Writers Block

A sleeping baby, a fully charged computer, a blank page just waiting for my thoughts and a bar of sustaining chocolate to hand  Time To Write...

... and I can't think of a thing to say.

Real life has overtaken me somewhat.  In just over a month, Simon will be one year old (how on earth did that happen???) and we're off shortly to Washington DC to celebrate with the American/Nicaraguan branch of his family.  Meanwhile, the bills are more or less paid by online tutoring and one-to-one mentoring of creative writing students.  This is something I love doing and it's never a second best to my own writing, but it is a huge (and legitimate, as opposed to cleaning, eating and watching TV) distraction.  The first draft of my novel, part of my ongoing PhD, is due at the end of the summer and let's just say I'm a few words off the 80,000 word total...

ABBW has gone quiet for the time being.  I'm shamefully aware that I should be out there marketing it with vigour and confidence, but somehow looking and sounding professional is not so easy with a grinning, babbling baby in tow (he takes centre stage every time) and food stains (mostly his rather than mine.  I think) down my front.

How did JK Rowling DO it???

EPIC eBook Awards

Just got word from the publisher that A Blonde Bengali Wife is being entered for the 2012 EPIC eBook Awards.  It will be in the non-fiction category and the winners are announced next March.

A nice surprise!

You can read more about EPIC here:

http://www.epicorg.com// 

Suse Coon @ Lothian Life

A very nice review from a very nice magazine - well worth a look on both counts!!  Suse Coon has a whole host of great book reviews too.

www.lothianlife.co.uk/2011/06/a-blonde-bengali-wife

Through the Shop Window

Product placement is an interesting concept.  I've often said (joking, I think) that I should hand out copies of ABBW to friends and family and ask them to read the book ostentatiously in very public places - trains, planes and buses and proclaim what a great read it is!  A friend (who will remain anonymous because she is already totally incorrigible and needs no encouragement... you know who you are...) did precisely this at the local British Heart Foundation shop.  Went in, brandished the book at unsuspecting volunteer, waxed lyrical about signed copy of book by local writer, and managed to get it in the window wedged between Kenny Dalgliesh's biography and The Boys Book of Military Aircraft.  Something for everyone in there!

I walked past it for several days wondering how long it would be before I cracked and went in with my £2 and bought it just in case nobody else did.  Then - it disappeared.  Hopefully to a customer and not as a doorstop into the back office of the shop.

Only one niggle: had said friend even read the book AND what was she doing giving away a signed copy...!!!

Pictures from Bhola

With Bhola on my mind - tickets for a November trip finally purchased - here are a random selection of photos from Bhola's Garden...

One of the first storms of the season has brought down a tree onto the roof of one of the old school buildings - luckily no harm done and the wood will be used for fuel for cooking

The vegetable garden in Valumia continues to thrive, helping Chola's Children become more self-sufficient by the day!

And Dinah, receiving gifts of embroidery all made by the girls in their sewing classes: pillow cases, cushion covers, napkins and bedspreads.  She'll bring them back to the UK and sell them to boost the funds of the charity
Anne

Touching a Chord?

Is there anything more thrilling for a writer than receiving a totally unsolicited email from someone who has enjoyed your book and taken the time to write and say so?  I suppose one of my niggling worries about ABBW was how a Bangladeshi reader might view it: patronising? making light of serious issues? totally alien?  I was hoping for the opposite reactions when I wrote it, and I'm delighted that Shishu, a Bangladeshi man who came across the e-book by accident, definitely found something that struck a chord...

“Being born to Bangladeshi parents but only having spent the early part of my life in Bangladesh, I am as much of foreigner as you ever were. Your style of writing brought out every experience I have ever had in Bangladesh. Thank you for helping me relive those memories. Through your writings, I feel like I know you, a long-lost sister if you like. I never imagined a travel diary would have this sort of impact. Not often does an author succeed in drawing me this close.”

Thank you, Shishu!  You, and all the other readers who have commented on ABBW have made my day.  It will be interesting to hear what the real life Bangladeshis who 'star' in the book will ahve to say about it...
 
