Descant in Canada in 2010.

This is the fifth time that one of my short stories from Lovers and Strangers Revisited was published in the USA or Canada twenty years after I first wrote it. So the lesson here is, never give up on your stories, especially if you have been revising them all along.

As a footnote, the story and the interview of me in The Star proved to be a catalyst when I met another Penang character, an expat, shortly thereafter, and later wrote a lengthy non-fiction piece about him as a tribute to someone who had died alone in a far away land in my book Tropical Affairs: Episodes from an Expat’s Life in Malaysia. (MPH 2009) For me, “The Future Barrister” and this expat will always be intertwined in a way I could never have imagined.

In case you’re wondering, do I always write about people I meet? No, but when a good character walks into your life, take plenty of notes, especially if the character is a story waiting to happen. By the way, I never did bump into the Future Barrister again, though I feel he would have been pleased with the story. After all, it was all about him.

Lovers and Strangers Revisited is now getting translated into French as Trois autres Malaisie.

Here is a review in The Star (MPH) and a link to the other story behind the stories for Lovers and Strangers Revisited.

*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 

"On Fridays": The Story Behind the Story of Lovers and Strangers Revisited

Over the years, I’ve often been asked about the short stories in Lovers and Strangers Revisited (MPH 2008), previously published by Silverfish (2005), and originally  as Lovers and Strangers (Heinemann Asia 1993). Where I got the ideas? How I wrote them? Why I revise them even after they’ve been published! And are the stories true?

In the preface to the original collection I wrote, “There’s a lot of truth in all fiction and a lot of fiction in all truth, so what may seem real may, in fact, be made up, and what may seem made up could very well be based on fact. The characters in this collection only exist in the author’s and the reader’s mind and if they bear a resemblance to anyone you know, then it’s merely a coincidence.”

As we all know there’s a blurry line between truth and fiction. Some stories that I wrote started out based on fact and got changed along the way to make it a better story. Others started out as pure fiction but some truth got added in to make the story seem more realistic. I tried to make all the stories seem real, as if they had happened. Maybe that’s why these 15 – now 17 stories – have been published, at last count, 83 times in twelve countries (updated, August 2024), taught in numerous Malaysian universities, private colleges, in SPM literature, and even a high school in Canada.

So with the new version of Lovers and Strangers Revisited published by MPH, I thought I would do a series of blogs on the stories – the story behind the story – which I hope will answer these questions about truth and fiction and also, perhaps, inspire some of you who write to take another look at your own story ideas, to see if you can make them resonate with the reader, and perhaps even break you from your own truth, which often gets in the way of a good short story.

Already I can hear protests, “But that’s the way it really happened!” Yes, no doubt, but to get to the essential story, the “real” story, sometimes you need to take a step back from your truth and ask yourself, does your truth serve the story, or does it hamper it? Of course, I’m referring to writing fiction not a memoir. And by making the necessary changes, you never know where you’re story will take you. For example, I started a story about a man riding in a taxi and it ended up being published 13 times, and now it’s the lead story in this collection.

The original idea for “On Fridays” came when I was part-time adviser for MACEE, Malaysian American Commission on Educational Exchange. Every Friday I would take a sixteen kilometer taxi ride into George Town. It was a share taxi, whereby we share it with other passengers, who get on and off at various locations.

I saw this taxi as a metaphor for multiracial Malaysia, where people of various races live and work in close proximity and in relative harmony. So I added an unnamed Westerner, an expat, who becomes interested in a Malay woman sitting beside him in a taxi, yet because of the other passengers, he feels too self-conscious to act.

Although I normally write in the third person, I chose to write this story in the first person at the expense of people assuming that it’s autobiographical. As many of you know, when you use the first person “I” as the narrator, people naturally assume it’s the author or in this case, it’s “me”. Unlike the character, by the way, I don’t paint, and the character taught English years before I ever did.

The effect I was going for, I felt, would be better served using “I”, because I wanted the reader to closely identify with the narrator, to see himself in this, or in a similar situation, and think about what he or she would do - to make the story more personal. From the comments I got in the past – it works. This was the one story from my collection that people would bring up and then relate a similar experience of their own.

