Why Did I Write "Mai Shangri-La"?

Four Big Reasons...

1. I've always wanted to be a writer (haven't we all?)
2. I'm getting increasingly concerned about the future of the planet - and need to find something I can do that might influence more than just the kids I teach to do the right thing
3. I'm still healthy, involved in my life, and planning to live to 100 (even without dramatic life-extension intervention as seen by some futurists). I've got a vested interest in trying to make a difference for the future
4. At 54 (when I launched the book), I was about to become an official "senior" in some circles, and mandatory retirement is beginning to loom large. I need a second career; something engaging, challenging, meaninful - and hopefully at least somewhat remunerative. My overseas teaching "provident fund" (no pension plan) is not going to allow me to live the lifestyle to which I've become accustomed...
5. Although he was not a factor when I wrote the book, now that I'm trying to market it, my nine-month old son IS. He needs a stable family and a secure future. "Mai Shangri-La" for Reuben James could help finance "Shangri-La North" (my retirement place in northern BC) for my son.

...details coming soon...

Mai Shangri-La - the Blurb

Reuben James Runquist is finally facing facts; at eighty, he's stuck with a retirement condo in an environment that is decidedly "Mai" ("Not" in Thai) Shangri-La. Global sea levels have risen seven meters, plagues have killed hundreds of millions, and worldwide transportation and commercial infrastructures have collapsed. Reuben is reduced to s subsistence existence in the high-tech but questionably secure "Panic Room" of his barricaded condo in Pattaya.

Reuben needs to escape if he's going to truly live out his "golden years" in relative peace and security. By now, though, the Thai central plain is awash in a new inland sea, and Hong Kong tycoon Stanley Lee is ratcheting up the pressure to acquire rights to Reuben's new virtual reality game/novel "StimSim". Reuben's always been his own man, but what are his options? How can he escape global warming AND the clutches of a man who won't take no for an answer?

***

Third Draft'll Nail It?

Well, they never said it was easy. Working through the Proof Copy of Mai Shangri-La has been something of a humbling experience. I finished the first draft in a whirlwind six-month stint where I never missed a writing day, and then, following Stephen King's advice in "On Writing", I put it aside for several months while I went on to other writing projects. Then I printed a hard-copy, read it over again and cleaned up the remaining punctuation errors, grammatical faux pas and basic story detail. I guess I came back to it too soon, though, because when I submitted the second draft to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest, I actually thought it was a pretty clean copy. It's only now, when I'm actually holding what feels like a "real" novel in my hands, that I can so clearly see the many rough edges that still need polishing. I'm almost glad now that I got knocked out of ABNA early on. The MS needs a LOT more work!

And so it's back to the beginning, doing a line-by-line edit and review, rechecking, of course, for things like punctation that's still buggy and adverbs that still dangle obtrusively (see what I mean?) following verbs that aren't specific enough, but this time also stepping back a bit and scanning for an overal narrative flow and story cohesiveness. So far, I'm finding an average of four obvious edit requireemnts per page, and these are taking me anything from five to fifteen minutes to fix, so quickly doing the math, I see that I've got about a hundred hours of third draft work here before I'll be satisfied that I've finally got the thing ready to release. My intent is to get this all done by the end of April - but you know what they say about Good Intentions...

Having just complete the first draft of the second story (the Wayback Machine), I'm also finding a lot of potential for linking back from the second story to the first, and in some cases, this means I need to set these links up a little better in MSL so that bringing them out in Wayback makes more sense. Chalk up another few dozen midnight-oil sessions. Sigh...

It's Real!!!

So far, so good, as they say. The Proof Copy of my first "baby" arrived yesterday. It badly needs some cover art and a quick flip through reveals that it definitely needs another line-by-line edit (how could I have missed so many close-quotation marks and periods?!!!), but it's an actual, 379 page paperback novel. It says so, right there on the cover!

Mai Shangri-La

A Novel

Robert J. Rubis

So far, CreateSpace has definitely lieved up to their end of our "agreement". They've taken my uploaded file, laid it out in a 6X9 format, added a cover, and bound it in a finished product. The rest is just tweaking. I'll hope to complete the next round of editing within the month, and hopefully by Easter, I'll have my first book available (Print-on-Demand) for sale. Exciting stuff!

Watch for "Mai Shangri-La" on YOUR CreateSpace homepage sometime soon.