It’s finally here! The snazzy book cover courtesy of Epigram Books Singapore.
So after about 18 months after sending in my manuscript, it’s finally gone to print. We’re finally done with edits, layouts, blurbs, and author profiles, and I could very well see my debut novel at the end of March.
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Photo: Rita Morais
I feel I should clear things up before you guys go grabbing the pitchforks. The title doesn’t condone you lying—and you shouldn’t try to pass yourself off as something you’re not—but you can reframe a story so that it matches your narrative.
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The illustrations for my story. They really do resemble me I think. Photo: RinggitOhRinggit.com
I guess this is the first time I’m being published for my unsolicited stories (most of my published work was commissioned).
While I’ve just signed another book deal for my cyberpunk novel titled Homecoming, it’s not set to take off until April 2021 or so.
Meanwhile, enter Money Stories From Malaysians Volume 2. A book project spearheaded by one of Malaysia’s most prominent bloggers, Suraya Zainudin.
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Photo: The Climate Reality Project
You wake up, you check your phone. You want to know the latest stats for the article you’d posted yesterday. Two views. No likes on Facebook. One spam comment.
An e-mail comes in. It’s from that fiction competition you joined five months ago. “Thank you for your participation,” it reads. That’s always a bad sign, and a quick scroll through the rest of the message proves it.
Photo: Pereanu Sebastian
Ah, the infamous shitty first draft. The place where hopes are simultaneously born and slaughtered. The one thing that writers fear the most.
The first draft can be anything. I can write poop all over again if I want. Poop poop poop. I can, like, use punctuation however I like—I can even make sentences no meaning at all fire escape what yes.
Perhaps I’ll rewrite that later. Perhaps not.
But that’s the point. That’s what the first draft is. The canvas where you start creating your art. You probably thought that the blank page was the canvas. Well you thought wrong.
Your Friendly Malaysian Writer 