Another choice I made was not using the past tense and opting for the present tense, because I felt it would give the story more immediacy, and hopefully a timeless quality. And perhaps make it linger, as does the ending, so it would seem that this just happened.

Also from the hundreds of taxi rides I took while living in Penang, I chose to “create” one that was representative of all those rides. By using the senses – see, hear, feel, taste and smell – I tried to make this one taxi ride as realistic as possible by putting the reader in that taxi with me. If they believe in that taxi ride, then they’ll believe in the story. That it’s the “truth”; that it “happened”; that there really was “a girl”; and that I’m still “searching” for her....When my creative writing students read this story, they inevitably ask me, “Have you found her yet?”

When I first wrote the story I had a lot of details describing the sights along the way. An editor from the UK made the comment that it read too much like a travelogue. So I cut out the descriptions that weren’t necessary. It was also suggested that I make the character single. His being married raised some moral issues – like is he cheating on his wife? Good advice, which I took, and an example of how "facts" or "truth" can have unforeseen consequences in your fiction. This is the version that first got published in Female in Singapore, Plaza in Japan and Going Down Swinging Australia.

A reader, unfamiliar with Malaysia, asked me what’s the big deal if he does touch her in the taxi, so while revisiting the story for Lovers and Strangers Revisited, I worked in the character’s concerns about being arrested for “outraging her modesty” since he’s an expat in a Muslim country, something that many people outside of Malaysia who are not familiar with Muslim countries would know. As a writer, you can't always assume that overseas readers, if that is who you also want to reach, will "get it".

Then I got to thinking, why doesn't he get out of the taxi at the jetty and follow her (I would!), and if he does, I would also need to make it clear why he has to return to the taxi, for fear of losing his job, something difficult for an expat to get without a work permit. So I added this new scene to the story.

A US editor suggested that I lop off the final paragraph. I didn’t like his suggestion, yet I felt he had a point, so we compromised by rearranging a couple of paragraphs at the end, to make the story more effective, so the focus wasn’t on the man’s loneliness, but on his obsession. This became the version that was published simultaneously, as a joint-venture, between a literary magazine in France, Frank, and The Literary Review in the US, and with some minor editing, this MPH collection, and now Cha: An Asian Literary Review and Thema (due out in 2025) as reprints.

Lovers and Strangers Revisited is now getting translated into French as Trois autres Malaisie.

Here is a review in The Star (MPH) and a link to the other story behind the stories for Lovers and Strangers Revisited.

*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 

The Art of Finishing: Write for Yourself First

I just finished the first draft of a new screenplay, about 130 pages long. It’s always nice when you finish something. Finish, by the way, is a relative term. For writers, the key word/s is first draft. Until that first draft is completed what you have is an uncompleted piece of work. Once that first draft is done, now you can really get down to work because you have some­thing to work on. Then draft after draft of rewriting, revising, rearranging you can take your story closer to finishing a final draft.

Chances are, though, this will merely be the first final draft. Later, after the newness has worn off, after there’s been a cooling off period, after it failed to create the huge impact on the world as you had hoped, you’ll take another look at it. Hopefully, you’ve got some feedback along the way, so now you can see it with fresh eyes and start rewriting, revising, rearranging. You may add more stuff, delete some stuff, change the title, change some character’s names or make it clearer what drives them, perhaps by adding some back story or adding a new scene to dramatize some action that solidifies their character. You may rewrite the beginning a dozen more times, or the ending, too, while you’re add it, to create the desired effect.

Of course this all comes later, but first you must actually finish that first draft! Whether it’s an article, short story, screenplay, novel makes no difference. Finishing is finishing.

How do you finish anything? It’s a lot like, how do you save money? Pay yourself first –that’s what I always hear and it seems to be working! Before you spend any money or pay any bills, put part of your income (starting small if necessary) into the bank or into some safe investment. You do this automatically. To make sure it actually gets done, have it automatically deducted from your paycheck!

