There’s nothing like enjoying the warm breeze of a delightfully sunny summer morning with nary a deadline in sight. As I sit down to write this blog entry I have to give props to Jimmy Aquino and his online station, A Fistful of Soundtracks. The movie and TV tunes that he plays are awesome and continue to be a great accompaniment to my writing process. It’s food for my muse to hear tracks like “Tomorrow Never Dies” by K.D. Lang or the theme to Batman: The Animated Series as I type away.
August is already a few days old and I’m deep into the process of getting ready for AnimeKon in Barbados on the weekend of the 15th. I went to AnimeKon a few years ago at the urging of my cousins, Claudia and Celia and was very impressed with the set up and the enthusiasm of the exhibitors and the fans. That was a couple of years before I published Chronokari Alpha: Time is Relative and began attending conventions as an exhibitor. I can’t wait to return to AnimeKon on the other side of the exhibitor’s table and to share the adventures of Miles and Derrick with everyone in attendance. That weekend will be a special one. Not only will it be my first international con but the fact that it’s in Barbados, where my parents were born and most of my family resides, will make it an extra special event for me.
I recently decided to enter Chronokari Alpha: Time is Relative in a contest put on by WILDsound Writing and FIlm Festival Review to get some critical feedback on the novella. I entered it in the novel submission category and waited for the feedback. With Time is Relative already in the can and published, there isn’t much I can do to change it but I thought that any feedback I received might be helpful in subsequent efforts, particularly since I’m currently in the middle of writing the next Chronokari adventure. WILDsound puts on monthly writing contests and they ask for a logline to be included with the submission of the manuscript. Unfortunately Chronokari didn’t win but the good news was that it lost to another book that I publish through Boeboe Creative called, Edge: East Wind in Paradise. The judges said that East Wind, which was written by my uncle, Carl Jackson with some updated additions by yours truly, was the finest novel they have ever had at the festival. Having Chronokari lose to Edge, especially to a family member, is just fine by me. The feedback I got from WILDsound was great and although I didn’t agree with everything the reviewers said they had some valid points. Matthew Toffolo runs a cool festival and I would encourage anyone who is interested in getting feedback on their writing to submit your work.
As I’ve stated many times before in previous blogs, writing and idea development are two small parts of self-publishing. I recently joined IPR License out of London and have set up book profiles for both Chronokari Alpha: Time is Relative and Edge: East Wind in Paradise. IPR is a rights management company and they help to facilitate the acquisition of rights for authors and their work for world wide distribution. With so many hats to wear, I’m in awe of the multitude of self-published authors out there who continue to write and market their work all by themselves.
That’s it for now. Jimmy Aquino’s A Fistful of Soundtracks has begun to play some blaxploitation and sci-fi soundtracks including a cool one from Attack the Block, so I’m going to put away the keyboard and enjoy the tunes. Have a good one and hopefully I’ll get to see some of you at AnimeKon in a few days.