I started writing when I began traveling in Southeast Asia, so early 1988. I can’t remember my first story but it may have been My Life With Other Women (renamed Life in Paradise) because it was a crazy enough story to write about. Or it could have been Capital! (renamed Hong Kong, a Love Story) because bits of it describe those early HK encounters, or Northern Heat set in Bontoc and subsequently relocated to Guatemala! Or it could have been Bangkok Baby (renamed A Blossom in the House) though I suspect, from photographic evidence, that Blossom was written in July 1988 just before I left for Burma.
Regardless, I was prolific from early 1988 until 1992, even reading my stories to a writing group in London (upon my return from Southeast Asia) right up until finishing Alice at an outdoor table in Trio’s restaurant in Dupont Circle, Washington DC.
Then there was a barren period after Alice which continued onto Hong Kong, through to my return to DC, a period of 29 years, although I always intended to get back to the stories.
In summer 2021 I had an idea to write down my dreams (a kind of dream diary as it were) and for this I created https://purelifeofdreams.com. The first dreams drew upon those old stories and were published to that site before branching into new (actual) dreams as a kind of ‘writing practice’, a concept outlined in Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones. At the same time I revisited those old stories and started a narrative around the whole travel period, creating the web site https://seekingsanook.com especially for it (Originally called “The Cormorant Crowd”). Several newer stories had to be written over this time (2022-2024) in order to complete that narrative. In parallel I looked at editing the stories that were not about travel at all (Specifically The Obsession and The Affair) and included them in https://cormorantballads.com, a collection focused on the ‘love stories’.
By August this year, after many months editing and after quite a few reaffirming writing meetups, the narrative for Seeking Sanook was deemed complete. It was finally sent to an editor this month. Fingers crossed but I suspect a lot of revisions will be needed before taking it to the next step!
What is included on the Four Treasures is a full dump of the stories: the originals, the ballads, the first version of Seeking Sanook (prior to its handover to the editor) and anything else I might have found! Contact me if you encounter passwords in your reading 🙂
Mel Christie
September 23, 2024