WILL YOU VOTE FOR MY BOOK?

My publisher surprised me with an email mid-March: Footprints in the paddy fields has been nominated for the Popular Bookstores Readers’ Choice Awards 2011. 

 To be frank, I don’t know whether to give myself a hi-5 for writing a book worthy of mention or… have a pity-party. 

Huh? Well, I'm one of those obsessive people who analyze things and situations AND jump into conclusions. In this case, I was thinking: maybe the book isn’t selling well and this is one way to boost sales? I know-I know-I know, people have told me I shouldn’t be so negative, so pessimistic. Even my own sister said maybe I underestimate myself? 

But the opposite of that is to be presumptuous; to be over-bold and think you are good and worthy. And Lord, I’m not worthy.

Last night, after I’ve seen the Popular Bookstores Contest Form where readers must pick their top three favourite books from the ten nominated for the awards, I posted about Footprints (being nominated) on Facebook. I guess I just want some votes. Imagine what it would be like if the other nine books receive a hundred votes each and my book gets only five? 

The message I’d get is: You think you can write? Think again!

I wouldn’t know where to hide my face. In case you’re wondering, no, I won’t jump down from my… er Mr. Hubby’s… rooftop. But it’ll mean I’d have to unlearn everything I know about writing and start all over again at the very bottom rung. At my age? That’s a big joke!

Then there’s this thing about being Sabahan...

But, let’s move on…

With the book being nominated, I was required to send a photo of myself. Know this: there’re fewer things I dislike more than having my own picture taken. I love being behind the camera, though! Anyway, I was given a few days to email the pic. I vacillated between asking my son, Sonny, to take a digital photo of me and going to one of those fancy wedding studios where they plaster and smoothen a 5cm-layer of cement (according to Sonny) on your face to magic away all your blemishes so you could look less like a frog and more like a princess. 

 

I visited a few websites. I called the first one on my list. No one picked up the phone. Another studio opens only a few days in a week. I took that as a sign and coupled with the likelihood that I’d have to empty my bank account to pay for the service… I gave up.

Time was running out. Sonny was busy. I was so desperate I even considered taking self-portraits! In the end, accompanied by Meg for moral support, I walked up the dusty steps to an old photo studio in Donggongon. I showed the photographer some ‘nice’ portraits of me taken by a pro—after I was painted and blow-dried by his make-up guy.

I told the photographer my predicament... and that some readers don’t buy a writer’s book because she’s:  A) unattractive B) ugly C) not pretty D) all of the above. I asked him if he could make me look nice in the pictures. He noted my home-made-up face all sweaty after the long walk from the parking lot.  Bless him, he didn’t burst out laughing at my foolishness. In fact, he was very professional and patient and sympathetic. 

“I’ll make you look like a businesswoman,” he said as he clicked his DSLR for the umpteenth time.  

“Please make me look like a writer,” I begged.

I sent the publisher this photo:

 

Being nominated is a big deal and a great honour. (I share the same publisher with an astronaut. Our books came out around the same time but his hasn’t been nominated.) 

Hoping to win the award is like wishing for the moon. And that’s furthest from my mind. What I want are just a few votes—okay, several votes—above zero so I won’t feel like I’m letting Sabah down.

So if you’ve read the book and liked it, could you please vote for it? Bless your kind heart and thank you in advance!

This Writer's Life

MPH was the third publisher to whom I sent my query. I had sent the first query a whole year earlier and the second one just one month before. After waiting in vain for responses from the two publishers, I wasn't really hopeful that I'd hear from the big publisher in KL.

So it was a surprise when I received that letter from MPH. They wanted to view the whole manuscript! I was asked to email my story to them.

Suddenly, I felt I couldn't email the story immediately! I wanted to improve some parts and tie some loose ends. There was also a lot of non-writing stuff to do.

