I was very pleased to have applied for this course. It was just the thing I needed – the luxury of writing. I am not interested in posh hotel breaks or spa treats. What attracted me was the quality of the teaching staff. Zoe Gilbert and Lily Dunn are not only published writers, they are also lecturers. The venue is an eclectic warehouse conversion and extension in Clapton Ponds, East London. The place itself, which you enter through a subtropical courtyard garden, was quite inspiring and filled with natural light and interesting objets d’arts. There were ten people on the course all at different levels of writing. They were all women so it was like a hen weekend for women writers.
On the first day, we did a couple of word games to warm up, followed by ‘jumping straight in’. You can either use and existing idea or try out a new one using images and articles provided. I tried out a new idea. I originally chose two photos and tried to make up a story but it was already like another story. Cautious not to waste any of my 6 hours of time on that day, I decided to use the other option to generate idea – using articles from newspaper and magazines.
I found a copy of New Scientist and dropped it on the ground. On whatever page it flew open, I read the entire two pages and had found something that sparked an idea. On that day itself I wrote 3,000 words of a first draft I would never have been able to do at home.
Throughout the course we were given plenty of handouts to take away and to study. These are very useful and I will be referring to them again and again as they are very concise and well-written. There were plenty of opportunities for discussion and debate. Zoe and Lily are very encouraging and helpful. They even brought in their own work to crit, so we can learn by doing. On the Sunday morning we were given formal taught lessons in writing. This is all very precious salient stuff and I will revisit my course notes again. After lunch we worked on editing and I edited a story I wrote a few months ago but it was too long to be done at one go (5,000 words) and I also found a way of producing a climactic ending.
Lunch on both days was homemade soup. It was very tasty vegetarian soup with accompaniments of salad, bread, cheese, pickle and chutneys. It was very healthy as there was no dessert! I am a very bad cook so I have no idea what soups they were. After a few days I recovered from the intensity and hard work. I am ready to edit the story I wrote there and I cannot wait to share it once I have got it right. I would recommend this course to anybody, beginner or advanced, who is keen in an intense burst of writing, or to kickstart writing after a hiatus like myself.
So you have pitched and now you are wondering how the hell did I do?
1. On the pitching letter. Make it pithy and make each one the best letter you ever wrote. If you know them v well, aim for the heart. Go deeper. Ask how Anna’s Grade V piano exam went and how James’ operation in July went for instance. This is to show you have a very good memory. A pitch is not a friendly email and a friendly email is not a pitch. Each pitch has to be tailor-made. The hello how are you is very impersonal and could be cut and pasted from another pitch. If you are close to them, then show them that this project is close to you by being specific. If you don’t know them very well, see this other post, Your Crowdfunding Pitch Letter.
2. On being ignored. Do not take it personally. It’s sales so it’s irritating for both seller and buyer. I understand what you’re going through, it’s very hard to stomach it. We have all suffered. “A moment of optimism will save you a hundred days of sorrow”- Chinese proverb
3. On rejections- it’s to do with courses for horses – naturally your own project is close to you but literally no one cares and no one is thinking about it.. E.g. 1 More than half of my close family on my mother’s side are all born again serious religious types. Why would/should they support my book about immorality and the life of excess in the west?! I respect them for that.
E.g. 2 You may have made the best banana cake in the world but if they don’t like bananas and/or they don’t like cake they will just not buy your product. There is no try before you buy. Therefore in your pitch you have to work out why they need to fund this project. It could be as simple as they like you and they want to support you. In fact I recall many instances where I end up buying some beauty product I don’t even want or like because I really like the seller and I bonded with her/him. Also eco, yes, sustainable, yes, ok whatever, I’ll just shut up and hand over my credit card. What usually sounds good is probably good.
4. It’s just statistics or a numbers game. If you ask 100 people to a party and thirty say yes then that’s not a bad return. If you increase that to a thousand and three hundred say yes then you’ve got it! It’s a party!
