Shine is Launching in the Philippines

ABOUT THE COVER   |  YOU'RE INVITED TO THE LAUNCH  |   SCHEDULE OF EVENTS IN HK & MANILA

I give you, SHINE, the Philippine edition!

FIRST REVIEW

Shine's already had its first review in the Philippine papers - thanks to Ruel de Vera for liking it! 

Thanks to my classmate, Carmen Montano for sending me this photo.
You can also read the review online

COVER REVEALED

I'm extra proud of Shine's cover because the artwork was created by one of my best buddies from university, Ricky Villabona. Here is what Ricky looked like when he was a baby.

Ricky is on the right.

As teenagers working as 'gophers' for the American network
news during the turbulent events that led up to a revolution
in 1986 Philippines 

Ricky and I were teenagers together, Communication Arts majors at university (Communication Arts would be the equivalent of Media Studies, I guess). We worked together on many student film and TV projects. One of our short films even placed fourth at the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines Competition!

When we graduated, I went off to become a journalist and Ricky became a fashion photographer and then a director of TV commercials like this one:


Today, Ricky is an artist and thanks to Facebook, we're still great friends -- I can ask him to make art for my cover and he doesn't get upset when I post his baby picture on my blog.

Ricky V

BOOK LAUNCH

So if you haven't unfriended me yet on Facebook, you should have seen this invite:

I couldn't resist Photoshopping this cover from a 1930s Liwayway magazine. The translation: Candy - "Come to the launch of my new book!"  Boy - "As long as I don't have to make a book report."

So ... are you coming?

HERE'S MY SCHEDULE

13 Sept Saturday Afternoon HK	SCBWI Hong Kong	Part One - A Writer is Just a Rabbit Staring at Rabbit Holes. Writers are like rabbits staring at rabbit holes that represent character, story and setting. We must dive in, go as far as we can go, in order for our stories to reveal themselves. Candy will talk about how there are no half measures in unfolding a story and how we are all better authors for the journey we have to take. Part Two - If Everyone's Now Got a Platform, How are You Going to Stand Out? We are all wise to the internet now, all tweeting, blogging, Facebooking. But is anybody listening? Candy Gourlay was an early adopter of the Internet, blogging before Blogger was invented, learning web design before content management systems became ubiquitous, and trying out every new thing that came along from MySpace to Tumblr. She will be discussing the author's biggest challenge: being discovered by readers. There will be tips and tricks and strategies. But be warned. Ultimately, it will be about writing a good book.
15 Sept Monday Morning HK 8.35 am	Bradbury School	School Visit
15 Sept Monday Afternoon HK 12 pm	Glenealy School	School Visit
16 Sept Tuesday HK 8.30 am	Peak School	School Visit
20 Sept Saturday Pasay City 8 am	Manila International Book Fair - Mall of Asia: Meeting Room 8, SMX Convention Centre	Why I Write for Young Readers. I will be speaking to an audience of educators - librarians and teachers who are already at the frontline of the reading battle. They already know the value of fostering a love of reading in their students. I will argue that that is not enough. Our educators must not only seek to create readers, they must also empower their pupils to become writers.
22 Sept Monday Biñan, Laguna 8 am	The Beacon Academy	School visit
22 Sept Monday Calamba, Laguna 12pm	Xavier Nuvali	School visit
22 Sep Monday Biñan, Laguna 2 pm	Alpha Angelicum Academy	School Visit
23 Sept Tuesday Mandaluyong 1 pm	Poveda	School Visit
23 Sept Tuesday Quezon City 1 pm	Ateneo de Manila	School Visit
24 Sept Wednesday Makati 11am	The Beacon Academy	School Visit
25 Sept Thursday Makati 8 am	Colegio de San Agustin	School Visit
25 Sept Thursday Sampaloc 2 pm	University of the East	Lecture
26 Sept Friday Quezon City 8 am	Miriam College	School Visit
26 Sept Friday Quezon City 3.30 pm	St Theresa's College	School Visit - my alma mater!
27 Sept Saturday Makati 9.30 am to 1.30 pm	Write Away Event (Where the Write Things Are, )	Workshop
27 Sept Saturday Makati 4 pm	National Book Store, Glorietta I	SHINE BOOK LAUNCH and signing. Yehey!
1 October Wednesday Tanauan, Batangas	Ambulong Elementary School and Janopol Elementary School	I will be fulfilling pledges I made to the Authors for the Philippines auction, delivering signed copies of my books, one CD set of Tall Story, and a school visit care of the Sambat Trust. I will also be opening one of the Sambat Trust's school libraries!

... and now some brazen promotion for my favourite charity:

Your old car can pay for someone's education. 

Love is not all you need - celebrating 25 years of hard labour

What a feeling! It was the best day.

The other day, my husband and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary.