Unfortunately, when it comes to writing, you can’t automatically write your novel, but you can use the same principle, write for yourself first. Instead of writing for everyone else, which includes replying emails, blog comments, and checking out everyone else’s blogs and adding your own replies, and then cruising the Internet to see what everyone else on the planet is doing, you commit your time – maybe your first one or two hours to what you want to write (and want to finish).

Once you get that first hour in under your belt, you may want to keep on writing. Momentum is everything! And that’s great! Use it! If you need a quick break, or really do need to catch up on your emails and blog comments, then by all means do that, but please make it quick, or the four hours you had planned to write that Sunday afternoon will quickly evaporate.

Like saving money, writing comes down to discipline, but if you make a commitment to yourself, to the writer you wish to become, to the author of the books you wish to write, and if you stick to your plan (and don’t take a quick peek at your email before that first hour or two of writing is done) you may actually get something written.

Because if you do take a quick peek at your inbox (all of them!), you may think, I can clear a few of these in a couple of minutes (and while you’re at it a few more, and few more – a few minutes add up to a few hours, by the way) or you just may stumble upon an interesting, ongoing saga/problem/miscommunication from a dear (or even a long lost) friend. In comparison, even when sorting out a potential email headache, this may seem a lot more interesting than staring at that blank screen to write what you really want to write but lack in discipline to start, let along seeing it through until that first draft gets completed.

I’ve been there, done that, in both squandering precious writing time (I only had two hours to write and it all went to email - which prompted this blog!) or the other extreme of ignoring emails until they balloon to 200. Yeah, I feel really guilty about taking weeks to reply friends, but feel really good because I’ve taken a back burner project from a year ago (my screenplay idea), to seeing it completed, even if it’s merely a first draft. Feels great!

First drafts, no matter how crappy they really are, are, in fact, great! Finally, you got it done! You took it that far, too, and by applying the same discipline of writing for yourself first each day (or each writing opportunity), you’ll soon have a second draft, a third draft. Then it’ll be ready to be sent out into the world. Sure it may come right back, but that’s writing, and as a writer you keep at it until you do get it right and that’s how articles, short stories, screenplays, and books get written and published.

So always write for yourself first! While you’re at it, save some of money, too. You may need it to celebrate that breakthrough sale that sets you on your way to publishing success. Good luck.

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 

Countdown to 100

I just sold a short story, “Waiting” to Thema, in the US, my fourth sale to them, and my 96th short story publication. It’s taking me a while to get to 100.

My first sale to Thema, by the way, was “Sister’s Room” back in 2004, where I was at number 83. Then I sold “Following the Cat” in 2006 (88), and “Neighbors” in 2007 (90). 91 was “Malaysian Games”, runner-up in 2007 Wisdom-Faulkner Short Story contest, which I’m led to believe will be published in 2008, but so far they haven’t contacted me (they have the right to publish or not publish it due to its runner-up position). If they pass on this, then I’ll have to revise my tally, which in the past I’ve had to do on numerous occasions, when one publication or another changed its mind (usually when they change editors).

Short stories 92 and 93 are “Transactions in Thai” and “Only in Malaysia”; both published in Malaysia in 2008 in Silverfish New Writings 7. 94 was “The Future Barrister” published in Singapore in QRLS. For 95, I’m not allowed to disclose this since it’s for a future examination (around the world I’m told), whereby they’ll be using one fourth of the actual story.

That brings me back to 96. And four more to go until I reach 100! I still have a few stories floating around in the marketplace so I may get some more sales real soon. Then again months can go by…and nothing. For years I hardly sent anything out (focusing my time on novels and screenplays), and then I had two major and one minor move, from the US to Penang, Malaysia, within Penang, and then from Penang to Kuching, Sarawak (also in Malaysia but across the sea) where I put everything on hold until I had a firm address. Children (and occasionally work) have also turned my writing life upside down.

But now I’m close to 100 and that’s exciting for me! Some stories, I have to admit have been published more than once, in non-competing markets like here in Malaysia and Singapore, where I’m based. I’ve also published short stories in India, Japan, Denmark, France, Australia, United Kingdom and USA.

