And yes, we all are busy people, and time is precious and a premium commodity as we progress from a laid-back lifestyle to join the modern rat race.

My adage is, ‘There is always a snippet of a time amongst the busyness in life.’

There’s always a lull period. It can be two seconds, 10 minutes, an hour – any amount of time.

As for me, I try to see how I can utilise the lull – a period that can creep up on a person anytime and anyplace.

I find comfort in using the lull to jot down things. 

I have written a word here while sitting in situ over a bowl, a sentence while waiting for lunch, a paragraph while on a plane….

Yes, these were my snippets concocted in lull time in my busyness.

My just published anthology – ‘Resis long KSSP (Komonwelt Sot Stori Prais)’ – is the culmination of years trying to catch and utilise those small snippets of times to eventually craft each into a book of 388 pages.

It is the culmination of having to lug around a backpack containing several notebooks in which snippets could be jotted down.

Of course, what’s in those notebooks is totally different to the final product. There is much to authorship beyond the snippet.

It was six years of lull time with a lot of snippets since my first attempt at submitting entries to the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

The snippets became stories and the stories became the book, self-published with Amazon KDP.

Resis long KSSP (Komonwelt Sot Stori Prais) by Baka Bina, Independently Published, November 2024, ASIN ‏B0DMFK4K83, 388 pages. Paperback available from Amazon Australia for AU$41.88 (plus postage)

There are eight stories in Tok Pisin and the same story retold and translated into English.

I reset them in the final manuscript wi.th English first and Tok Pisin following. 

Let me tell you that the hardest work was in the Tok Pisin version of each story. 

When you read these stories and their translations, you’ll see the differences between a verbatim (or literal) translation of each thought, clause or sentence and where I have successfully achieved an accurate transfer of content and meaning that go beyond the literal.

I have not got it right in a lot of places.  Some of the rough patches can be used by those indulging in Tok Pisin to hold discussions and assist refine spoken Tok Pisin with written Tok Pisin. 

By the way, the Tok Pisin in the collection is Goroka Tok Pisin and you bai pilim pilim na rit long buk ya. 

I’m not a linguist so won’t babble why we in Goroka do these double words but that is the Tok Pisin I’ve used in the stories. 

There can be many jokes made out of these but that is the essence of my writing - that a person should find the humour in the stories I craft.

With their kind permission, I have found a place in the book to insert a piece of poetry by Stephanie Alois and the old man AG Satori’s satirical reply.

The poem is mentioned in my story; ‘Flutterings of the Heart’.

So that is some background to ‘Resis long KSSP (Komonwelt Sot Stori Prais)’.

I hope you’ll get the book and enjoy the stories inside.  And please try reading the Tok Pisin versions.

All of these were made possible by the fact I have had a long bouncing board where these writing snippets can be bounced off. I am gratefully indebted to my ‘young’ Melbournian wantok and his forever patient Misis to having time to look up my mess of words.