So i’m living through a military coup…..

First things first – Is the book done?

You’re damn right the books done! I don’t feel 100% happy with the ending at the moment but that’s why its called a first draft! It’s done though. This was BY FAR the hardest book i have ever written, which in turn makes it much more satisfying to say that its done.

So what’s the feedback like?

I’ve only given it to a few people so far and the feedback is much better than the 1st one i did. I gave it to a few people while i was half way through because i was very nervous about it being the ramblings of an idiot. But so far so good.

What about the 2nd one? 

The 2nd one needs a lot of work. When i finished it i knew that deep down. I gave it to a friend of mine who i knew would be critical (which is perfect) and he said it is very difficult to read, in fact he hasn’t even finished it yet and i gave it to him 3 months ago! But that genre definitely isn’t my forte so i’m not too bothered…

What’s it about again?

What the 2nd one or the 3rd one? Well you can find the blurb of the 2nd one on here if you want. The 3rd one is the diary of a killer. Someone who killed a teenage girl at a very young age then gets given a new identity when they leave prison. You can read a diary extract here if you fancy….

Cor! you’re plugging a lot of stuff today aren’t you? So what’s the next step?

Yeah don’t judge me….. So now i’m focusing on getting the first one published. I have NO IDEA what i’m doing so this is more about testing the waters and finding out the procedure of how to do it. I know i have to get a front cover so i’m going to have to pay a professional to do that. Then it’s all about marketing. I have a friend who ran a self publishing seminar a few months ago who helped me quite a bit. It was a three hour seminar but i could only go for 1 because i had to go to work. He kindly enough not only charged me for the one hour but also sent me an email of the full presentation so i couldn’t look at it in my own time. His name is Chris Backe (think of Bar-Key) and this is his site if you wanna have a quick browse…

Stop plugging loser!!

Sorry, i need to get into the habit of swallowing my pride and spamming as many pages as possible in case of the obscure possibly it leads to more sales. Once I’ve done all the free advertising i’m also thinking of going down the avenue of paid advertising. I’m also considering getting by book translated into Thai. The friend i mentioned on my last blog who cooked me dinner mentioned that she was getting her book translated into Thai and it never crossed my mind if i’m honest, but labour is cheap here and there could be a niche market for it, especially as i live here. And if it falls flat on its face then I’ve only lost a bit of money.

Enough book stuff, i’m not interested in your books anyway. Give me teaching stories!!!!!

Nothing to write home about (literally) i’m afraid. I’ve been teaching a Burmese guy at a coffee shop who is pretty shit at life. Well, he can make a mean cup of coffee so i’m told (which i suppose IS his job…) but his English potential is very minimal. Luckily for him he has this contagious smile so it is hard to get frustrated with him. I also met a new friend called Jenn. I first met her about a week ago, she walked right past me as i was dressed up in some random attire about to teach and the first thing that popped into my head was “Yep, this is how i teach!” I saw her in a coffee shop and found out that she was Colombian and had lived in America since she was 12. She’s in Chiang Mai taking a few classes at the University here before applying for a University back in the States. I mentioned that i was a writer (i’m so pretentious now…) and she said jokingly that that’s great because she needed someone to check her application letter.

What did you say?

I said i’d be happy to. I think she was taken aback because she said it as a joke. A few minutes later i thought “Oh shit, i bet its gonna take me hours to do it.” I needn’t have worried; her English is perfect and i only ended up putting some opinions down. Took me 15 minutes tops!

Your title says something about a military coup and you haven’t elaborated on that. COUP ME…COUP ME AT ONCE!!!!!

Yep, i have to be careful what i say as i don’t want to get into trouble. But without going into too much detail the army have taken over and there’s a curfew so we all have to be back in our houses at 10pm. Nothing special really. In fact today it has been changed to midnight so i doubt it will last much longer. I hear that it’s bad in Bangkok but i also heard it was bad in Bangkok 4 years ago when i was travelling and when i got there everything was functioning as normal, i was just told not to go to 3 different streets because that’s where the protests were happening. So it’s probably fine there as well. It’s not that exciting really but if anyone asks i’m gonna milk it and say that i lived through a coup and how dangerous it was.

And finally….?

I’ve been playing a game recently. I basically have started treating my views like an Olympic medals table. This is the top 10 at the moment:

1. Thailand (no surprise there, i live here….)

2. United Kingdom (no surprise there either, i’m from England)

3. United States (Cheers Amurricans!)

4. Germany (The German’s are always very consistent, even when it comes to following obscure blogs!)

5. South Korea (I have a few friends living out there at the moment, plus a lot of former students)

6. New Zealand (Yay Kiwis!!!!!!)

7. Russia (Random, but thanks all the same…)

8. Laos (Cheers neighbours!)

9. Canada (Thanks or merci, you dual speaking beauties!!!!)

10. Brazil (Just enough to sneak the number 10 spot. Cheers guys!)

There are about 10-15 countries lurking just under Brazil, do your part and get your country on the leaderboard!!!!!

 

That’s it for this week. Next week will probably be about how far I’ve gotten towards publishing this schizzle. But who knows, something slightly more interesting might happen…..