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 Author's Note The novel Spratlys Blend has undergone many rewritings, changes, retitlings and has a history of three deaths in the family...my dad, mom and elder sister...I put them all in the acknowldgement page of the book. The story idea was inspired mainly by the break out of the Spratlys conflict in the South China Sea along with oil discoveries in the region in the early 70s. I first scribbled some cinematic concepts as I experienced an independent life in Manila when Martial Law was still forming up. I was on-job-training at a military camp's computer center when the news hit the headlines that countries surrounding the South China Sea were racing to build their military might on the islands in the Spratlys. I got fired or terminated from my ojt and was told by somewhat like a military council that I needed to leave because I was a Chinese citizen. They brought up the matter in my personnel records, later shocking me that I had stated in my application form that I was an alien in citizenship. I didn't realize I have done that. My dad was born in TaiShan, China in the province of Guangdong. He was a citizen of the People's Republic of China. When I was a child I have grown hating being a Chinese. I hated it so much when childhood friends call me Chinese. This could be due to the media image of China as having gone through the Communist takeover and cultural revolution, which I was not very familiar about. All I heard was that communism was bad. I was born in Salvador, Lanao del Norte, in a heartland on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. The Philippines had been an important U.S. ally then. After a writing school at UofN in Kona, Hawaii in 1992, the fifth draft (455 pages) of the manuscript was mostly typewritten as I have not had a permanent computer. Then New York City was a mesmerizing venture for me, meeting literary agents in person and marvelled at the high rise skyscrappers that house literary agencies and publishing giants. This ran in 1992 through 1997. I discovered about the AAR (Association of Author's Representatives) and got my first package from the best known literary agency group. A very significant part of the writing was when I visited the island of Palawan back in 1993. I did an ocular inspection in northwest Palawan where oil discoveries abound for the Philippine side. I had opted to go into the Philippine-occupied Spratly isles, but was prohibited by the military in Puerto Princesa with a suspicion that I was a spy from China, though they had scrutinized me and inspected my passport. However, one geologist have guided me into the world of satellite remote sensing technology. He pointed me to the UNDP, at which time, I was bound for Washington, DC to do a Journalism course at the University of the Nations branch location in Arlington, VA. My time in DC was fruitful enough, not to mention my assignments in the Capitol, the White House, the Pentagon, different Embassies, the Alexandria Gazzette, and the UNDP, all through the National Journalism Center in the Beltway. Meeting Terry Lehman at his former EOSAT office in Lanham, MD led me to the wonders of satellite remote sensing which became one of the "red meat" subjects in Spratlys Blend. After Washington, I became a member of the AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geologists) when I attended and covered the 1995 AAPG International Convention in Houston, Texas. As I travelled around the globe, manuscripts intact, making corrections and refining some chapters never stopped. All along the travels, were myriad of query rejections from literary agencies mainly from New York, and one from a publisher. However, one agent had inspired me with her rejection note saying that I need to go to other agents who specialize in commercial fiction of the blockbuster type as it was how she saw my book project. This spurred me on. The rest is about to be a history in the making...in July 1999, I have completed a 600+ pages manuscript of Spratlys Blend while in Las Vegas, of all places... proofed copy squeezed down to 400 pages. (To be continued...) |