Filed under: Books
“Writing is the easiest part,” White Boy said to me a couple of years ago, when he published his first novel. White Boy is my colleague at CN and we’ve been working together since we joined the organisation in August 2005.
He published his first novel one year later, the first of a series of fantasy novels.
I looked at him and thought, “Really???”
Several years later, when I finally committed to write and publish my first novel (I have written many, many stories before, when I was much younger; I’ve even finished writing two books in my teens, but those were a long time ago…), his words came to mind.
There I would be, ploughing through the pages on my Microsoft Word document, taking smoke breaks and wondering why the story wasn’t unravelling the way I had planned, or why the words weren’t coming at all, and worst, why the entire story eluded me as I sat there, sometimes for hours, churning out pages and then deleting them, and I would think to myself that White Boy’s got to be kidding.
Writing isn’t the easiest part! I would scream in my head. Or am I just not as talented a writer as he is!
Both of these thoughts brought little consolation but much self-doubt as I felt myself sink deeper into confusion and frustration.
Eventually, I did finish the book.
And then, I finally comprehended what he meant.
Oh, writing is not easy… but compared to the business of producing the book, it was probably the breezier task.
Getting the book laid out properly was enjoyable and brought much fulfilment; watching August work at the various book covers was quite a thrill – an exercise that made me want to jump around excitedly through all the different designs until we settled on The One; visiting the printer and making sure the final copy was properly sent out only made the anticipation of holding the first copy of my book more unbearable… and of course, finally taking that finished copy in my hand was an almost surreal experience… one that was also very, very gratifying.
Approaching bookshops though, was a big pain.
There is way too much hassle with logistics between bookshops and publishers to hamper the entire process of producing a book.
Herein steps our distributor whom we thankfully get along rather well with. At least the process has been kicked into place and things are moving again.
This entire experience keeps bringing to mind NLB’s campaign.
I don’t know how many of you have seen the bus ads proudly proclaiming the slogan “Nurturing a Nation of Readers”, but while I agree with that sentiment, rather than focus solely on the importance of reading, I feel we are sadly neglecting to encourage local writers to publish as well.
Perhaps more encouragement is needed in that area such that we would be nurturing a nation of writers as well as readers?
To this end, I have to say I love etch publishing’s slogan. It’s simple, to the point and it says it all – “Read. Write. Publish.”
For those who are already bibliophiles and have that desire to tell the stories brewing within them, why not?
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