5. There is no 5. Just go back to the Thing about the moment of optimism.
Robert Raymer is an American writer and writing facilitator from Grove City, Pennsylvania, who now lives in Kuching, Sarawak on the island of Borneo.
I have met Robert just once. I mentioned him in another blog post called “My First Prize-winning Story was typed on this typewriter” about when I first started submitting my work to competitions and won a short story workshop as a prize for a story I entered. I was 17. I had travelled to the big city of Kuala Lumpur for the first time as part of the prize was attending this workshop. I had never been to KL on my own before. I was totally naive and he was the first American I had met and I thought hey, this glamorous guy must be a movie star from Hollywood as all Americans were movie stars, were they not? The only other white people I had ever met were three women preachers or missionaries from my mum’s home church who played the church organ, wore frocks and sandals and sang gospel hymns all in harmony. They were not film stars. They were Methodists from New Zealand.
It was thirty years ago. I am now 47. About twelve years ago, Robert was the editor for an anthology of short stories called Silverfish New Writing 4. He selected and edited my short story entitled “Friday Night at the Pheasant”. I have lost touch and found him again, thanks to the internet. It seems that life has its circular way of making sense.
I am really honoured that I got to interview Robert here. I have read most if not all of Robert’s stories and what comes across is that he really loves writing and his work is accessible. He writes with kindness, passion and humour. Here he shares with honesty his invaluable experience, hard work and expertise as a writer which he has gained over many decades, his lessons learned and re-learned, the dedication and sacrifices he and his family have made. Warning: This post is a treasure trove. Look away now if you do not wish to know the skill, hardship and labour of love that is the writing life.
-Interview begins-
1. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?
Usually once you publish a book, you move onto the next one, but when the publisher, Heinemann Asia got bought out and the buyer got bought out, too, and dropped their whole line of fiction, I found my three-year-old collection of short stories orphaned. So I kept revising the individual stories, trying to sell them to markets outside of Malaysia/ Singapore. Then a Malaysian lecturer wanted to use my now-out-of-print book for his course on post-colonial writing, so I contacted another publisher that said yes. But first I took a hard look at the stories, hired an editor to rip them apart, and then I overhauled the stories, adding back-stories, changing endings, even doubling several stories in length. After moving to Sarawak and not finding the book in the stores, the Malaysian publisher blamed it on the Singapore distributor refusal to ship the books because of the additional costs, so with his blessing I switched to a third publisher, and revised everything again. That third collection, with the addition of two stories, won the 2009 Popular Reader’s Choice Award and was translated into French. Those original 15 stories (minus one, plus two) have been published 80 times in twelve countries. I even blogged a story-behind-the-stories series, pointing out the significant changes for each story that led to their publications locally and overseas.
The lesson, even though a book is published, doesn’t mean you can’t improve it.
That surely applies to unpublished novels that I felt could’ve been published a long time ago— I’ve had offers, but I didn’t think it would ever get out of Malaysia or Singapore. The heavily-revised books are so much better than what they would have been had I settled for a local publisher.
2. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer?
Investing in myself by moving to Malaysia to write full time (and taking the slow route, backpacking nine months until I got dysentery),
after writing “Mat Salleh”, a short story about meeting my Malaysian-in-laws, later published in the UK, and completing the first draft of a terrible novel to prove that I could at least stick with it. As a footnote, that “Mat Salleh” story attracted the attention of Ohio University (USA) twenty years later who wanted to film it; instead they opted to film another story of mine, “Home for Hari Raya” in Malaysia.
3. How long were you a part-time writer before you became a full-time one?
That’s a tricky question. I was a part time writer for a few years in the US but chose to move to Malaysia in order to write full time, though I was mostly living off savings. Once that money ran out, I went back to working/teaching full time and writing part-time for another twenty years.
Although I write full time now, I’m also a house husband looking after two boys, age 10 and 13.