Anne

Move Over Michael Parkinson!

If you haven't already seen my friend and fellow writer, Michael Malone's, exemplary blog (if he wasn't such a nice guy I'd hate him for being so darn good at this) 'MAY CONTAIN NUTS' then now is the perfect time to follow the link and read his interview with me in which I tell all; yes, beans spilt, cats out of endless bags...*

mickmal1.blogspot.com


*Perhaps I exaggerate slightly.  Oh, how I wish there were an All to tell.

Guilty As Charged...

Is there anything more irritating in the blog/website/electronic world, than hitting on a site that looks vaguely interesting only to find it was last updated a good couple of months (or years) ago?  Hands up!  I've fallen into the trap and I'm guilty of exactly that; apologies to anyone who is trying to follow me - please don't give up, I'll try harder...

The first royalties cheque is in for A Blonde Bengali Wife.  It's not going to change the world in Bhola but it will cover a few more meals.  Work over there is going on at a fast pace, the construction of the new workshop especially.  Today is Bangladesh's Independence Day and the children all took their places marching for the District Commissioner and the Chief of Police.  I'll look out some photographs for the next entry...

Most exciting is that Dinah and I have set the dates for our next visit and come November we'll be introducing Simon to his extended Bangladeshi family!  It can't come too soon, impossible to believe that my last trip was in January 2010 - poor Ali, I was so sick (actually early pregnancy) he was beside himself so I can't wait to get back and show him why it was all so worth while!

Bhola 2011 and beyond...

Returned from another Trustees Meeting in respect of Bhola's Children.  It's always a delight to catch up with everyone - and this time to introduce Simon to them.  It seems that despite the occupational hazards of living in the Bay of Bengal (monsoon, cyclone, flooding), the home is going from strength to strength.  Ali and the children remain self-sufficient in terms of vegetables and fish, and the plans for a purpose built workshop instead of the haphazard lean-to, are well in hand - funds permitting.  This will allow a more comprehensive training for carpentry and tailoring for the older young people, thus giving them a better chance of making their own independent living when they leave Bhola Garden.  Dinah is off this week for her visit and I think we have plans to take Simon next October... it really will be his second home.

Speaking of Simon - a milestone for him in that he ate his first non-milk food today!  Or rather he smeared a pin-prick of banana everywhere in sight; banana carnage doesn't cover it.  'Outraged astonishment' is the best way to describe the first taste but since he's still licking his fingers hours on, I'd say it was a success.  If only sleeping came as easy... don't worry, says Julianne, our lovely Health Visitor, it'll come....  She went away with a copy of A Blonde Bengali Wife.  I'm not sure of the etiquette of blogging your own book to professionals just trying to do a job, but her donation was much appreciated!

January Blues

It's as if I'm 10 years old again and have been asked to write a diary in school; by day four the scintillating content reduced to 'got up, did nothing, ate dinner, went to bed...' So there's not a great deal to report on the book front and whilst I should be creative enough to think of some witty, writerly anecdotes, I'm not.  I'm too busy singing Incy-wincy spider at a hundred decibels in a vain attempt to distract Simon from noticing I'm trying to get him dressed.  (He's a naturist in the making, doesn't believe in clothes).  Or I'm displaying my nipples in more places than the average glamour model in order to feed him.  It's all more than worth it of course, it just means I get to the end of the day wondering why I didn't do anything about the publicity, marketing, interest etc in A Blonde Bengali Wife, or indeed, continue writing the next work-in-progress...

Zetta, the publisher, tells me she's entered the book for two awards, the Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction and the Dolman Travel Award, so that's something.

Meanwhile, I'm off to learn some more nursey rhymes.  And I'll be inspired tomorrow, surely!

What people are saying...

And these are reviews from people I don't even know - thank you!

Dearbhaile said on Facebook:

'Just wanted to say that I loved, loved, loved 'a blonde Bengali wife!!!" It's been a while since I got into a book like that and couldn't put it down. Haven't laughed so much in ages. As they say: I maximum enjoyed!'

