Wednesday 13 June 2018

Writers, are you still writing?

The writing business is such where only a few make it and many do not. Those are the statistics and they can be quite depressing.

When I started writing, I began with nothing but my laptop and an idea. I do not have siblings or parents and because I've never been in touch with an extended family, the prospect of having families turning into fans and reviewers was void. Regardless, I published my first novel and crossed my fingers, hoping that someone might read it. That was almost six years ago and I am still writing.

Of course when one puts a book out, they want to be not only read, but also to be able to make a reasonable living out of it. However, such a possibility becomes available to only a handful of authors. So are they lucky? Would the others be correctly classified as the majority unfortunates?
How do you label yourself?

I consider myself successful. Perhaps, my definition of success is slightly different from what others might perceive it. Starting from basically nothing, I am grateful for the response and appreciation I have received over these past few years. You see, success is very subjective. It all depends on your goals in the industry. Do you want to be a bestseller? Do you want to earn $20 to $30k a month? Or do you want to be simply read?

I wanted to follow my passion of writing. That was my objective in writing. I was basically hopeless at everything else. I was usually depressed slogging through jobs I hated and doing my best living up to standards set by others. I soon realized, I had lived half my life doing everything else but doing what I wanted to do. When opportunity presented itself, I grabbed it with both hands and set off to fulfilling my dream. Telling stories.

What are your goals? Have you experienced instances of not wanting to write? What were your reasons? Remember to always revert back to the basics. What got you started on the writing path in the first place.

We live in a fortunate age and time when everybody is giving an equal platform to publish their books. Gone are the days where we had to depend on publishers and literary agents to approve of our work. Some of the best books in literature happen to come from self-publishers such as The Martian by Andy Weir and Still Alice by Lisa Genova. Yours could be the next. Just don't quit. Because if you don't put your thoughts, your ideas and your book out there, no one else will.

Not everyone is going to like your books. Not everyone is going to appreciate your unique concept. Some may win with a single try, while others would have to work harder at it . But so long as you're trying, you're still in the game.

But there's one other primary lesson life has taught me in this rat race of becoming the best. Chase your passions and success will chase after you.



Friday 8 June 2018

An Assassin and His Blind Love Interest

Why, you may ask, would I write about a central female character who is blind? As one reviewer shelved, "DNF. Goodluck with this one".



I am fascinated with assassins and they always seemed to sport a strong, beautiful woman on their arm. Women who always happened to look perfect in comparison to the fantastic flaws of the hero. Check out a good assassin oriented movie like well, Assassin, starring Sylvester Stallone. Or Bourne Identity? Or Hitman?

But the weird me began thinking, what if... what if his love interest was blind? What would his challenges be, taking into account the chaotic world he's lived in? How would he protect the woman he loved then?

A Jar of Dreams and A Jar of Hearts documents the life of Eric Tanner who does just that. Faced with the consequences of the decisions he has made all his life, he only begins to realize that the price for those decisions may well probably be blind Anne Mullen, the woman he has hopelessly fallen in love with.

Was I able to successfully impart the angst, heartache, the tensions and the conflicts Eric Tanner was faced with? I hope so. As another reviewer puts it:

I loved how the love story part of this was so well-developed. It felt so real.
Medavis66, Goodreads                    



It was a proud, teary moment for me as I scannd through reviews pouring similar sentiments for the books because these two books were probably two of the hardest I had ever written. There were times I had doubted myself for ever pulling it off and there were certainly times I wanted to shelf them away for good. 

Having a blind character navigate her way through each page was a challenge. I certainly saw her in my mind but how do I show my readers exactly what I was seeing? And what of Eric Tanner's flaws? He is a murderer. He may have a conscience but he still was a murderer. Did he deserve Anne?

I took to the movies and binged on romances with blind leading characters such as At First Sight (1999), Blind (Netherlands), Fanaa (India) and Always (Korean).




Always (Korean) Trailer with English Subtitles


And I did not regret it because I was ecstatic when I found out that there were readers who enjoyed them just as much. I understand that the concept may not be suited to everyone out there, but the books served as an important lesson to me as a writer.

Never give up on a dream. If I worked hard at it enough, everything was possible!




 


Wednesday 6 June 2018

Why I chose to make my Mulan modern?

I have been asked by a few people why I chose to use modern language in an otherwise historical setting of Mulan.


The reasons were simple in my mind. Or at least I thought so.

Mulan was never meant to be a history text book. It is a romance catered to the larger audience of romance readers of which many I believed would not have wanted to wade through the dictionary to find the meaning of an archaic term or to return twice or thrice to a sentence only to decipher its meaning. I wrote it in a simpler and modern format for the very same reasons Disney had its Mulan characters speaking in modern English- it is meant to be an easy, entertaining read for a wider audience.

Disney's Mulan


My purpose of writing Mulan stemmed from the need to see this legendary warrior be given a romance which I missed in most re-tellings. I wasn't quite satisfied with the romance Disney gave me and I can't blame them when their primary audience were children. And the Chinese version was just too darned serious, focusing on her growth as a soldier rather than on the romance.

The Chinese movie version of Mulan


As a writer, there were times also where I was conflicted with the many forks I was faced with while writing Mulan. Do I make the characters homophobic as they would have been in Ancient China or socially tolerant of homosexuality?

I decided to opt for the modern road because my primary objective was again Mulan's romance and not on the social norms of Ancient China. I believed that delving in the social taboos would have opened a whole new can of issues and resolutions which would have in turn swayed away from the romance.

On the whole, my journey while writing Mulan had been quite an adventure. And to know that there also have been readers out there who have been searching for a romance for Mulan has been exciting.

If this is your kind of Mulan which you don't mind reading and reviewing, then please feel free to drop in to request for a free review copy.

https://www.clarissacartharn.com/book-reviewers

Sunday 27 May 2018

My new gender bender romance, MULAN

So I wrote a book called 'MULAN'.



No, Mulan doesn't belong to Disney.  The earliest record of this legendary warrior was found in an old Chinese poem called 'The Ballad of Mulan'. Her historic existence however is questionable. 
I first read of Hua Mulan in 1982. I was about six or seven years old at the time, but her story left such an indelible impression, I have been enamored by her ever since. 
Of course, when the Disney version came out, I was one of those who rushed to the cinemas. I even gobbled through the much rather somber Chinese version, starring Zhao Wei. 
Finally, I found the courage to write my own rendition, suiting it for the romance fanatics like me. I hope it is one you will enjoy. 
So if you're up for a free copy to read and review, just fill in your details by following the link below!