PUBLISHING: NO REWIND, NO LOOKING BACK

As a writer, you can never comprehend how your readers hunger for your words, your sense of poetry, your plot and your bloody end. Until they tell you. They get angry at your carelessness because they have grown to love the worlds that you have created out of liveless and arbitrary words. And that knowledge will tear you apart.

Publishing a book, just like posting an entry in a blog, is not like reversing a boat (terlanjak perahu boleh ditarik, terlajak kata buruk padahnya). Words, words, words. How much bad feeling had been generated by the Internet just because you think you have the right to judge people of their morals? You can write them a private e-mail telling your grievances about her attitude, but not go public while the poor sap did not have a clue of what happened in your alternate universe. And a novel, you cannot just RECALL a novel, like you would a faulty product. And your reader has every right to critique your novel in public.


So before you send that manuscript for publication, make sure:

• You get it right it the first time. Make sure everything is spelled correctly. Make sure the terms are used correctly. Make sure name of characters are spelled correctly and consistently. Make sure your SENTENCES MAKE SENSE.

• The hurried pace is not because you are racing to reach a cursed deadline. Give urgency to the story because the story deserves it. Not because your 3 year old is wailing from the bedroom at 4 a.m. when he realized his mother is not with him and he wants milk! You can give all the excuses in the world but your reader spends money to get that measley novel of yours.

• Do not depend on anybody to make your story good. You are the one who make it good. The whole process stops at you. Period. No glittering cover, no prejudiced review can make your terrible story better. You are solely and wholly responsible for your story.

• The ending of the story is the one the hero deserves. You should not write a happy ending because you believe everything ends happily in your make-believe world while you try compensate for your ruined life. You should not write a sad, unredeemable, no-salvation ending just because you are bitter and broken.

So, here's another look at your sense of time.

Tamina: So, how much of the sands of time, um, sense of time do you need?

Dastan: To recall a novel? Each and every bit of them which has ever existed.