Juliet in an email to the friend who sent her the copy said:

'...how much I'm enjoying this book. Anne Hamilton has a wonderfully amusing way of writing and "turn of
phrase" describing some of the almost ludicrous situations she, and Christine, find themselves in! Thank you so much'

And Moira, also via an email:

'Thanks for letting me know about this book of Anne Hamilton’s.  I don’t think I know Anne but her book is marvellous.  Having bought a copy for myself I will also buy it for any other friend who has travelled off the beaten track.  Anne captures the experience wonderfully – the ‘miscomprehensions’ (her lovely and precise phrase), the funny bits, the astonishing bits, the hassle, the cultural connections – all of it in such a well-written and funny way.'

It's strange to think of the book being read somewhere out there, but I'm delighted that it is, and to hear what (good and bad) people think.  I might write another, or rather finish the one I began once in another pre-Simon lifetime!
 

New Year, New Start?

A very happy, if belated, new year to you all!

I'm not sure how we can be thirteen days into January and this is my first posting for a month.  So much for that new year, new start philosophy in which I intended to get ahead in all things writing/work/study... Still, a wonderful Christmas with Simon and yes, he did wear a little Santa suit despite my protestations about dressing babies up.  It's all Julie's fault for seeing it in the charity shop window, and it was just the right size, and, and, and, excuses galore... but: cute or what????

And the stocking is All My Own Work, yes I know, I should stick to writing.  But I'm proud of it.  Oh dear, doting mother moment!

It seems that quite a lot of people gave or got A Blonde Bengali Wife for Christmas; sales from Alaska to Nicaragua, from the south of England to the north of Scotland.  Not all of them will become doorstops or fly-flatteners, surely!

Edinburgh, December 2010

Back in Edinburgh for a quick pitstop before travelling down to Suffolk for Christmas and New Year - if the airports are open long enough... so this might well be the last post this year.  That said, a very happy Christmas to everyone and thanks for your support and interest in the blog so far!  Lots of happiness, health and good luck for the new year -

Back in 2011

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Reviews, Reviews, Reviews

Greetings from Virginia!

Simon slept through his first transatlantic flight, has yawned through his first meeting with Santa Claus, and even decided to sleep in a cot for a week before deciding this was a mistake...  And we're missing the big freeze in Scotland.

Some nice reviews on Amazon: 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blonde-Bengali-Wife-Anne-Hamilton/dp/1905091478

If you've read the book, please feel free to add your own!  The more copies sold, the more royalties for Bhola's Children - so dare I suggest it as a perfect Christmsa gift???

Reflections on the Launch

Huge sigh of relief!

The people flocked in in their hundreds (well, a wonderfully affirming 68, not all of whom I knew) and stayed beyond the wine and canapes.  The venue was great, the books arrived in time for a long, snaking queue for signings and the attentiveness (other than from Simon who slept from beginning to end) of the audience to the readings and Jacqui's explanation about Bhola suggested that the evening justified a night away from the telly.  Best of all, I didn't fall flat on my face or say anything completely stupid (I don't think).

So, a big thank you to everyone who made it such a success - Neil & Caroline for their respective roles as compere and bar girl!! Ruth for seeing to the food, Julie & my mum for doing stuff that needed doing and Jacqui for the exhibition, the photographs and the 'speech'.  Jacqui Dunbar is a friend and  great photographer, who joined me on one of my longer visits to Bangladesh and was equally won over by both Bhola and the rest of the country; watch out for her photographic work - or hire her to take your pics!  She provided the photos for the book cover too.

It's a very positive start to sales and ongoing publicity and - most surprisingly of all - it was fun...

Now it's off to Ireland for a bit of a break before travelling to Washington DC for Thanksgiving.  Back next week when we've settled in.

The book that inspired a charity

Remember the theory of the 'six degrees of separation'?  Well, I met Dinah who met Bruna who took her to Bangladesh and introduced her to Ali who was running a small home-school for children with disabilities there... 

The detail is in the preface to A Blonde Bengali Wife, but put simply Dinah fell in love with the country and the people in exactly the way I had done.  More so, she was totally inspired by the work Ali was doing on the island of Bhola, and came home with the plan to set up a charity to support him.  Thus was born Bhola's Children and a lifelong relationship between us and them.

