I didn’t attend the last couple of meetings organized by the Bangkok Writer’s Guild as I made a promise to myself that I would not procrastinate any longer and use any excuse possible to get out of my Bangkok condominium and not write the thriller I was working on at that time. Luckily for all the guys that missed me at the Guild, Wednesday, June 16, I finished the manuscript of The Buddha Head, a thriller that takes place in contemporary Thailand. (I’ll write more abut this project soon!)
The meeting took place on June 17, at the usual spot, Bourbon St. Restaurant, located at Sukhumwit Rd., Soi 22 in downtown Bangkok. I never make the mistake of driving my car in the center of the town, so I jumped on my motorbike and, only a few minutes before 7 pm, I arrived at my destination. Bangkok traffic was at its worst so only half of the writers that eventually showed up at last night’s meeting were actually on time.
By 7:30 pm we were all gathered around a few tables in the back room of the restaurant and, after we asked a waiter to turn down the music, the usual introductory round began. I knew only half of the people present. (I think one of the Guild’s greatest failings is that the members showing up from one meeting to another are rarely the same!) The writers who arrived at the meeting place before me were C.Y. Gopinath (aka Gopi, an Indian, the organizer of the group), Saranit Vongkiatkajorn (a Thai from Chiang Mai, the chair of the meeting) and Joran Omark (a Swedish, a brand new member). Soon after, the following four arrived: Paady (an Englishman, another brand new member), Sai Raghavan (an Indian), John Wilson (a Londoner) and Mithran (another Londoner). As you can see, if you count me in (a Romanian), the crowd was made up of a very interesting international mix. (Peter Montalbano backed out in the last minute and, later on, I found out that Trirat Petchsing has moved back to his home province in Chiang Mai, the place where most of his short stories published in Thai Manoges take place.)
The topic of the day was the lowdown on literary agents and the questions the group wanted to find answers to (as previously stated on the Meet Up website) were: Does an author need a literary agent? How does one find one? What do literary agents do? How can you tell the good ones apart from the others? As there were only two writers who actually had literary agents (that is Gopi and Mithran), they were the ones who tried their best at answering these questions and others asked by the people present.
In a nutshell, Gopi’s experiences with his agent have been very good until now. His US-based agent helped him a lot with the writing process of The Books of Answers, Gopi’s first work of fiction that his agent is now trying to sell to American publishing houses. On the other hand, Mithran is hard at work revising Only the Hungry, his vampire novel that his UK-based agent wants him to rewrite. (The major problem with selling such a novel is that the market is now overflowing with vampire books and publishers are reluctant to taken on brand new writers in this sub-genre.) Two good agent websites suggested were Nathan Bransford and Everyone Who’s Anyone.
My contribution to the discussion underlined the fact that, if one intends to publish an English-language book only for the Thai and Southeast Asian markets, a writer doesn’t really need a literary agent as s/he can deal straight with the local / regional publishing houses. This was also the opinion expressed by Anette Pollner in one of the previous meetings she had attended.
The second part of the Guild’s meeting was dedicated to critiquing Chapter 7 from Mithran’s work in progress Only the Hungry. The chapter, a short one I must add, was made available for all the interested group members on the Meet Up website. In Mithran’s own words, “the novel is about a very old vampire called Mr. Quigly who ends up finding love and friendship via the people who are hunting him.” I liked the piece that he provided for our reading pleasure, especially the little details that helped create a nice atmosphere (such as, the chess game or the noise made by the coffee machine). My only worry was regarding the length of the chapter (less than 3,000 words) and the writer’s choice of underlining words in the text as a means of emphasis. I suggested the use of italics instead. Also, according to Mithran, the rest of the chapters are longer (the entire manuscript totaling over 60,000 words) which makes sense to him as Chapter 7 is only “a sub-pot that ends up affecting the main plot.”
The June meeting of the Bangkok Writer’s Guild lasted exactly two hours (not counting the time we waited for everyone to show up). In July, the meeting is scheduled for the 22nd and the main topic of discussion will be writer’s block. Also, Gopi will submit a text for us to critique.
On my way out of Bourbon St. Restaurant I ran into Gary Dale Cearley (author of Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness), a former member of our Guild and social media aficionado. In our short chat, he promised me he would finish answering the questions I had sent him for an interview I intend to publish on this blog.
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.
Until next time… happy writing.
