Why Whispers?

My Mum asked me something interesting the other day. She asked if I was ever surprised that out of all the things I've written the first thing of mine to be published and sold overseas is a short story less then 30 pages long. It is a little weird. I've written a 1,000 page long novel. It took me over five years and went through about four rewrites and is destined for another complete rewrite. The book is called Eternal Sacrifice and has two stories; the doomed romance of Poseidon and his mortal soul mate Cleito and the life of their son, Dylan, who is sent into hiding from Zeus and is raised to believe he is mortal. I am going to rewrite the whole thing AGAIN because ever since writing half a dozen short stories the "world" my stories exist in has developed and changed and I want to put those changes into Eternal Sacrifice. Plus, I've grown as a writer, and know I can finally put the finishing touches on Eternal. It is a little weird to think that a project I spent five years working on is gathering dust on my hard drive while a short story that took me three months to write and on sale around the world. AND IN BARNES AND NOBLE! One of the biggest bookstore chains in America! Hell, it may not be for sale in print, but its a start, right? And e-books are the future. Yep...I wouldn't be surprised by the time I'm an old, old woman everyone will be reading books on kindles the size of datapads from star trek.

Whispers is available from Barnes and Noble!

Wow! Barnes and Noble! How weird is that!

http://books.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?PST=B7&WRD=marisa+quinn&box=marisa%20quinn&pos=-1

One of the biggest bookstore chains in America. Oh my gosh, this is so strange. Granted, its only the e-book version, but still! its Barnes and Noble! Its more exposure which is just what I want for my writing. This is so exciting. I never thought when I got published that my book would be on so many different websites. My Mum bought a printed copy of Whispers a few months ago and it finally came in the mail yesterday. I got to hold it in my hands. It was surreal. Yeah, it was small, but it was mine, and it was published. Its a start. Next published book will be thick enough to have a spine, I promise. Echoes in the Wind is now over 20,000 words long!

First Day of Classes!

I had my first university class yesterday. It was exciting, interesting, and different then what I thought it would be. I imagined the entire class to be filled with writers like me. Instead, I got the impression it was mostly filled with hobbyists, wanna-be-writers, bloggers, and people who don't really share that much of an interest in writing but are there for other reasons. I'm sure there are a few of them who want to get published and make a career out of it. I just had trouble picking them out of the crowd. Not that it matters to me if hardly any of them want to get published. I'm so shy it just makes it easier for me to strike up a conversation if I know the other person is a writer like me. I did meet one nice lady who wants to write humor novels. I hope I make some friends. After the lecture, we went into the workshop and read some poems and did a writing exercise. When we were reading the poem I thought we would discuss the construction of the poem, the clarity of the images, etc. Instead, we discussed the author behind it. I kept waiting for someone to put their hand up and comment on the poem itself. Hopefully, we'll get to that sort of thing eventually. Once we start talking about characters, plot and point of view, I might be able to gather the courage to put my hand up and make a comment. I know more things about that then poems. I'm looking forward to going back next Monday. I just hope that I will be able to get over my shyness and make a couple of friends. Even if the vast majority of the people in my class might not be true writers, they still have an interest in writing, which is something at least. And I'm sure there are a couple of them who are either published, or want to be. I just have to ferret them out. When I got back to work I was so sleeply I almost fell asleep at my desk. I don't know why, though. I wasn't sleepy at university. I think its just the work I'm doing at the moment. I'm doing vertifiying which is data entry. Trying to decipher people's hand writing gave me a splitting headache.

Anti-Heroes

I started watching season one of Dexter this week. I'd been meaning to watch it for a long time and finally decided to give it a go because I was bored of watching star trek voyager reruns. Dexter is a really interesting show because the main character, Dexter, is a serial killer who channels his urge to kill into attacking bad guys. Dexter is an anti-hero. I really like these two of characters. They're not good, or bad, they're in the middle. Traits of both. I like them because they are realistic. Everyone has a hero and a villian in them. No one is one or the other. Dexter is a fascinating character because he has a wicked, evil side, but he's also a good man. He is vicious and violent, but he can also be brave and kind. He has a warped code of honor that he lives by. Its intriguing to watch him. He's really well written. He's the type of character that readers are unsure if they want to root for or hoot when he meets his demise. He does some terrible things to people...but they are not innocent...so you've left wondering is he a monster or an avenging angel? I like to make my villians like Dexter. I want people to feel sorry for him, to pity them, to want them to find happiness, because no one is truly evil. A truly good villian thinks of themselves as a the good day. That's what Dexter thinks of himself.

