Blog Post No. 499
Continuing the run up to the 500th post, this week we have a guest post by C.M. Forest, better known on this blog as jerk Christian Laforet.
Alright, picture this: It’s early, like, the sun isn’t up yet early. The day is promising to be a hot one, but the chill from the night before is still in the air. I’m standing in front of my house, a small suitcase and a bag of books on the ground beside me and a Monster energy drink in hand (with a few more tucked into my suitcase). I’m anxious. Toronto is a four-hour drive (through some of the most boring landscape ever spewed from the Earth) and the event, a reading at a bar for a genre publisher, will not pay near enough to cover the costs of the trip. I can’t even say I’m looking forward to the event itself. I’ve always been an introverted person and the idea of standing before a group of strangers and reading aloud is not an appealing one. So, yeah, I’m anxious. And then I see the red pick-up truck turn the corner of my street and that anxiety begins to dissipate like the nighttime chill. A moment later, Ben is parked in my driveway, my bags are loaded and I’m climbing into his truck. Some sort of joke has already been cracked, as has my Monster, and with a last glance at my house, we’re off. And now I’m no longer anxious, but exited (and not just because Ben is a good-looking guy either!). I’m excited for the hours I get to spend with my friend with nothing but conversation to fill the time. Continue reading “Thousands of kilometers, Baconators, and how to fix Star Wars – Guest Post by C.M. Forest”
There are only four more weeks until I reach 500 posts on this site. I’m still working on what that will exactly look like (without it being way too long). In the mean time, I’ve been hard at work cajoling friends to write guest posts for me to fill in the gap from now until the big day (which is June 23rd if you want to mark it in your calendars). I asked the guest bloggers to write about working with me and/or this blog, but I tried to leave the subject open enough in case they came up with something a little different. I also pointed out that I’m open for them to be less than favourable, but I mostly said that to appear to be gracious. 
It’s been about a decade since I really started to get into writing. It’s something I knew I wanted to do when I was rather young, but it took a long time for me to get over the first big hump and actually learn how to write. I’ve had the occasion to talk to a lot of folks about writing over the years (usually, happily). Some of them mention wanting to write but are intimidated with the process. I always tell them that writing is actually not that hard. It takes getting used to criticism and some work to learn the proper structure, but I honestly believe that almost anyone can do it. 
I’m racing to the finish line with the Snow from a Distant Sky, the fifth and potentially final novella in my 
Ben Van Dongen 