Skip to main content

Spare a few pesos...

How tough was life for Gabriel Garcia Marquez when he finished writing One Hundred Years of Solitude? As we find out in The Guardian, quite tough:
When his masterwork was finished in August 1967 and he and his wife went to the post office to send it to his editor in Buenos Aires they had only 53 pesos. It cost 82 pesos to send the parcel so they sent half of the manuscript.

"Afterwards we realized that we had sent not the first but the second part," he said. Luckily, the editor "was so eager to read the first half that he forwarded us the money so we could send the rest."
How very lucky indeed.

Comments

  1. So what am I doing sitting on my ass bitching about everything in the world and not doing no writing? Sit yer ass down and get to writing, Kenny!

    (Yessir, Mr.Sir, sir!)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ever heard of these guys?

    http://www.contentcradle.com/

    -Hilmy-

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kenny: That's the spirit! Are you writing a novel for the utusan-exxon mobile competition?

    Hilmy: WOW! That's a great link! Thanks for the headsup! I shall highlight this on the blog a little later.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes and no. Yes, I'm working on something. But. No, it's not for the U-E competition. Definitely not Young Adults, if you know what I mean, heh heh.

    ReplyDelete
  5. OMG, that is so cool!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lesson: Commemorative Covers are Lame.

Well, I got the first day cover that commemorates the 35th anniversary of the establishment diplomatic relations between China and Malaysia that I mentioned a couple of posts ago. Except that it's not a first day cover, it's a commemorative cover, which is a slightly different beast. I guess I should read the news article properly next time! The difference between the two is that first day covers are specially-designed envelopes stuck on with specially-designed stamps, and marked with a specially-designed postmark. A commemorative cover is a specially-designed envelope... and that's it. All in all, it's an unremarkable affair, especially if you're used to well-designed first day covers (not that Malaysian first day covers are well-designed... but I digress). Oh sure, a commemorative cover has a stamp printed right on to it but that's just like an overglorified aerogramme. Lame. On the whole, what a disappointment. I haven't been collecting first day cover...

REVIEW: Confessions of an Old Boy by Kam Raslan

Kam Raslan's right. In the preface for his new book, Confessions of an Old Boy: The Dato' Hamid Adventures he writes that we've known Dato' Hamid all our lives. Seeing as my own dad is an old boy of MCKK, the people I get to meet when he drags me to an Old Boy function and the people he tells me of, reflect the characters found in Kam's book. It really does feel like I've known Dato' Hamid all my life. Dato' Hamid is a civil servant of the Tunku Abdul Rahman generation. He is the sort of person you rarely see nowadays, a fine example of the anachronistic Malay. This generation, groomed in the ways of the colonial British would be out of place not just in 21st century Malaysia, but in Britain too. And yet, Dato' Hamid, in all his snobbishness and patronising ways, is essentially a Malaysian. Without people like him, our country would probably never exist at all. At least not like we know it now. I'm glad that Kam Raslan decided to capture this ...

An Ipoh Ghost Story.

When I was growing up in Ipoh in the 90s, the only good bookshops around were Mubaruk's, which specialised in textbooks (and still does), and Novelhut, the second-hand bookstore that used to be in Yik Foong (and maybe still is there, but I haven't checked in years since I prefer going to their Ipoh Parade outlet when I'm in town). There was also a pretty good bookstore in the Parkson Grand in Ipoh Parade which could have been a Berita outlet, but I don't remember. This was in the days before they expanded Ipoh Parade into what it is today. (And temporarily causing the Convent school next door to consider moving.) I recall this because I was thinking of when exactly I started reading "serious" fiction, trying to pinpoint the years when I moved from young adult/fantasy/sci-fi books into non-genre fiction. I still can't remember, but it brought back memories of a book I bought from a short-lived bookshop in Old Town. Mum had brought me there, because she must...