For now, I’m not making enough to support myself full time, but that is a trade off we made….Living in Malaysia, in Borneo, as a writer is a lot cheaper than living in the US or the UK. Now and then, when my wife has a really bad day, she’ll ask me for a progress report to keep me honest…Luckily, one of the perks for her job is travelling every year to Germany and then taking an extra week to travel in Europe while I stay home with the kids…
4. How many hours a day do you write? Tell us about your day.
Writing full time when you have children rarely means writing full time.
Since my elder son started to attend afternoon school my day has become topsy-turvy. On school days I’m up by 5:30 and by 6:00 the children are en route to school and I’m free to write until about 10:15. Then I have to cook and feed my elder son and take him to school and pick up my younger son and feed us both lunch. By 2:30, I’m back to writing. On the evenings that I cook, I stop around 6:00 and if I’m lucky, I can get back to work by 8:45. By 10:00 I’m usually in bed. The days I don’t cook dinner, I can work from 2:30 until about 7:45 and be back to work by 8:30 until 10:00. Of course not all of that is sole writing time, since I do have children,
but when I’m pushing a self-imposed or a real deadline, I’m surprised by how much work I can get done when I focus on the work and ignore distractions, including my children, who naturally take advantage of me….
Weekends depend if they have any school activities (swimming) on Saturday morning or tuition in the afternoon and our plans to watch a movie or go out for dinner. Sundays, after cooking brunch, I usually write all afternoon, often into the evening, especially when pushing a deadline.
5. What advice would you give writers who are facing only rejections?
If you are getting rejections that means you are writing and submitting your work and that is good.
No rejections, usually translates into not writing or not submitting your work. It’s all about perseverance and writing better stories and revising and outlasting those rejections. They say you only fail as a writer when you stop writing, so don’t stop writing! Remember that every best-selling author, every published writer started out getting rejected again and again! They didn’t give up; they persevered. The question you have to ask yourself: will you give up or will you persevere? Also read widely and read successful books you would not normally read to see what makes them successful. Read, learn and apply what you have learned to your writing. Self-help books do help!
6. Have you read anything that made you think differently about fiction?
Rarely do I read any book that doesn’t make me think differently about fiction.
When I read good non-fiction it can read like fiction, if it has a good story to tell in an interesting way. This used to surprise me, but good fiction can also read like non-fiction (think memoir—James Frey, anyone?) if your characters and setting and all the details ring true and seem real to the reader, even if you’re making most of it up, so long as the story is good.
7. What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?
Other than financial, it is patience and knowing when your work is ready for publication and not just because you are tired of monkeying around with it and can’t wait to become rich and famous. It’s having the courage to accept that maybe it’s not the best it could be and then rolling up your sleeves and revising it yet again.
Having gone through it again, if done earnestly, you’re often glad that you did, surprised by how much you were able to improve the manuscript on nearly every single page!
So keep doing that! I now go through each chapter three times whether it’s my 5th, 10th or 20th draft, after I’ve printed it out and line edited it, and the changes I keep making are immense….And I thought it was already good, ready to be published! So you can either blame the agents and the publishers or get back to work and find out what’s missing or what could be fixed or improved.
8. What are you working on now and what are you planning on writing next? Tell us about your next project.
I have sequels planned for three novels that I wrote, including one set in Penang, which will be sandwiched between two other novels, part of a trilogy.
Originally I hadn’t planned a trilogy, or even a sequel, but when I realized both novels could be related, I changed the character in the second book to match that in a much earlier novel, and reconciled the dates, the back-stories; but then I realized that I had always planned to write a third novel set in Penang based on an incident that happened to me and I thought, this might work between the other two books, involving the same character. Since I had purposely introduced a new character at the end of the first book who would be one of the main characters in that now third book, she could be in the second book, too, along with several upcoming characters. So that second book is starting to feel like a prequel to that third book. Also, I had written a novel set in the US about a shooting incident involving a child, and I have two novels planned as sequels. Then last year I adapted a screenplay into a humorous novel about a hapless spirit helping a boy find a new mother. Of course, I have a sequel planned for that….In fact, I was itching to start either that or the other set in the US by mid-July while waiting for the results of the Faulkner-Wisdom contest where I have submitted five novels.
