WRITERS MEETUP TOKYO #2

This past weekend I attended my second writers meetup here in Tokyo. I have to admit that I am enjoying it a lot, and that I will certainly continue to go and be a part of this group of very interesting individuals. 😜😜😜 Not only because we have this need to be around each other. No, not at all. Our personalities are just too different. I really believe that there is an inherent desire to see, check, hear, what others are creating. It´s a bit like cheating, just a little bit you know, just to gauge what the competition is doing.

Ready?

The truth is, I love the unexpected experience of imagining all of these characters typing away, just a few days before, all of these words that mean so much to each one of them/us. As soon as I allow that first word of that first sentence to submerge me into their imagined world, that´s the moment when the connection is made among humans, among people, throughout the ages, around a fire that forever engulfs us and takes us into unknown worlds of creativity. How powerful is that! That´s why we exist. To write.

Each one of those stories is so hard to critique because everyone has a voice, their own special voice. You want to write it like that? Please do. That was your inner feeling when that desire to narrate something to the universe stamped itself onto a digital white page. Then, good for you.

THAT UNIQUE STORY

During these meetups you find all kind of stories: Horror short stories, chapters of very creative books, poems, experimental prose. Then, you come across a very interesting one, a gem of a story, written in such powerful prose that you end up wondering, how come this hasn´t been picked up and published? This is a reality within any of the creative arts; not everyone that is great (in any art) becomes well known. If you don´t believe me please ask our beloved Kafka, or Emily Dickinson, or in other arts, Van Gogh. Just to name a very few among so many. So you´d better be ready to accept your fate if you want to continue with this craziness.

GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ

Did he get lucky just like many other well known writers? J. K. Rowling among them? As incredible as it may sound, they were both routinely rejected by many publishers. I do feel bad for the poor guy/gal who took a look at that first chapter and decided to give it a ´no go.´ Then, to later find out that what they threw in the trash bin was actually a huge hit, a masterpiece of literature? It´s kind of hard to imagine them recalling this moment in their lives and not feeling a bit of disappointment. That´s just the way it is.

Maybe a bit of persistence must be included in the mix, for all writers, - and a bit of luck - in order to be successful. So my final comment is to just keep on writing, keep on creating and keep on sending those manuscripts to all publishers out there. One of them will see your beautiful, powerful story and will decide to give it a chance. Then, once that is said and done, and because technology today has made it so easy for us creative people, you can decide to self publish, promote it and keep all the millions to yourself, and Amazon too, of course.

So good luck and happy writing!

Thanks for reading. Abrazos.

Diego Rojas