On New Year's Eve: The Experiment, An Update

Last week, a couple of days before Christmas, I recieved my contract from Publish America. So I looked it over, Angel looked it over, we discussed it and decided we were satisfied.

I signed it and mailed it on December 23rd.

I am officially an author, slated to be published in the coming year.

I've had most of the week off, and with the marvellous Christmas Present from Angel of a new office chair (Which I love immensely), I have had my ass parked in front of the computer, dilligently pecking away at the "publishing rewrite" of The Unearthing.

At the same time, I've been mulling over several different plans for the marketing of my novel, some of which I will discuss here in greater detail in the future. My main goal is to raise money for the marketing venture in time to do this. In other words, if you've ever thought of donating to the K Space Universe, now would be the time.

I do have other sources of revenue to throw at this, though: My annual February bonus; my recently-acquired-and-coinciding-with-my-fifth-year-of-employment-with-the-company stock options (Which only pay out in December 2006) and my credit card, if I manage to get a sizeable chunk of that paid off.

Likewise, I have also decided that, as I am literally a month ahead of my delivery schedule, I'm going to take a couple of weeks to read over The Unearthing one last time before they send me a proof copy, in order to make sure that I've not left in any superfluous text, typos or punctuation errors.

However, before I do that, I need to take a break. This coming week I will be working on another couple of writing projects that were sidlined while I prioritized The Unearthing. Understand, if you would, that this is because I have been working on The Unearthing in one form or another, since 1997. That is eight years of my life. I don't think I've worked on anything else I've written as intensively or as constantly as I have this book.

And a lot's happened to good old Steve Karmazenuk in those eight years; Eight years is a life lived. I've been in two different relationships. I survived the Ice Storm. I lost some good friends, made others. My grandmother died. My god-daughter and one of my nieces was born. My friends Kevin and Tammie celebrated the births of two (or is it three--I can't keep track) beautiful children, increasing their brood to four offspring in total. I moved to Ottawa. I moved back to Montreal. My cousins got married. I started working in telecommunications. I got married. My wife's grandmother died. My uncle died. My cousins gave birth to two more beautiful babies. My parents' family dogs died. My parents moved into a new apartment and I wrote three other novels besides The Unearthing, including one that was briefly e-published at http://jumpgate.technomages.net

So as I look back, this early morning of December 31st 2005, I'm not only looking back on this last year. I'm looking back on these last eight years.

In July of 1997 I started with an idea for a story. Look how far I've travelled with just that one idea. Look how much farther I still have to go.

Never doubt the power of a single idea.
Never doubt the power of a single idea to change your life.
Never doubt the power of a single idea to change your life, if you only have the wisdom to follow it as it wends its way along the darkened path of the unknown future.

J Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5 and one of the men who gave me the inspiration to write again after having abandoned writing after college, said it best:

Write the story you want to read.
Live the life you want to live.
Do what gives you joy.
The rest will attend to itself.

JMS, thank you.

To everyone: Happy New Year.

These chronicles will continue in 2006.

Until then I remain your faithful narrator,

Steve Karmazenuk,
The Keeper of ){ Space.