But two weeks ago, while showering, I suddenly found a way to begin another novel idea that I had been collecting notes on that I felt was more marketable, so I put everything else on hold.
Since I’m still in the early stages of writing the first draft, I don’t want to let the genie out of the bottle before I finish writing it. Based on past experience, the drive to write the story is gone once you start talking about the story. You can talk the story right out of your system. Write it first, talk about it later when the story is written or it’ll always be just another idea that you never got around to write. I figured if never got another new idea for another novel, I could spend the rest of my life happily writing sequels based on the notes I already typed into my computer (dozens of pages for most, others a whole lot more) and that’s not a bad feeling….I admit, at times, I do feel like that donkey that starves to death because it can’t decide between two stacks of hay. So finding a third stack can be a real life saver…
9. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work?
Edit…which I do now and then. Having taught creative writing for thirteen years at two universities and having line edited about a thousand manuscripts, I know I can help other writers because I can see what they are missing. Of course, it’s always easier to see the flaws in someone else’s work than your own, but after a while, you see similar flaws in your own work and because you were able to fix their work, you can now fix yours….
And if you had stopped writing for any reason, you would think, hell I can write better
than that, and this would lead you back into your own writing and editing your own
work…
-Interview ends-
Thank you so much Robert for the incredible interview! I can’t wait to hear the results of the Faulkner-Wisdom Competition and please join me in wishing him every success. I hope he starts on the seeds of his new novel imminently. Find him at www.borneoexpatwriter.com. Read his entertaining and insightful blog here.
About Robert Raymer:
After graduating from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, he was a regional manager for Kinko,[1] in charge of 11 stores in three states before moving to Penang, Malaysia where he lived for 21 years and taught creative writing at Universiti Sains Malaysia. He also taught creative writing at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. He is the author of a collection of short stories set in Malaysia (Lovers and Strangers Revisited, MPH Group, 2008), a collection of creative nonfiction (Tropical Affairs, MPH, 2009), and a travel book (Spirit of Malaysia, Editions Didier Millet, 2011).
Named as one of the “50 Expats You Should Know in Malaysia” by Expatriate Lifestyle magazine (January 2010),[2] Robert Raymer’s short stories and articles have appeared in many publications including The Literary Review, London Magazine, Thema, Descant, The Writer and Reader’s Digest. One story from Lovers and Strangers Revisited has been used for the Cambridge International Examinations and others have been taught in Malaysian universities, private colleges and Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia literature in secondary schools,[3] as well as in a high school in Canada. He was the editor of Silverfish New Writing 4. Three of his novels have been “short-list” finalists in the 2009 and 2011 Faulkner-Wisdom Novel Competition.
Dude, I am not allowed to complain because I was and am a writer therefore I am already a masochist. In fact I am hanging upside down now flogging myself. It took me more than a decade (I think 13 years and still counting) to write both these books. They are at last both being published the TRADITIONAL way which was what I wanted. It’s a dream come true so that is why I am not allowed to complain. Headache, backache, finger pain, joint and wrist pain, hangover, insomnia, stress, hives, hypertension, hyperventilation, just hyper, overeating, undereating, sick or feeling sick, nauseous, tired, exhaustion, not enough sleep, too much sleep, over caffeinated, under caffeinated, not enough guitar-playing, too much guitar-playing. A Tale of Two Books in Two Months. If I complain, somebody please give me a slap.
And this is caused by?
Myself. Over the last five weeks I have been feeling very stressed, not only were there three disasters in succession in London – the London Bridge attack, Grenfell Tower fire, and the Finsbury Park mosque attack, I have had to handle the most crucial process of the fantasy world of writing and art. Turning them from ideas to reality. There were actually real disasters going on out there that I just could not ignore. My own writing and art have suffered delays because I am in that crazy living-the-dream situation of having two books out this year and at any one point, one has to be ignored (usually “one” means me, but this time it means one of the books). It’s called sibling rivalry and I cannot give attention to both at the same time. I am a mum so I know this for sure.