My first published short story was “Mat Salleh” based on my Malaysian wedding, in The New Straits Times back in 1986. Another story was accepted in 1985 but it didn’t get published until much later. How many different stories have I published? Technically 28, and I’ve been stuck on that number since 2003! Many of the stories, over the years, have been completely overhauled, with new titles and some even doubled in length, but, technically, it’s the same “story”. What to do?

When was the last time I actually wrote a brand new story (as opposed to editing and overhauling old stories, which I do regularly every year, including reviving a few from the dead)? In 2003 I wrote “Father’s Day” and also wrote ‘This is Only a Test”, after I found the long-lost (ten years!), heavily-edited first draft (long-hand) in the wrong desk file. Since it was never completed, I consider this my “latest” story. I've started a few other stories, including one last year, but never got around to completing them.

My biggest year for selling short stories was 1992, I sold 16! Back then I was aggressively marketing them to put food on the table. So why do I keep score? If you don’t, how will you know where you stand? If I include my articles, anecdotes and books, then I stand at 435. Sounds like a lot, right? To put that in perspective, I have friends who are columnists for newspapers and they blow by that number in less then 9 years. And if you work for a newspaper, you can do that number in one year!

Still, I’m happy to be at 96 in short stories publications, and I’m looking forward to counting down to 100. I just hope I can sell my latest two stories, or two other stories that have never been published (I have five in that category, not including the dozens of stories discarded decades ago), so I can finally reach 30! In terms of age, I passed that number a long time ago. And decades from now I hope to reach that other 100. I wonder how many short stories I’ll have published by then? One thing for certain, I will be keeping score.

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 

Getting into the Game

You can't win if you don't get into the game. Of course you could spend your life watching others play the game from the sidelines, where it's nice and safe. But you'll never win. If you get into the game, you have a chance. More importantly you're competing; you're putting yourself out there and you're probably having some fun too. Yeah, you could look like a fool now and then, get some personal rejection, but at least you're in the game!

For writers there are many games that you can get into, whether it's a short story or a novel contest. Or you could play the getting an agent game or having your work published game. Of course you can always go back to the sidelines and whine complain about how you can't compete with the big boys (and big girls). But did you even try? Maybe you just gave up to soon.

Personally I love to hear those stories of how famous, best-selling novels were turned down by everyone it seemed, yet the author persevered by staying in the game and ultimately won. Sadly some couldn't handle the rejection and drank themselves into oblivion or even committed suicide. Had they stayed in there a little longer, they may have even won the Pulitzer Prize! Sound unlikely? That's exactly what happend to A Confederacy of Dunces, a novel written by John Kennedy Toole, and published in 1980, 11 years after the author's suicide. His mother eventually sold the book. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confederacy_of_Dunces).

For over twenty years I've beem drifting in and out of the game. It's easy to get discouraged, to lose confidence, to give up. I always kept writing, though, putting in my 15 hours a week, but I was still on the sidelines, putting in token efforts here and there to sell my work. Then an opportunity came to re-publish Lovers and Strangers, which I retitled Lovers and Strangers Revisited back in 2005. And now it's being published again in 2008.

This got me thinking, what else do I have that could get me back in the game beyond Malaysia? I have all these novels and screenplays. They will never sell if no one sees them. I knew they needed rewritten, but I wasn't rewriting them. Then the realization struck me, if I want to be a novelist, then I need to spend the bulk of my writing times writing novels. If I want to make some serious money as a screenplay writer, then I need to make time to rewrite my screenplays.

Then I need to start marketing my work to agents, entering them into contests, and looking at future ideas. Ideas from my past, too. Maybe the timing was not right before and now it is. So now I'm getting back into the game with a vengenace. I plan to make the year 2008 the year I turned it all around by getting serious about writing. The first five months have been extremely productive. Already I've resuscitated one novel and two screeplays and several short stories from the dead. They're out there now looking for a home.

If I can't take my writing, my craft seriously, why should anyone else bother? What kind of legacy do I want to leave behind, a file cabinet full of unpublished novels, unproduced screeplays? Or a few (preferrably twenty) books and several films? How about your own legacy? Do you want to remain on the sidelines or get into the game? What are you waiting for!

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