"The next stop is Kansai-Gaidai..."

# "I got pictures of what's in my head... They took 'em in Tokyo, and I brought 'em back with me..." # - Ben Folds


"..Kansai Gaidai is the next stop!" If you’ve ever been to Osaka, Japan, and travelled out near Hirakata City, chances are you may have heard this phrase being uttered over a bus Tannoy, in English, among a lot of Japanese that just isn’t decipherable if you don't speak the native language… Strangely, it’s one of my lasting memories from a fantastic holiday to the Far East I took at the end of March and beginning of April this year with my wife…

We took the chance to travel to "Nippon" because we had friends living out there and it meant we could have free accommodation for this once-in-a-lifetime trip… We managed to time it right too for the cherry blossom season which the Japanese people really revere and admire. You’ll see them on street corners, young and old, staring up at the pink and white trees, taking photos and chatting excitedly about the new life that is springing up in the trees all around them… We’ve actually had a white blossom tree in our front garden for the last three years or so and I’ll forever have a new appreciation for it whenever I look out of our living room window in Spring now, because of our experience of going to Japan…

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On The Road To Publishville # 1 - "The Writing CV & Portfolio"

# "Today is where your book begins, the rest is still unwritten" # - Natasha Bedingfield

I've just returned from a brilliant fortnight's holiday in country far, far away (more on that in my next post here!) and the break from my life in the UK has really helped to fire me up to do a writing "stock take" in order to re-focus my writing in general as well as my "Moon Crater" novel in particular... (so apologies from the outset of this post for the length of it, but if you read on to the end and are interested in what's new with my writing, you won't be disappointed!)

I already alluded to a new series of feature articles I wanted to write here on the blog back in my 2009 preview and that's just what I'm going to begin here today. I've nicknamed this occasional series "On The Road To Publishville" and, bascially, I want to document properly my final journey towards success (or the unthinkable failure!) of getting Moon Crater published now that I've almost tantalisingly finished the final draft of the manuscript. The idea of starting this online journal back in early 2006 was ALWAYS, and still remains to this day, to document my efforts of getting published and since good old '09 is the year I want to make it all work for me, it seems fitting to provide a focused set of blog posts which 'reveal all' about the trials and tribulations of my experience of entering the publishing world proper (especially since I tend to waffle on about other aspects of writing a lot in my posts here too - just see the tags panel in the sidebar for proof!)...

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