What have you been doing all this time?
Well first I wrote the books. That’s when all the trouble began. Then I crowdfunded one of them and sent one to an international competition. More trouble. Now that’s all over and this timeline begins:
Thursday 30 March 2017 – Submit Heart of Glass MS for structural editing. Finished editing Cry of the Flying Rhino and sent back to Hong Kong.
Friday 12 May 2017 – Received HoG MS with commentary back and Unbound editor’s crib sheet (London)
Tuesday 16 May 2017 – First round HoGstructural edit begins. Work with publisher closely. Start building and compiling international network of writer, blogger, journalist, lecturer contacts for Cry of the Flying Rhino (London, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore… so far) PR later on.
Tuesday 6 June 2017 – First round HoG completed and handed back to Unbound. Start on Cry cover designs.
Friday 9 June 2017 – Heart of GlassEditor pleased. Replied with another sheet of minor comments.
Monday 12 June 2017 – Second round begins. Hand in the Cry of the Flying Rhino cover designs for publisher’s comments
Wednesday 21 June 2017 – Received news that the launch date of Cry is Thursday 16 November 2017 in Hong Kong where I will be travelling to to receive my prize and to do the launch. I am not sure what that entails.
Thursday 22 June 2017– Handed back HoG(this is where we are at). Revise Cry cover designs. Go to printer shop, print and test 300 DPI resolution OK or not. If not OK, must re-do at 600 DPI. Received email that two Hong Kong authors/lecturers have written their advanced comments for Cry back cover text.
Why did you undertake the design of the Cry book cover?
Note: Although the publisher in Hong Kong, Proverse, has a designer to hand, I am actually a designer myself and have been for the last 22 or 24 years (lost track myself) though not a print designer. I know the software backwards. I laid out my school newsletters, Uni journals etc. Since then I have designed countless artwork for my architectural business, band promotional material, posters, CD covers, leaflets, coffee morning artwork for the school, piano lesson artwork etc. Therefore I felt roughly competent and being the OCD control freak that I was, I felt compelled to undertake it. To see the two draft designs click here.
What’s your plan now?
To keep juggling the two as I don’t know how to do a book launch for one book let alone two. Hold that thought. Check back soon. The juggler will be back on the circuit once the traffic congestion eases.
Because I am a control freak, I decided to have a stab at cover design myself. The first one, the black and red one is inspired by Iban tattoo pattern and Alfred Hitchcock film posters by illustrator/artist Saul Bass. But I think it might be deemed too London, too retro. The second and the third are variations on the same which the idea of the rich mystery of the deep, dark jungle.
Guess which one the publisher chose? It surprised me too.
… celebrating for the first time with Unbound authors. It has been 12 or 13 years since I did my MA and listened to ‘readings’ from a writers’ group. I was touched that my new international writer friends had travelled from all over- Italy, Coventry, Winchester, Oxford and London of course, to my corner of SW London. It reminded me of the old days (1990s) of writers group where you meet in writers’ homes. There were no photos because no one carried such as thing as a camera around let alone a phone. I deliberately did not take photos of our secret gig on Sat 10th June. And definitely none of food!
In the old days you actually had to call people on their landlines (Hello? Hello? Are you coming tonight? Did you know it is tonight? I left so many messages on your ansaphone? I gotta go now, the boss is back. Click.) during your lunch hour from your office phones as there was no mobile phones or email then, or you had to actually use your landlines in the evenings from home. Today’s gig was intimately organised via Messenger, and not EventBrite or other invitation platforms.
