Bangkok Writer’s Guild Meeting

Trirat Petchsingh, author of “Thai Mangoes“

Yesterday, on December 10, which is recognized as Constitution Day here in Thailand, the members of the Bangkok Writer’s Guild met for the last time this year at their usual meeting place in Washington Square, downtown Bangkok.

Although it was a public holiday and, consequently, the traffic was just beautiful (this being one of the main reasons why I even chose to drive my car rather than ride my motorbike, as I usually do when I attend such meetings), only three people showed up on time. There’s something about Bangkok which makes everybody regularly late. Those who’ve been here long enough refer to such people as working on “Thai time.” But, slowly, slowly, the back room of the Bourbon St. Restaurant became filled with loud farang voices. At one point I asked the waiter to turn down the music, as everyone was trying to make themselves heard.

Eventually, by 8 p.m. everyone who had the intention of joining the December writer’s group meeting grabbed a seat at the writers’ table. As on most meetings (this being our fifth this year), several new faces made their appearance while only a few of the “old members” actually attended. From the previous meetings, the following writers were present: Anette Pollner, Trirat Petchsing, Peter Montalbano, Philip Schwartz and myself. The newcomers have still got to submit their full real names on the MeetUp group so that their presence can be acknowledged accordingly.

The agenda of the day was to offer a critique of a piece from Peter Montalbano’s work in progress, a novel about the 2004 tsunami, entitled The Lover with a Thousand Faces. Unfortunately, none of the newcomers had the chance to have read either Peter’s text which was uploaded on the MeetUp group, nor the revised version of the same text which was posted last month on my blog. During the meeting, an attempt to read a printout of the updated version ended in failure as the font was too small, the colour too faded and the lighting in the restaurant too low. Nevertheless, those who had read the piece voiced their opinions and, from there on, the discussion diverged to other more or less related topics.

In my opinion, the most important issues discussed or, the most important questions raised, were:

• Do readers find dialogue written in a foreign language annoying? (Peter had quite a few lines in French in his text.)

• Should we write for ourselves or for the agent? (Two groups formed: the ones who write agent driven fiction and the ones who write out of passion.)

• Should a writer who is at the beginning of his writing life / career rely on ‘how-to’ books on the craft of writing? (Alternative ways of learning how to write were: read lots and write lots.)

• What is literary fiction and, if less than 5% (figure might not be accurate!) of the books sold today can be put into this category, why bother aiming towards this kind of fiction anyway? (Literary fiction was identified as being focused on character and style as opposed to mainstream fiction that focuses on narrative and plot.)

• Who is a writer anyway? (Can a person who loves to write consider him/herself a writer even if he/she hasn’t published yet, or has published a commercially unsuccessful book?)

The meeting was a very lively one and, in the absence of the founder, C.Y. Gopinath, and that of the group organizer, Gary Dale Cearley (author of Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness), as the most veteran member of the group I took over the role of being the moderator. The group has seen a large turnout of members and a few changes of format and, to be honest, I kind of missed Gopi’s presence and wisdom to help me guide the group back to its original vision: that of an informal, friendly group that meets up to discuss about writing.

The December meeting housed a few very opinionated people, some of whom did most of the talking and thus, I can say that I failed miserably in my position as a moderator, as not everyone was allocated the fair length of time to voice their own views.

For the next meeting, which will be, as usual, held on the second Thursday of every month (January 14), we will start off with the critique of Gopi’s work and, if time allows, we will also look at Philip Schwartz’s extract from his future book.

If you are a writer living in Bangkok and would like to join the Bangkok Writer’s Guild, then join our MeetUp group to receive the latest information on our meetings and to have access to the members’ writings.

Happy writing!