Hi everyone! Like a lot of folks, this is my first time doing this kind of thing.
Right now, my brain’s still kind of spinning from everything, but I just wanted to stop in and say good luck to the rest of the participants, and give thanks to the veteran players for their advice.
@Rhett Pennell Well, I can answer for @Joseph Asphahani and myself: Pretty much every waking moment was spent working on SOME facet of the contest. Everything from working on covers, updates, pouring over content, and actual selling.
If nothing else, the contest forces you to get everything in gear pretty fast and really polish up everything that ’surrounds’ the book. Pitch Lines, Synopsis, etc etc...
I’ll be honest, I’m sort of vicariously looking forward to watching the contest from afar this time while I sit back and read all the entries.
@Joseph Terzieva Initially I came up with the story (very bare bones, it basically only had a beginning and an end) in an effort to fill a void that had been left by a lack of Star Wars (this was in 2009). Very early on it was even a Star Wars story in the vein of what the "anthology" films are going to be now, but I moved away from that soon after.
The idea of actually writing the novel didn’t come about until about the middle of 2014 when, after many failed attempts at creating it (comics, animation, scripts), I realised that a book was its best option.
The more personal reason behind doing it is that I wanted to be able to actually achieve something on this scale. I was sick right out of high school and have spent the last 10 years unemployed and virtually on my own with very little in the way of ’grand achievements’ to my name. So in part I’m looking at this book as a first step to making something of myself.