Nearing the goal
BY LEAH RAY
TWO more days, and this year’s (Inter)National Novel Writing Month will be over. We will know who managed to complete 50,000 words of a novel in only 30 days, and who didn’t. But there are no losers in this annual literary marathon; like the Olympics, just taking part is a triumph.
Now let’s see how some of the WriMos (as the participants are called) are faring.
Tiara Shafiq, 19, a student at Lim Kok Wing University, whose book is provocatively titled The Hot & Gorgeous Club, reached the target in the 2003 NaNoWriMo, has high hopes of finishing again this year.
“Sometimes, though,” Tiara says, “life interferes with your NaNo and you’re too upset to continue. Or you kind of know what’s supposed to happen next, but you can’t put it into words. And sometimes, you’re just too tired to write.”
Melissa Fung Yizhen, 15, who goes by the NaNo nickname Glasscharm, is also a student. Her book, Wandering Mist: Light Sleeper, a futuristic fantasy, combines high tech and magic.
What appealed to her about NaNoWriMo was “the idea of writing 50K words in a month, and the organisers not even caring what I wrote.” Fung found that very liberating. “It’s a chance to free your mind and just write like crazy about anything you want to.”
Student Lim Kok Leong, aka Andy, 16, was coaxed into the NaNoWriMo challenge by Glasscharm. His SF/thriller, The Time Stopper, about a man whose destiny is to change the future if he can evade the assassins sent to stop him, is his first attempt at a novel.
“I treat this as an adventure in writing, as my usual posts are just blog entries. This is very different from what I usually write. I’ve never tried it before, and it turns out that writing a novel can be quite fun!”
NaNoWriMo is just as motivating for writers with day jobs, like Chet, 46, who is doing it for the third year in a row. The idea for her book, Glutton Square, set in the milieu of a food court, originated as a TV show concept, born of her frustration with local shows that depict ordinary Malaysians speaking perfect English and not Malay or Chinese.
“I hardly ever finish any story I start out to write,” Chet says. “It’s like all I write are never-ending stories! Then last year, I finished NaNoWriMo, and it felt good! So I decided to do it again.” Mei Teoh, 25, took part last year, but didn’t complete the task. This year, she has reached the 50K mark with The Home of the Fallen, which tells of a woman’s journey of personal discovery in an SF setting.
Teoh spent years putting her academic and lecturing career ahead of her writing. “I called this my personal writer’s block. This year, I was able to better myself as a writer, and ultimately build an opportunity to be published, which has been my dream since childhood.”
Finishing is not always the goal. Nagulan Selvakannu, 25, a programmer who calls himself Bawang Merah on-line, is fairly sure that his average daily word count of 700 is not going to get him there. His book, The Citrus Plan, is supposed to be “a gripping murder thriller”.
“So far,” Selvakannu jokes, “I’ve got the murder part right, but not the gripping or thrilling part. Never mind, it’s the journey that counts. We might not all finish the race, but at least we would have had a good time. And that’s what is important.”
Tong, a 22-year-old analyst, must agree, having been involved in NaNoWriMo twice before, albeit without finishing. He has high ambitions for his book, Follow, about a prince who leaves his kingdom to follow a falling star.
“It’s a fairytale for grown-ups, told Hemingway-style. I also want it to be, very quietly, about the painful human need to have someone or something, a heart’s desire of your very own to follow.”
Tong’s dreams don’t stop there. “I hope that a lot of people will read it and connect with it and find even one phrase or idea that will stay with them long after they have forgotten the title or what the book is about.”
Brando Peter, 28, an IT systems trainer/manager, is writing Light Weaves, “a light-hearted yet candid story about the lives, loves and culture of modern twentysomethings living in Kuala Lumpur.
“Most of my previous attempts started with what seemed to be a good idea but lost momentum after a few pages,” Peter says. “My goal is to prove to myself that I can stick with it and finish writing an entire book, despite the day job and personal commitments.”
His tip for other would-be writers? “Contrary to what I’ve been doing, it would be a good idea to forgo any diversions (entertainment, social, etc) while writing. Writers really need to be hermits to complete their novels.”
Sharon Bakar, 49, a writer and teacher-trainer, calls her novel, A General Malaise, a “bonkbuster-meets-Drama Minggu Ini.
“I began on Day 1 without any idea of what the plot might be. I hired (at great expense) a mob of improbable characters (including a couple of sarong party girls, a group of disgruntled Filipina maids, a distraught Mat Salleh wife and her philandering husband, a corrupt businessman and his ruthless TV executive mistress and the one pure soul who is the heroine of the piece.
“I plonked them down in a fictional city (Kayhell) in a fictional country (Malaisia), stirred them up and applied a little heat. Then I sat back to watch what would happen next. So far there’s been an attempted murder, an assault, a snatch theft, a burglary, a kidnapping and a significant amount of adultery. The next problem is how to tie up all these loose ends. I may need to bring in a natural disaster to finish everyone off.”
Sharon has two more days to whip up that typhoon/earthquake/meteor crash and reach 50K words.
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