Whispers available in India and Japan

I stumbled across two surprising websites the other night. Turns out that Whispers in the Dark is available on a Japanese website called Junkudo Book Web:

http://www.ebookbank.jp/junkudo/ep/item/4-79380/

and an Indian website called All Books India:
http://www.a1books.co.in/shop/searchdetail.do?contentId=142426&partnersite=a1india

How weird is that! I'm curious whether the copies are in those languages, too. How exciting! Hopefully, some time soon, I might actually earn some royalties. Gosh that would be nice. LOL.

A Writer Among Registration Assistants

Yesterday was an interesting day. I rang ECU and found out that there was no way I could do the unit I had enrolled in externally which meant that I had to somehow find a way to do it during working hours. So I scuttled into my boss's lair and told him the problem then spent the next few hours anxiously waiting to hear what would happen. Turns out I don't qualify for study leave because I'm just on contract but I am allowed to go to class every Monday I just have to use five hours of flex time. I'm glad I have three weeks before I start that gives me time to frantically build up my flex as high as I can giving me a nice pillow of time to fall back on. If I can keep my flex above a minium of two hours I should be able to stay afloat if I'm using five hours a week to go to class. My boss had to tell all the girls in my team that they wouldn't be allowed to take a flex on Mondays for the rest of the year because of me. Ohh, nelly, that was a fun meeting. When he first told them the girls all got a look on their faces like they wanted to beat me to death. LOL. They agreed to it though. Freakin' university. Life would've been so much simpler if I could have gone external, but ooh noooo I have to go to workshops. Ah, well. At least its all sorted out for now. My team joked that if they had any difficult letters to write they will give it to me. Hehe.

I'm looking forward to doing my writing course. I'm glad everything worked out. As I told my friend on the phone, I really wanted to make it work. I don't want to be one of those people who wake up one day full of regret that they didn't do a whole bunch of things when they were young. I've wanted to go to university for sooooo long I wasn't going to sit back and not make this work.

For the longest time I've always thought that university styled writing courses were pointless. You DO NOT need to do one to become an author. I learnt how to write creatively and the ins and out of publishing by myself through books and websites. I don't know if my course will get me a good job one day...and I don't care. I've studied heaps of things over the years that I've not be interested in or been only partially interested in. I did those courses to find work. Its so refreshing to be able to study something I'm passionate about for once. If it helps me get a good job...great...if it doesn't well I'm sure its gonna be fun ride.

Creative Writing Student!

I'm starting university on the 27th of July at the tender age of 25. I'm finding it a little hard to believe. I've spent the past seven years regretting my decision not to study T.E.E in highschool and go straight into university. I made so many mistakes after highschool. I went stumbling down half a dozen different career paths that turned out wrong for me. Library studies. Child care. Old age care. I gave up office work for a while but now I'm back doing that and am happier then I have been in a long while. For the longest time my plan was simple: become a qualified child care assistant, get into a teaching course at university, and spend the next decade studying part time external while working in a child care center. Well, after two years of wiping bums, singing songs and dancing to the wiggles I decided that I'd rather poke out my eyeballs with a fork then work in child care for another decade so that plan went up in smoke! Plus there was the fact that a teaching course had a ten week prac assessment something I had no idea how I would do if I was working full time! so that led me to consider a Bachelor of Writing. I liked the idea of studying writing. After years of studying things I was not passionate about the idea of studying something I was actually interested in excited me. So I enrolled and got in. The plan was to go part time external now it turns out that only SOME of the subjects in my course are available off campus which means that I'm going to have to figure out a way to attend classes and still work full time! I'm hoping I can make it work. I don't want to be one of those people who wake up one day full of regrets. I WANT TO MAKE THIS WORK. I want to find a way to balance university and work. I can do this. I want to do this. Writing is my life. Its going to be great to sit in a classroom full of other writers and learn about writing. Its where I belong.