For this event I invited everyone but I naturally hoped that not everyone of the 201 UB authors would turn up. During lunch we chatted about writing, publishing, agents, everybody’s experiences of the C-word*. After pizzas, salads, chicken legs and mojitos, we heard everyone’s work interspersed with cake, prosecco and tea break. We heard Jessica Duchen‘s new magical realist writing (Jessica is author of Ghost Variations), from Tamsen Courtenay, author of Four Feet Under, about the plight of the homeless, the only non-fiction writing in the group, an ‘uncut’ exclusive excerpt from Patrick Kincaid‘s The Continuity Girl. Jennie Ensor read stalker-point-of-view excerpts from her thriller Blind Side. Damon Wakes, author of Ten Little Astronauts, read interactive fiction from his 150,000 word “Girth Loinhammer’s Most Exponential Adventure” coming out this year on a Spanish label. I didn’t read from my Unbound book, Heart of Glass, instead read an old short story published in the Silverfish New Writing 4 anthology called“Friday Night at the Pheasant”. For those of you who did not hear but would like to read it, click on the link. Yvonne Lyon left her Prologue from the Burning Road: Book One: Moorland on the bus so she didn’t get to read it! For those of you who would like to read it, it is here. Yvonne is a friend from 2001 and we met in south of France on a writers’ retreat week.
It was a really heartwarming experience and support group which reminded us that before social media and all this nonsense, we were and are writers, and after social media and all this nonsense, we were and are friends. I can probably qualify as a tea girl now that I managed to make English tea. I think some of the other writers from the southern contingent would be fighting and elbowing their way to host the next secret gig. Whose turn next? Tune in to find out!
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PS. No one even mentioned the elections which is unbelievable? How retro is that? Remember the ancient caveat: Do not talk politix at writers’ do’s.
“Do not enter when light is on!” Structural edit: that means blasting, incision, internal tissue re-organisation and cosmetic surgery. But of course, I am not talking metaphorically at all. I am talking about the body of work. Words. I’ve created strict exam conditions in the attic AKA the cutting room. There’s no furniture. I sit on the floor monk-like so it’s not very comfortable and I cannot fall asleep. The only distractions I am surrounding myself with are:
Junk food, some “guilt-free”, if you believe the wrappers;
Only two musical instruments for when the going gets tougher (limited to only two, otherwise it will turn into a party);
Vintage Sennheiser headphones to listen to the music from the book to remind myself of the great songs which inspired the story. Playlist? Yes? A musical? Maybe?!
My editor, who has worked in top publishing houses such as Orion, Hodder & Stoughton, Headline and Bantam in New York, is a specialist in this genre and has editted bestselling authors such as Linwood Barclay, Tess Gerritsen et al. We are in this together, me, you and him, and we are going to make Heart of Glass the best that it can be. And a tight deadline. I started on this process 10 days ago. I should be done with this edit in another two weeks. 79,000 words in three weeks, right? What do you mean “Vitamin D deficiency”? OK. Until then…
This is the Proverse Spring Reception on 27 April 2017. The film is 53:09 minutes long. The section where they announce the prize winners is from 4:32 to 9:10.
However, you may wish to watch to the end. It is actually very entertaining, especially as new books are being launched, and there are readings by writers and poets from all over the world. It is an evening celebrating writing, writers and books and a special treat for book lovers everywhere.
I am thrilled my first novel Cry of the Flying Rhino has won this prestigious international literary prize for an unpublished full-length work of prose fiction.
Winning the 2016 Proverse Prize is important in promoting excellence in literature and the love of and for books, across all boundaries of race, country, creed. International writing is still at the heart of postcolonial literature, which as a Commonwealth writer, I am proud to represent. Results were announced in the spring reception in Hong Kong on the evening of Thursday 27 April 2017. Cry (89,119 words) will be published in November in Hong Kong this year. I will travel there to receive the prize, to meet the judges, the publishers, readers, writers, guests, the organisers and finally,my book.
I entered the competition on 19 May 2016 before I even wrote to Unbound regarding Heart of Glass. It is a cash prize of 10K HK dollars (look it up, pound has gone down) and publication of the book. Having written for some 40 years with so much blood, sweat and tears (cliche, sorry, yes I know, but how else to put it?), indeed I am crying and my skin is thick as a rhino’s. I have managed to get not just one book out, but both, this year. Although it seems like a coincidence, it is not. I only started submitting my work with any seriousness last year and despite everything,
I carried on like some kind of bumper sticker. (“If life gives you lemons” etc). Rejection after rejection (the holy grail of all writers) and eventually acceptance.