Around this time, I fetched my mother from my brother's house in Kota belud, one hour's drive away. I knew it would not be easy to have her around because she is bed-ridden and we have no help. But she had been begging to be taken every time we visited. So I told her she could could stay with me for a month although mentally I was prepared to look after her for two months. No more than two months. I knew she would drive me crazy. No, let me reword that... I knew we would drive each other crazy.

I've always felt the least favoured among my siblings. Sometimes almost unwanted. I suppose it has not been easy for my mother either. To her, I've always been the bad guy and she's so convinced of my 'badness' that she had conjured up stories to tell to whoever came to visit, more in the hope of gaining sympathy, perhaps, than to cast a bad light on me.

Anyway, I took her to my house and ensconced her in my tiny writing room, my writing table pushed against one wall and her bed against the opposite wall. The whole room was like a jigsaw puzzle with a few pieces missing.

During the time she stayed with me I had to attend to her day and night. Twenty four hours. My day started early so breakfast was ready before she woke up and clamoured for my attention. I prefered to feed her breakfast before bathing her. Taking her down from the bed was a challenging exercise, both physically and emotionally. I had to make her sit on the bed with her legs dangling down over the side and from that position I carried her by hugging her under the armpits and, by straining myself, I was able to lift her and deposit her into a chair. I had to be careful to keep my back straight so I would not hurt my spine.

The tight bear-hug didn't last more than a few seconds but she'd be complaining of pain. She felt there was a rock on my chest and that was hurting her. I guess she wasn't aware that I was hurting too and that I could easily injure myself carrying her weight. (We weigh around the same -- 50 kilos!)

After breakfast, I pushed-pulled-lifted the plastic chair to the bathroom where I transfered her from the chair to the toilet bowl. I won't describe how we managed in the bathroom. Suffice to say that after her bath, she came out fresh and smelling sweet, her hair shampooed, her teeth brushed and her bottom cleaned.

Then there was the trip back to the temporary bedroom where, still in the chair, I towel-dried her hair, combed it, sprinkled powder on her body and rubbed skin lotion from her knees to her toes. She can't help? No, unfortunately. Her left hand is quite useless and she keeps it fisted so tightly that the tip of one finger has carved a hole in the palm. No amount of cajoling -- or threats! -- can help to remind her to move her fingers.

After changing her sheet and pillow cases, I transfered her to the bed while she repeated her earlier performance: "Oui! Oui! Ouiii!"

My mother prefered to stay in bed all day but I insisted she sat up for meals. I didn't want her to choke on her food. I encouraged her to watch TV so she'd be sitting upright longer but she'd get grumpy when things didn't suit her.

I slept just outside her door, like a dog, so I'd hear her when she called at night. I hung a chime on the curtain above her head and told her to jerk the string I tied to the chime when she needed me -- so she didn't have to strain her voice. And jerked the string she did, never mind if it was 10am, 3pm or 4am!

I was going crazy. I never nap -- waste of time -- and there she was, insisting that I stayed up with her when she couldn't sleep (because she'd spent the day time sleeping.) What have I got myself into?

I did it for three months. I almost went mad and was tearing out my hair when help arrived to relieve me during the last two weeks.

Hey, you're saying, why is she telling me this? I tell you why. Despite all this craziness, I was able to self-edit and improve my manuscript. I worked right in the room where my mother was parked and sometimes when I was on my computer, she'd be talking non-stop about this, that or nothing at all. And when she couln't get a sound out of me, she'd say, "Oh, you're writing?"

And I'd be overwhelmed with guilt.

I revised and readied my chapters and sent them bit by bit. The last chapters were emailed on 12 November, 2008. My birthday. It wasn't a coincidence. I had planned to send the final chapters on that day.

It was exactly two years since I retired and about 20 months since I started writing.

One month later, just before Christmas, Janet (an editor at MPH) emailed me. "Great news," she said. MPH has accepted my manuscript.

I've passed another hurdle.

Was I happy? Of course. But when I received a draft of the contract, doubts set in. What if people were not interested in reading my story?

