Interview with Me - Part I

            Feedback on what I should do with my blog has been wonderful and truly appreciated. Based on the comments I received I believe that the interviews are probably the best liked feature. Since I couldn’t really get one with a real person in time for this weeks post I decided to interview - ME. (I’m definitely, pretty sure, that this might not qualify as talking to myself.)

            The only event that I feel fits with my author-in-training theme is having won the speculative fiction category of the LDStoryMakers 2011, First Chapter contest. I apologize to anyone who is tired of hearing about the accomplishment, but I did feel that in addition to the silliness I plan to contribute to the interview, there may be a few comments that might prove worthwhile.

           

Randy: Is this the first writing competition that you’ve won?

Randy: Yes.

Randy: Did you bribe the judges?

Randy: I’m shocked that you would even ask me such a question. Besides, I didn’t know the identity of any of them. Or what sort of bribe they’d be susceptible to.

Randy: As I understand it, you submitted three entries. Is this the chapter you thought would win?

Randy: No. In fact, I felt that Last Dispensation Space had the least chance to win. I felt that the first chapters of the two novels I’d been working on would win – if any of them did.

There’s an interesting story behind all of this. The first novel that I wrote was Hellathon. I think the premise is unique and that I will eventually clean it up properly and find a publisher for it. I have an elevator pitch all prepared and ready to deliver at a moments notice and have put together a synopsis, query letter, and everything else I can think that it needs. So, I felt it had a strong chance of doing well in the contest.

Then I also included the first chapter for the novel I was actively working on at the time. This too had a preliminary pitch ready and a very shaky synopsis. I felt Exit Stage Left had a strong story and really wanted to see if grabbed anyone’s attention.

I had two chapters ready to submit, but had wanted to send in three. My wife (a very intelligent lady) said to go ahead and write the first chapter of a novel I had talked about doing next. She felt my “Mormons in space” story was a good choice for my next novel. I took her advice and spent about a week writing and editing the first chapter and sent it in.

It won. And it taught me to pay greater heed to my wife’s input about such things.

Randy: Do you plan to enter the contest this year?

Randy: I really want to. The opportunity to select three of my most promising stories, put together a first chapter, and have them evaluated is an amazing boost to my quest for publication. Unfortunately, I don’t think I will be able to make it to the conference this next year.

. . . To be continued.