Staying in Provo

So, I have some news.  After carefully weighing my options, I decided to stay here in Provo for at least another six months, rather than teach English in Korea for a year.

My main reason was the current pace of change in the publishing world.  Originally, I wanted to take a year or two off to build a TEFL career and make some money to support myself as I tried to break in, but with the way publishing is changing, if I did that I would find myself completely lost as soon as got back.

Another reason was that I wanted to be able to focus on building my indie publishing career.  Traveling and working abroad would take a lot of energy away from that, which didn’t seem like a good thing to do at this point in my writing career.

Yet another reason was the fact that Worldcon is in Reno this year, and it’s going to be huge.  Anyone who’s anyone (at least here in Utah) is going, and it would be supremely foolish to pass up a networking opportunity like that.

And also, I have to be honest: since I’m in a local band now, I kind of want to stick around and see how that works out.  Who knows?  Maybe we’ll make it big…

So what am I going to do now instead?  Probably work odd jobs to support myself, same as I’ve been doing since I graduated.  I’ve got one lined up to start next week; apparently, the guys at this alarm company where temped in April were impressed with my computer skills and want me back.  Maybe I can turn that into a part time gig once the summer’s up.  If not, there’s always the costume factory job in September-October.  And of course, I’m still keeping an eye out for local part-time jobs.

And really, all this stuff about getting a “day job” seems to me like another way of saying you can’t make a living as a writer, which strikes me as utter bull crap.  Yeah, most people don’t become full time writers–but most people aren’t willing to do what it takes to get there.  I am.  I’m also fortunate enough to be in a good position to shoot for it.  Young, single, no dependents, no debt…it doesn’t get any better than that.

In tangentially related news, my first guest post from my blog tour went live yesterday.  My friend Nick Rose interviewed me and asked about epublishing, getting good cover art, what makes novels unique, and why I’m drawn to science fiction.

Nick is an aspiring novelist like me who’s hoping to turn this into a full time career.  He’s also a great writer, even if his tastes are a little different than mine (seriously man, how can you NOT love Star Wars?  Come on!).  He writes mostly horror and reads a lot of manga, which he reviews on his blog.  He also updates his blog every day, so check him out!