Hail readers!
For the past week, I have been in the countryside; remote and without Internet, I was unable to keep the Magical Realm stocked with new content. Nevertheless, this is not to say that I have been idle. Quite to the contrary: I have a number of intriguing quests to undertake over the coming days, weeks and months.
Chiefly among these is, of course, the business of finishing the Ark. Presently I am engaged in completing the edits and revisions suggested to me by my editor; this is something I will soon—I hope—have completed. I have already finished revising part one; I am most of the way through part two.
Once I have finished that, the next task is of course to write part three. How long this will take is a question I am as yet unable to answer—I tentatively hope by October, but then I have already missed some of my more optimistic deadlines. Ultimately this will depend on how much free time I have at university; with perseverance and determination, hopefully enough.
But this does lead me onto the third key task. Do you recall me mentioning a company by the name of Publishizer? To recap, I was put into contact with them courtesy of Reedsy—the company I used to commission the editor. I completed their application close to a month ago; about a week ago, one of Publishizer’s representatives arranged a Skype meeting with me.
The exact details of that conversation I will not fully divulge here, for numerous reasons (and not all of them secret). But what I will say is that I was made an interesting offer. The crux of it is this: provided that I manage to get 250 pre-orders of my book by starting a campaign on their website, they will then put me through their accelerator programme.
This programme, according to them, has a high success rate: the large majority of authors who are put through it manage to obtain a contract from a publisher.
But this does, of course, imply getting 250 pre-orders on my own. This is not a trivial task. And it won’t happen straight away: I have yet to finish the book, and the campaign has only a few weeks to get those pre-orders.
However, it does mean that I will be stepping up my efforts to garner attention for the Ark. As part of this, I will be creating a mailing list.
This will likely be a weekly endeavour: if you sign up to it, you will receive an email every week. The email will contain various progress updates, tidbits of information, and samples from the Ark. Interested? Then do keep an eye out on the Magical Realm—I will have some sort of submission form available soon.
There is also another topic that may interest you. Previously, I wrote an article entitled ‘The Allure of the Bad Boy’. I shared this article with my writer friend, Karen; this elicited a strong response. We have therefore decided to stage a debate on our blogs. Soon, Karen will publish her response; both she and I will link to each other’s posts.
I will then, in turn, publish a counter-response. Do tune it.
What of the Poem?
Finally, allow me to address the title of this post. Though I am very involved in numerous undertakings (as you can see), I have somehow managed to compose another poem. It is entitled ‘The Mirror, the Room, and the Dreams’ which is perhaps rather verbose.
In any case, the crux of it is this. The poem is escapist; it is about dreaming of greater things than the cold prison in which the dreamer is immured. It is about beautiful, far away places—and the magic of getting there.
The mirror, of course, is literal (in that it allows the dreamer to dream, and ultimately to escape) but also serves a metaphorical role. If I were of a Freudian persuasion, I would perhaps think it represents my writing. But since I am not Sigmund Freud, I suggest you substitute your own explanations.
With that, I must conclude this post. Keep an eye out for the debate, for the mailing list, and for the many milestones of this long journey.
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