I Published My NaNo Novel! Dave Anthony on Love, Struggle and First Drafts

Do you write based on your life experiences? We seized the opportunity to ask Dave Anthony a few questions about this very topic. Dave’s historical fiction novel, Love and Struggle: Beyond the Rubber Estates was informed by his experiences as a Catholic priest in Malaysia.

Your novel came out last year. What can you tell us about the story?

Love and Struggle: Beyond the Rubber Estates is a historical novel. It traces the struggles of Indian rubber plantation workers in Malaya through the oppressive machinations of the planters, the Indian overseers known as mandors or kanganies, and the governments under British, Japanese and again British rule.

It is set in the period before, during and after the Second World War. A thread of romance runs through this tale of injustices perpetrated on the marginalized Indian plantation workers who left their homeland to come here in search of a better life. Many of them never returned and many thousands just disappeared. It is this forgotten part of Malaysia’s social history that forms the canvas on which the story is painted.

The salient facts of the social history of Malaysia are either masked or sidelined by the official history taught in our schools. The novel is another face of the social history of Malaysia.

How is the novel based on your real-life experiences?

As a Catholic priest for 21 years, my pastoral experience has been primarily with the poor Indian rubber plantation workers. The Church in Malaysia caters for the English, Chinese, Tamil and Malay-speaking followers. The Tamil-speaking people are the Indians, most of whom work in the plantations.

As a Redemptorist religious priest I would be invited by the parishes to conduct missions of faith renewal. As a Tamil-speaking priest I have traveled through the length and breadth of the country over 12 years visiting the plantations. I communicate not only with the Catholics but all the workers and their families who are mostly Hindus. Not to convert them but to get to know them and their problems. They live in poor and cramped conditions.

I drive my van into the estate and sleep in it with the mosquitoes. I have grown to deeply understand the hardships they face, particularly their low wages.

What have your NaNoWriMo experiences been like?

November 2011 was the first and only time I participated in NaNoWriMo. It had been a challenging and rewarding experience for me. The objective of reaching the target number of words each day pushed the story forward. I just kept writing with no sections or headings or chapters.

Being a historical novel it required substantial research and if I did both research and writing I would never reach the target, so I marked the space for research which could be filled out later and just kept writing.

After November is over, revision time inevitably rolls around. What was your revision process like? Any words of wisdom?

I found that the story was running all over the place and needed some ordering of sequence. Referring back to the plot I put it in some order and began my research where required. When I had finally finished the work I went over the script several times shaping and re-sharpening the storyline and editing out sections that did not contribute to the story. Each time I read it, there were more mistakes.

I would say: consider the 50k words as a rough draft and later sharpen the story line.

Once your novel was polished up, what was your journey to publication?

This was the more difficult task. I wrote queries to several agents and publishers but there were no takers. Some politely declined while most just ignored me.

Finally, I approached a local publisher who has no international distribution network. After 10 months, he offered to publish it.

What was your lowest moment while writing and how did you overcome it?

A couple of times I had to travel and failed to meet the daily target. Since I had to work twice as hard to catch up I saw no point in pushing on. What I had been doing, though, was to write slightly more than the daily quota. Adding this up gave me an edge, so instead of giving up I continued.

Dave Anthony is a Malaysian of Indian origin. As a Catholic priest for 21 years, his pastoral experience has been primarily with the poor Indian rubber plantation workers. Trained in television production and journalism in Ireland, he was the editor and publisher of a nationwide Catholic Church magazine for 15 years.  He lives in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia with his wife and two sons.

Keep up with Dave:

On his Facebook
On his website