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Award-winning writer Harold Bascom reflects on success, on the challenges he faces as a writer, and his future projects By Michael Jordan(Continued from last week)Q: Is the challenge greater being a Guyanese/West Indian writing in aHarold Bascom in his studioforeign environment?  A: For me, writing here in the USA is no challenge—no challenge at all. Most Guyanese out of Guyana create a little Guyana within whatever walls they might be, in whatever country. When I sit writing in my home in Georgia, USA, that home IS Guyana. It’s like an embassy—never mind where it is, that embassy represents a specific country.So, for me, writing here is no problem—and before you ask about that age-old argument that writers out of Guyana have it better than writers at home: To that I say, “CRAP!”—not true. I would even say that it is the reverse: those Guyanese writers back in Guyana have it much better, because if they want to get a certain feel of a thing they’re writing about, they just step outside. Me? I have to call home, text home, and ask somebody to give me a refresher to get me stimulated in my mind.Q: What is your best advice to writers, beginning and otherwise? A: Someone asked me that very question on Facebook just recently, and I said that people who aspire to be writers, need to do three things: #1: If you want to write stop talking about wanting to write, and WRITE! #2: That the art of writing is RE-WRITING. And #3: Understand the role of editors in the writing process. (Get an editing buddy who will be your Devil’s advocate—someone not afraid to tell you that you’re writing crap—if you are writing crap, and listen to her/him suggest how you might make what you write better.)  With no respect for editors, forget about being a writer.Q: Of how much importance is discipline to the writer?A: Discipline is most important to writers who are driven, and are prolific. There are some writers, however, who are laid back, and write at a lazy pace. So there ARE writers for whom discipline don’t matter one damn.Q: What gives you the strength to write when things don’t seem to be going well? A: Creative writing can be a daunting process. It calls for a certain kind of discipline—if one cares about deadlines, which is always something a good writer gives herself or himself. When something isn’t going too well, it either means that I’m not satisfied about it—that it strikes me as phony—as forced and not even convincing to me—plastic. And If I can’t get away with it, I fear that my readers won’t.In situations like this it is just that I might not be connected to the situation I’m trying to write about. To fix this, I’d have to research intensely, find references (thanks to Google) talk to people who know, and get into whatever it may be. That way I would get across that impasse and rewrite to my satisfaction. Don’t ask me about writer’s block. I don’t get them—romantic as it often sounds. If I have to write,Sale NFL Jerseys, I get up and I write like a job. That’s it.Q: Despite your achievements, one sometimes gets the impression that persons/ writers who have achieved less are given more prominence. Why is this so? Is it because you are overseas and your plays are not being staged here? What is your response this attitude?A: On the score of ‘writers who have achieved less getting more prominence.’ It is a problem that Guyana faces. When it comes to ‘quality of writing and writers’, within Guyana itself, the sad reality is that a level of mediocrity continues to exist. An individual who really cannot write would find himself or herself Godfathers in high places, and be hailed as great writers overnight. So yes, in Guyana, it is easy to find mediocre writers who have achieved a lot of prominence. It doesn’t help too, when an overseas-based writer’s work cannot get back to Guyana due to the fact that there are no competing bookstores, and to compound it, there is no significant readership in Guyana. I don’t know if it’s an attitude, I would rather say it is a sad malaise, and that the mediocre thrive in this kind of atmosphere.Q: You have just finished writing a book on Guyanese words…A: Yes!—101 WORDS THAT TELL YOU’RE GUYANESE—and before you ask me what inspired it, I will tell you: When I’m on Facebook, I’m as Guyanese as most Guyanese strive to be. Many of us would go on and try to write in creolese—and some are bad at it. Most try. One day, caught in this bit of a hankering back to our days back in Guyana, I wrote a ‘creolese’ word — I think it was ‘GOADY’— called it the ’Guyanese word for today’, and the response was electric and tremendous. Guyanese on Facebook loved it. Then I found myself posting a new Guyanese word every day until… I said, “Wait a minute, Harold…people like this stuff. Why not write a book about it?” and that’s what I did.Q: When is it coming out?A: ‘101 WORDS THAT TELL YOU’RE GUYANESE’, will be available for sale on my business website. I will upload a link to the book on December, 7, 2015 — and anyone with a USA address will be able to order it online from me. Initially, it would only be available from me and the bonus for buying it on my website is that every book will be hand-autographed by me. In the early part of 2016, it will be available on Amazon. I’m also putting things in place to have it available in Guyana.Q: What next for Harold Bascom?A:  I have my Laughing Palette Company to continue building. It is going to be a platform for art classes, book publishing, creative workshops and other like projects, with a focus on marketing to Guyanese in the Diaspora.Q: Last question: Do you feel in some way that you are speaking for the dead that you’ve written about, giving them forgotten relevance that eluded them?A: Yes! I have spoken for the dead and my play—once staged or filmed, will, hopefully, continue to represent the dead and give each renewed prominence from the society from which each hailed.. If after the reading or staging of this play there is a revival of interest in these writer-characters, I would have given these dead writers in my play, the relevance that eluded them.