It seems like such a long time ago now, and looking back on that day - fairy lights twinkling on the coconut trees outside the church, we really had no idea what the next 25 years would hold for us. I had not imagined three children. I had not imagined living in London this long. Nor had I imagined who we would become, what we would be like.

So getting here is something of a miracle.

Multicultural is not about difference but inclusion - why the children's book world has to be a coat of many colours

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, my son came home from kindergarten proudly waving a drawing of our family. He'd drawn himself, his dad and his siblings with bright yellow skin. And mummy? He drew me with BLUE skin.

Clearly, he'd noticed that mummy was a different hue from the rest of the family. And there was nothing wrong with that.

I am pleased to report, as my husband and I approach our 25th wedding anniversary next week,

Thank you. You gave £55,124.73 for the Philippines

I am still overwhelmed by the incredible kindness of so many strangers. Those who donated their books, school visits, paintings, character names and many more. And those who bid so enthusiastically,  with such great humour, egging each other on, building the excitement. And those who got in touch later to say they would still donate the money even though they lost their bids. And Keris and Keren who brought them all together.

HEY BBC!!! On behalf of the victims of Typhoon Haiyan / Yolanda

If you can't see the video, watch it on YouTube

Apologies to everyone for being vague and glassy-eyed for the last couple of days, I've been helping out posting stuff at the Authors for the Philippines appeal

I read an excerpt from Shine and wonder what to do about my accent

Shine is officially released on 5 September 2013. It is already available for download on Kindle!

I made this over the weekend and then vacillated about whether I would actually post it.

It's just me reading an excerpt from SHINE from the screen of my computer, but after I made it, I realized that I'd read it in the mainly British accent that I use here in London and not the mainly American accent that I use elsewhere.

I did try a Filipino accent to start with but I abandoned that idea because it's hard to remember what my normal Filipino accent is when I'm not surrounded by Filipinos. I appear to be one of those weirdos who acquire the accents of the people they are talking to.

But this ... I worried that my Filipino peeps would consider it some kind of betrayal.

From TV Newsroom

I am all too aware of the experience of London-grown news anchor Veronica Pedrosa who suffered the suspicious criticism of Filipinos who thought the British accent was a put on.

Veronica anchored for Al-Jazeera and CNN before that and was subject to cruel speculation about an accent that was perceived as fake. Ironically, an American accent would have been seen as more acceptable.

When I was growing up in the Philippines many many years ago, the ability to speak English was so highly prized that at one point, I had a teacher who fined us a few centavos for every Tagalog word that slipped into our answers.

Tagalog, of Malay extraction, is the most widely spoken language in the Philippines and the basis for Pilipino (called 'Filipino' since the 1980s), which is one of our two national languages. Pilipino/Filipino was created out of the Tagalog language, to much opprobium from speakers of the other languages.

There are 120 to 175 languages in the Philippines you only have to drive a few miles out of Manila to find people speaking another language. If you've got the energy, you can read about the evolution of Filipino here - a reminder to Filipinos of how recently our country developed its national identity.

The other national language is English.

Tribal boys learning English at the turn of the other century.

Funnily enough, since we became an American colony in the 1898, it's become the lingua franca across our seven thousand one hundred and seven islands because education, law and politics has been largely conducted in English, though that is changing.

Which is why, when my family migrated to Manila from the Visayan-speaking South when I was three years old, English became the language we chose to speak at home. As a result, I was terrible at all my Pilipino subjects in school. I remember my Pilipino essays in primary school: all the Visayan words encircled with red ball point pen and the teacher's scribble 'This is not a Pilipino word")

'How can you call yourself a Filipino?' one exasperated teacher in Pilipino literature once asked me when I yet again resorted to an English word for lack of vocabulary.

I really did wonder if I could call myself a Filipino. Looking back now, I realize my problem was not because I was not Filipino enough. I just came from another island where we spoke a different language.

Sadly all this (and ubiquitous American TV) led to the erasure of Visayan from my vocabulary.

Though I can still understand a bit of Visayan, it has faded from my linguistic memory.

Good morning! (From DepEd)

The Philippines has just introduced a new educational system called the K to12 which subscribes to the idea that children learn best in their mother tongue - so early years education will now be delivered in local languages, with Filipino and English taught as separate subjects.

I am no educator, so I can't really offer any words of wisdom, praise or criticism about the new venture - except to say I'm glad no child will ever again be accused of not being Filipino enough because of the language they speak.

On one of my visits to a provincial school, a group of teachers eyed my approach with visible apprehension. When I opened my mouth to say hello in Tagalog, they all sighed with relief.

'Ma'am, when we heard you were an author from England, we thought you would speak to us in English!' one teacher explained. 'We were all suffering from nosebleeds!' (Note to teachers: please don't call me Ma'am!)

Nosebleed is Filipino comedy slang for linguistic low self esteem ... as in: 'Your English was so high falutin I got a nosebleed' (we conjugate the word nosebleed as if it was Tagalog).