Still no sign of a publisher - but did it matter now?

Well, some more excellent rejections ('great book but we've just taken on one about a female cyclist in Sierra Leone' or 'if only the author was famous we'd snap it up' and - my personal favourite - 'there's just not enough sex or violence.  Can she jazz it up a bit?') when I met, purely by chance Zetta Brown of LL-Publications who heard an outline of the story and asked to see the manusript in full.  She liked it, she offered a contract.  And finally...

it's been a very long journey but the diary which became a book which was instrumental in establishing a charity has its formal LAUNCH TODAY.  More details tomorrow!

Scotland, May 2004

Rejection followed rejection once the manuscript for A Blonde Bengali Wife was completed.  And however nice the notes were, they were still rejections.  In fact, it's fair to say that the nice ones ('we loved this but...') are far more infuriating than the pre-printed photocopied slip complete with coffee stain and addressed to Miss Hambleton/Hamill (or on one occasion Mr Roy Thompson with reference to his novel The Byronic Man... If you're out there Roy, best of luck!)

I went back to Bangladesh.  When my flatmate of the time, a few weeks after my return to a job in Edinburgh, casually remembered that someone calling herself a literary agent had called in my absence and said I should phone back - who, when it was said flatmate wasn't sure, oh dear, was it important..?

Dinah Wiener, a very experienced and successful literary agent in London eventually took a risk on the book.  'It's not very commercial and I have doubts I'll ever manage to sell it,' was what she said, 'but I do feel passionate about it and it makes me want to go to Bangladesh.'

And go to Bangladesh she did.

_______________________

PS The book launch is tomorrow.  The books, the focal point of the event, the things I am meant to be signing in front of a huge and enthusiastic audience(!) are somewhere in transit in courier-land. Is this an omen?

West of Ireland, September 2002

Back at home, back at work, full of stories about Bangladesh  - a veritable 'Bangla-bore' - and with a huge album of disappointing photographs (this was before I got a digital camera and I have no eye for photography) I turned towards the diary I had been diligently keeping whilst away.  Long and boring and self-indulgent, I looked at it again and again and began to think it would make a good travel book if I ever managed to edit it.  I'd always done a lot of writing but never finished anything full-length before so this was going to be a huge challenge; the aim to show the 'other side' of Bangladesh beyond the dismal and shcoking news reports that tend to sideline it for the Western world...

Fast forward to the present and yes, the reporter and photographer from the Evening News, duly interviewed me.  And simon.  And my mother.  No idea what the two (very nice) people thought of the chaos, or if/when there will be a story.

Something to wrap the chips in...

It seems that an afternoon round the kitchen table with Juliet and a pile of newspapers as well as the inevitable Google, has paid off. 

Whilst the book was sent direct from the publishers to the reviewers on the big nationals, we have been concentrating on the local papers and magazines.  The technique has been more along the lines of throwing darts at a board and aiming at reporters who prefer the heart-warming to the car-crash in the vain hope that 'the book which inspired a charity' angle will catch someones eye.

We've had several responses from interested journalists and whilst I doubt - realist or pessimist? - they'll actually become a story  it will be interesting research!  Interview with the Evening News tomorrow...

Edinburgh, November 2010

Q: Which is easier - launching a book or a baby?

The jury is still out on that one!  Simon is now nearly 12 weeks old and a giant baby, a definite endorsement of on-demand breast milk even if his mother is also going to be a giant trying to eat enough to keep up with him...

The book launch is in ten days time and the preparations are slowly falling (literally) into place.  This is due solely to the work of The Committee, my friends who were the slowest in thinking up excuses why they couldn't/shouldn't/wouldn't be able to listen to my desperate pleas for help in setting up the event.  I couldn't offer them much in return but - being three of the best women ever (or cheap dates the lot of them) - a couple of slices of cake and a cuddle of the baby was enough! 

So, Juliet (press releases), Caroline (along with the lovely Neil, venue and event organiser) and Ruth (food) - thankyou, thank you, thank you.