The Final Draft

I used or abused this blog to let you know about the latest progress in my writings. Well, my first book is about to be wrapped up. No, you won't find it anywhere at a bookstore near you, not in many months yet.
What I'm talking about, is that I am about to complete the final draft of this 100,000-word book. Is it a masterpiece? No way. But it's as good as I can get it now.
Before I sent it out to publishers, I still have to write three other pieces. The query letter to the publisher, which is where I get a chance to make my work interesting to them. In other words, I have to convince them that enough people will want to read my book that they - the publishers - can make money out of it.
Then I have to write a synopsis, so that the publishers actually feel like plodding through the whole hundreds of pages. The synopsis is often a writer's nightmare, because he has to condense all of those 300 or 400 pages into maybe just one page. Sounds simple, but it isn't. What do you leave out but still manage to keep the whole page exciting?
The third element I still have to write, is my biography. That should be simple. You mention the things that are relevant to your work. If you have written a thriller - like I have - you probably won't be mentioning in your biography that you have a unique collection of conch shells. Unless conch shells play a crucial part in your book. If the thriller is set in Morocco, and you've spent the past five or twelve years living there, then mention that, absolutely.
The next stage I will have to face, beginning next week, is how to get the whole thing out of my computer and into the publisher's hands.
But that is for the next episode in my writing adventure.
Sean Moss for S2S.

S for Second Draft

Writing is fun. I've been doing it for almost 40 years.

First writing down things I saw on television, later reinterpreting reality, news, events, and 'translating' it for a wider audience. Rewriting events to spread them around.

But after a while, all that reality gets boring, so I switched to writing fiction. It's great fun thinking out things and writing them down day after day, with nobody telling you you're wrong or this isn't possible in real life. Well, that's why it's fiction.

But after finishing up a story, what you need to do is ... looking at it again from a different perspective and writing it again. I took part in last November's National Novel Writing Month event and that was great fun.

But once you have those 100,000 words which are supposed to go into a novel, you have to think about what first the editors and publishers want, and second the readers. That's the second draft, and believe me, that's no such fun.

You look back at your first draft, and you find all kinds of things wrong with it. In chapter two, your main character (or MC, to use the professional writers' lingo) had gray hair, but in chapter five, he's suddenly gone dark. In chapter three, he was driving a Cadillac, but in chapter seven, he jumps behind the wheel of a Corvette. And his way of speaking has changed. Or his way of speaking is too similar to that of about five other characters.

That's why you need a second draft. And then a third, and probably even more. Because no writer is so perfect that a complete book just flows out of his pen or his keyboard the first time around. I have been working on my second draft of my first thriller for three months now, and I'm hoping to complete it by the end of March. Queries to publishers should go out in early April, with replies expected by late May.

Yes, I'm an optimist. Sometime I will make it. I don't know if what you'll get to read will be the third or the seventh draft, but it'll be a finished story.

Keep writing is the message if you want to be a published writer.

Sean Moss for S2S.

Wow Friendly People

I just returned from the Philippines and I can tell you one thing: its people are the friendliest in Asia.

No, I didn't get paid by the local tourism authority. Yes, the country has a terrible crime rate and lots of guns and probably lots of bad people, but I didn't meet any of those. Yes, there are hawkers trying to sell you guitars or trips in their tuktuk.

But overall, the experience with the people has been positive. Apart from the surprising prevalence of English - which people speak in addition to Tagalog and their local Cebuano or Boholano - they are very polite, smile at tourists, say hello, or just wave at tourists passing by in their buses.

My visit was limited to the central area of Cebu island - practically the capital Cebu City and the adjoining island of Mactan where its airport is located - and to the island of Bohol with appended Panglao Island.

It is Bohol which left the most positive impression: the diminutive Tarsier monkeys sleeping in the trees, the shapely Chocolate Hills and the similarly shaped Peanut Kisses, the statue of the Spaniards and the local leader on the coast, the old church at Baclayon, the white sand beaches of Panglao.

All of that mixed in with the assorted sweets made from peanuts or coconuts, the coconut milk, the tasty bananas and pineapple, the capcap or cassava tacos with fruit, the edible flower petals and the honey drink at the bee farm in Panglao, the touristy river cruise on the Loboc with the varied food, and back in Cebu finally the impressive buffet on the 20th floor of a building on Cebu City's main road.

The however limited piece of the Philippines I succeeded in seeing during this four-day trip was well worth it, and the view from the plane heading back to Taiwan showed me there is a lot more waiting to be discovered.

And if you're wondering who the beautiful people are on my picture, they are students from a tourism school on a visit to Cebu City's main Chinese taoist temple.

If you are a beach and ocean person, or a scenery person, then the Philippines should be on your agenda. Forming part of a tour, my task was made easier because I didn't have to look for public transport, restaurants, or hotels to spend the night in. Everything was arranged beforehand, was relatively low cost but still high class.

Sean Moss for S2S in Cebu and Bohol, the Philippines. Wow!