In hindsight, I think I should have just bask in the warmth brought by the acceptance and not worry about problems until I had to cross the bridge. Many people take years working on their manuscripts. Some never get published at all.

I was lucky. My manuscript found the 'right' editor.

Bouquets and a Brick

While waiting for a response to my query from 123 Publisher, I chanced upon a copy of MPH Quill. The editor, Eric Forbes, talked about submissions and he said “if your book has a local flavour to it that you think Malaysians would enjoy, we’re always open to manuscript submissions here too”.

I vacillated between sending my manuscript to MPH and putting it away indefinitely. Compared to the two Kota Kinabalu publishers, MPH is a huge publishing house in KL. Why would the publisher risk taking on a new writer when the KK publishers didn’t even acknowledge receiving my queries? Publishing, after all, is a business and the publisher is in it to make money.

I tried to improve my manuscript. I added new materials and showed the revised version to my ‘regular’ readers. Most of them had nothing negative to say about my story. In fact, many were very supportive and one young friend, who just turned fourteen, prodded me for more chapters when the chapters were not forthcoming. Wow! I was amazed. Even a kid liked my story.

What could have helped me a lot was probably a critique group to point out the good, the bad and the ugly. But I was not fortunate to have that. What I had, besides the ‘fans’, was someone who asked me bluntly: “Who would want to read your book?”

He might as well have said: You think you’re so good that people want to read your story? How dare you! How presumptuous!

I guess we’ve all come across people who feel it’s their sacred duty to tell you not to wear a hat too big for your head. Amidst these conflicting signals I sent a query to MPH Group. I made sure I enclosed an SASE with the first three chapters of my manuscript. It was another walk to the post office to join the queue which started at the front door and snaked to two clerks at the counter. As I dropped the envelope into the post box, I wondered if I should have re-written the third chapter. But it was too late now. I’d have to play the waiting game again just like I had done after sending my queries to the first two publishers.

I received my SASE exactly a month after I posted the three chapters. I held my breath, opened the envelope and read “The first three chapters look interesting, and we would be happy to view the whole manuscript…”

I have passed the first hurdle. But I didn’t allow myself to feel on-top-of-the-world happy. There was always that cold voice asking me: Who would want to read your book?

Looking for a Publisher

July 7, 2007. Triple seven. I thought this was a lucky day. I wrote a short note, shoved it into an envelope along with an SASE and the first two chapters of my manuscript to send to a local publisher: XYZ Publication, Kota Kinabalu. It took me twenty minutes to walk to the post office and another one hour before I was at the head-end of the long queue. RM3 it cost me to post my two chapters but I thought it was worth it.

I was sure I'd hear from the publisher within one or two weeks at the most. After all, how many writers are sending their manuscripts to publishers in KK? Besides, I've read a number of books published by XYZ Publication and I know they publish the kind of material I was sending them.

So I sat back and waited.

One week passed. Then two weeks. One month went by. Three months slipped away. No reply. No phone call. Not even a printed rejection notification. Damn.

I didn't give up hope, however. I found the address of another local publisher. This was in a book I had borrowed from the library. The book was about a white priest who had served all his life in Sabah. Hmm, I thought, the publisher should be interested in my story.

This time I was 'wiser'. I didn't want to waste the RM3 on postage -- and the paper and the ink! -- so I sent a query letter in July 2008 (one year after the query to XYZ Publication!) describing my book and who would find the book appealing and all that stuff. Again I sat back and waited. Again I was disappointed.

What's wrong with my story? What's wrong with me? I was mortified that my manuscript was not good enough and I was not good enough and the handful of friends and relatives who had had a peek at the story was perhaps only being polite and tactful. I didn't ask what's wrong with the publishers!

Did I feel rejected? Of course. I consoled myself by imagining that the first publisher didn't have anyone to read manuscripts and the second one had closed down. I'm sure I wouldn't have felt too bad if I had received some kind of feedback from both publishers.

What would you have done? Crawl into a corner and weep? Don't! I found another publisher. I'll tell you all about it in my next post.