About the book:Cry of the Flying Rhino, told from multiple viewpoints and in multiple voices, is set in 1996 in Malaysia and Borneo. Malaysian Chinese GP Benjie Lee has had a careless one night stand with his new employee – mysterious, teenaged Talisa, the adopted daughter of a wealthy, crass Scottish plantation owner, Ian, in the provincial Malaysian town of Segamat. Talisa’s arms are covered in elaborate tattoos, symbolic of great personal achievements among the Iban tribe in her native Borneo. Talisa has fallen pregnant and Ian forces Benjie to marry her. Benjie, who relished his previous life as a carefree, cosmopolitan bachelor, struggles to adapt to life as a husband and father. Meanwhile, an Iban called Minos has languished in a Borneo prison for 10 years for a murder he didn’t commit, and is released into English missionary Bernard’s care. When one day, a Minos and his sidekick Watan appear in Segamat, Benjie has to confront his wife’s true identity and ultimately his own fears. He has only just noticed that he is losing money in large amounts. Could the tattoos be the key to her secrets?
About the publishers: Proverse Hong Kong is based in Hong Kong with regional and international connections. The International Proverse Prize for Unpublished Non-fiction, Fiction and Poetry is open to all irrespective of residence, citizenship or nationality. The Publishers were born in the UK and have lived and worked in many countries. They visit Australia, Europe, Japan, Mainland China, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the USA.
Previous winners of the Proverse Prize: Rebecca Tomasis, for her novel, “Mishpacha – Family” Laura Solomon, for her young adult novella, “Instant Messages” Gillian Jones, for her novel, “A Misted Mirror” David Diskin, for his novel, “The Village in the Mountains” Peter Gregoire, for his novel, “Article 109” Sophronia Liu, for her collection of sketches, “A Shimmering Sea” Birgit Linder, for her illustrated poetry collection, “Shadows in Deferment” James McCarthy, for his biography, “The Diplomat of Kashgar” Philip Chatting, for “The Snow Bridge and Other Stories” Celia Claase, for her essay and poetry collection, “The Layers Between” Lawrence Gray, for his novel, “Adam’s Franchise” Gustav Preller, for his novel, “Curveball: Life never comes at you straight”
Crowdfunding. Is. Over. The three big little words. 100% in 100 days. And the last 3%? Was the longest, shortest journey in the world (I used to say that about giving birth: new person travelling down 62mm birth canal takes what? Anything from about 2 to 20 hours.) But what a push. What a journey. Made me laugh, made me cry, made me wait, made me cry some more, made me eat carbs. The congratulations have been pouring in from y’all. Since last post, Stephen McGowan, Mary Fivey, Gemma Lloyd-Jones, Jessica Duchen, Lisa Radoje, Lulu Allison, Johari Ismail (my repeat patron!), Jacqueline Sardinas, Nicole Vatanavimlakul have come on board the Heart of Glass cruise and others previously named. 100 days is not long for someone who has been writing for 40 years. So many, many thanks to you. Supporters, apparently you get a top quality, first edition, limited edition paperback, months ahead of the shops – which I did not know before. That’s a bonus, right? A surprise!
If you would like to become a patron, you can! Up to the point where in some factory they press print, you can still have your name listed. Head over here.
Next step: editorial team will be in touch with me in the next week or so to introduce me to my developmental editor and start the editorial process. More news to follow very soon! I love to hear from you. Please leave me your feedback or comments. If you liked the vlog, please share.
a couple of word games to warm up, followed by ‘jumping straight in’. You can either use and existing idea or try out a new one using images and articles provided. I tried out a new idea. I originally chose two photos and tried to make up a story but it was already like another story. Cautious not to waste any of my 6 hours of time on that day, I decided to use the other option to generate idea – using articles from newspaper and magazines.