Growing up with this constant linguistic tension - those who are fluent sneering, those who aren't, feeling insecure - I wanted to show that people are not just their accents.

In my first novel TALL STORY (Spoiler - if you want to read it please highlight and the words will become visible), English is not my character Bernardo's strongest point. And though I write his thoughts in complex English, whenever he opens his mouth the English comes out hilarious and mixed up. It was hard work to capture that kind of speech because I was not physically in the Philippines to get that Pinoy vibe ... but  I got a lot of help from a hilarious Filipino book called The More the Manyer.

Anyway, I decided to post this video and hope for the best.

---

You might be interested in my recent postings. Click on the thumbnails to view:

How to Become a Writer

My Video Reading

Unboxing First Copies 

Q&A at Tamarind Books

Riffing on Rain in Shine

Chasing happiness

Books, books, books! It must be my birthday!

My Former Life as a Pregnant Cartoonist: Using Comics to Tell Stories

Info ... what?

Over on my other blog Notes from the Slushpile, we've started a new series called the Geek List - geeky tools that can make the job of being an all-writing, all-marketing author much easier.

My first piece is about using Powerpoint to easily create infographics. I got so caught up in it that when I remembered that it was my turn to blog over at my publisher's  StoryBlog (yes ANOTHER blog) I made a comic using Powerpoint!

POSTCARD FROM MANILA: What we do for love

Everywhere in Manila, one senses the struggle to make a living.

I live in a place called Cubao, on the edge of a slum, and every corner literally teems with people and activity.

The road in front of our house has been ripped up to replace drains with bigger pipes, broken bits of road are piled high on either side, leaving one dusty lane for vehicular traffic. This has all been done by bare-chested men with tiny shovels. No digger in sight. This will take forever, my mother says grimly. My brother-in-law palms a bit of cash over to the men so that they would tidy up our frontage, widen the path for cars.


On the pavement in front of my neighbour’s gate, the tricycle drivers await passengers. There’s a man standing there shouting out their availability – he gets a few pesos for his pains. A boy of about 11 with a wooden box on his arm is selling the drivers cigarettes by the stick.

Two of my mother’s neighbours have set up shop, tables covered with plastic table cloths, pots of food, selling lunch to passers-by. They’re a bit like lemonade stands, except these are adults trying to make a living. They spoon the food into plastic bags for the customer to take away.

In England, the struggle to make a living happens invisibly, quietly, behind closed doors.

In the Philippines, it’s in your face.

I remember my own struggling, as a young reporter earning a wage barely enough to cover my expenses.

It was an exciting time in the Philippines, the decline of a dictatorship and the start of a new era.

I went everywhere, witnessed history in the making, then went back to the camaraderie of our news room to assemble the magazine. I was writing!

On Thursdays, everyone stayed until the wee hours of the morning, putting the magazine to bed – it came out on Fridays. These were pre-digital days, so the galleys were typset, laid out by hand, then filmed. And any corrections were stripped into the film later.

Afterwards everyone piled off to an all-night breakfast place for hot bibingka (pancakes made with coconut and salted eggs) or tapsilog – a breakfast of cured meat, rice and eggs.

It was a fantastic job. No hour was too late, no distance too far to gather information, no story too dangerous (it wasn’t courage, just youthful enthusiasm).

I felt blessed even though the money was only a little better than peanuts and not as tasty.

My friends and I got around the tricky problem of making ends meet in various ways.

Too proud to live with my parents, I shared a one-bedroom (bedroom is a relative term ) flat with other girls who worked for the same magazine. On some nights there were three of us, on others there were five. We all slept on mattresses laid out on our sitting room’s pocket handkerchief floor.

It helped that press conferences in the Philippines always involved some kind of catering. By attending at least three conferences a day, I covered all my meals. When my best friend and I wanted to sample a new restaurant, we would order one coffee and sit there for an hour sipping the one cold cup.

To supplement my income, I wrote press releases for a friend who was a publicist. I interviewed pop stars and drew a weekly cartoon strip for a woman’s magazine. I scripted small talk for a pop singer to do between songs. I dubbed in the voices of American extras who had moved on before their movies had finished. When I realized I could get paid for pictures as well as words, I acquired a camera and took photographs when I was on assignment.

No job was too small, as long it meant I could continue to be a reporter.

And that’s why I felt so blessed.

My work was not a struggle even if I struggled to make a living because I was doing it for love. It’s one of the great things about my new, second career, writing for children.

The JK Rowlings and Stephenie Meyers of the children’s book industry are incidental. Yes, there is money in it – but money is not why children’s authors write.

In the main, we don’t do it for money. That’s why we are the lucky ones. We aren’t wage slaves. We do our work for love.

Doing things for love is the best way not just to make a living, but to have a life.

Even if it’s a struggle.