August 22, 2010

Good afternoon!

The book reading/signing was a success yesterday. I met some really cool authors and will hopefully will be joining forces with them. There was an interesting discussion that arose between the audience, Jessica Bellas author of Maotai, Mooncakes, and Monks: Misadventures in Hong Kong and China, and myself that surrounded the stigma of telling people that you are a writer. The question was posed about how many people I told when I was writing RoV and why did I tell so few. I compare it to the stigma of someone saying they are going to New York or L.A. to be an actor or actress because their chances of major motion picture success is probably very slim. At any rate, I have dreams now of starting a self-published authors coalition where we can take over the world or at the very least, the region. Either way, it would give me some great material to blog about.

Also, yesterday I learned of a contest that takes place in November where one must write a 50K word story in thirty days. I believe the grand prize is to be published and the draft that you can submit can be the most awful thing in the world. The point is to combat the number of stories started, but left unfinished. I can definitely obtain 50,000 words, but doing it in thirty days is a bit much. I wrote RoV in three months and sometimes I spent 40 hours a week on it! I guess we'll see what November brings.

On a final note, today I was doing the mundane task of dusting my bedroom furniture when I thought of a good side plot for my story, which I intend on integrating as soon as I'm done reading through it. I'm about half way through and have been making minor adjustments on it. It's very exciting to see it slowly coming together!