V.J. Lao's Blog

I first learned about self-publishing when I was in Junior High School when I was in my 4th year. Short stories where compiled into one book. All of my classmates manuscripts were collected and got book bind. Only my story was not included because of it has too many pages.

This is the first type of self-publishing I knew about. We were required to give copies to our class mates and mine was limited edition because of its length. My Classmate Sofia Yu said it was already a Novella. I got hooked into my own story that I planned a Book series of it. I wrote down in yellow pad paper the book plan but the cost of book bind cross my mind and I just got discouraged and discontinued my Book series plan.

In 2009 I got into the avatar website Gaia Online and on one of those forums specifically for writing stories, I was writing a story about a ''little witch''. I got lots of criticisms so I deleted my post. I already have the thought of writing a book version of it but I still got worried that I need money to have it book bind.

So I did not continue the idea of creating a book again. Instead I just searched for a Job. It was in 2010 that I get to know J.K. Rowling through her documentary ''A year in the Life''. I saw how traditional publishing works and that got me inspired to plan my own book and follow the steps and process how Jo got published. I was motivated and inspired by her to write my own book sadly I got rejected by a literary agent.

My first rejection was a positive one requesting that I find another literary agent. But I decided that I did not have the talent and self-publishing came to my mind again. I though about creating my book by printing the pages and binding with a cover myself. Then donating copies of the book to libraries for free in order to get readers. After that e-books came into my mind and I self-published by turning my book into a PDF file.

I changed my mind again and search in the internet how to create a book and I found on my search about ''createspace.com'' which enable me to self-publish in print on demand and then I found out about kindle direct publishing online. I self-published in those platforms on my own. That is how I learned to self-published by doing research online the proper way.

I love writing ''Fictional Stories'' as a way to create a new world and characters that are interesting. I am able to create the world I like without any limit or boundaries, I just have all the freedom I need. I can turn any situation according to my liking. This may only be good for self-published authors, I know traditionally published authors are given limitations in what they can write.

I like story writing, it explores the limits of your imagination and the endless possibilities that surpass those limits of the things that you can imagine. I like to make my characters create their own situation and have a behavior of their own until it develops in the whole story. Characters are meant to be unpredictable not always scripted or predictable.

I try to make the world of my stories more detailed like a painting not adding irrelevant details just anything that would add to the mood and ambiance of the surroundings of my characters. Writing stories is really a fun exercise not only of writing as a craft but also an training of our creative imagination.

I express those emotions I can't express as an introvert through my stories and things that I can only dream of doing. I want to see my characters do them and great happy events to happen on the story not always just facing the challenges for my characters. I have fun writing my stories there is so much to experiment with.

The first story I wrote was back in 5th Grade about a tree that casts shadows. My classmate asked to copy it, so the teacher in English thought we copied it from a Book. But she couldn't find it so both me and my classmate were warned about it. It was just a narrative, back then I did not know how to use dialogue.

I had learned to write stories and comics when I was in Junior High School. It was a requirement for both Filipino and English Subjects. We were not just taught how to write stories but also how to be a story teller in front of the whole class. I have written short stories first in Tagalog and tried doing a plan to write a Book Series on a long short story that I wrote.

It was called ''Ang Manglalakbay'' in tagalog and the traveller in English. It was an adventure story with romance. I was told by my classmate that it was already a Novella. I only have a few copies given to my friends and another one for the class compilation. I already don't have a copy of the story but I still remember how the story goes about Kyle and Jill the protagonists.

I also tried comics and made one, using folded white bond papers. I draw using only a pencil, the story was about a boy who was a hero in a technological world with robots and machines. I did not liked the dialogue, I find it too cheesy, so I discontinued it. I only wanted to do it as a hobby back then.

I used to read Disney Comics and Tagalog Horror Comics. I have also tried reading X- Men, Spiderman, Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield and others. Japanese Manga is what I currently read online especially those that have an Anime.

I was not commanded by anyone to write a Book and I was not forced to do so. I did it with my own free-will. Creating a Book requires motivation and inspiration, it is through Authors that I got inspired to create a Book but the interest was already with me.

I was already writing stories in High School and tried making Comics. Back then I already have the interest and the drive to create a Book, but was not completely motivated. I don't want to do it for money, for me it is a hobby and a project I have tried doing.

My Inspiration and Motivation was the life and struggles of Authors, not just their fame and talent that led to their success. ''J.K. Rowling'' was my inspiration for writing a Novel while ''Xia Da'' a Chinese Comic Artist inspired me to make Comics again. Both Authors had a struggle of rejection and eventually became successful.

I know that I don't have their impressive skill and talent but they continue to inspire me. I myself have become an Author, A Novelist and a Comic Artist. I know I will have my own kind of success as an amateur Author and Self-Publisher.

I tried sending a letter to J.K. Rowling with Comics of Harry Potter that I made. But sadly I never got a reply from her, not even an automated correspondence from her Publisher. It may be possible that both my letter and comics where somehow not funny but offensive. I know celebrities and famous people don't get in touch with ordinary people like me.

But J.K. Rowling continues to be an inspiration to me and also Xia Da. I know I have to let it go by thinking that they were my inspirations and I am just a random fan who will always fade into the background. Anyway, I try to get Inspired by other Authors with advice they give to aspiring Authors and a ''Wanna be'' like me.

I know that I am an Author and I hope I can inspire people too to pursue their dreams not just by becoming an Author themselves but chasing what they aspire for what ever their Goal truly is.

Back in my Junior High School days, My English and Filipino Subjects teaches all of us how to write Stories. We were required our own original short stories. But the first short story I actually completed was when I was in my 4th year in High School.

It was about an adventure love-story written in the Filipino language of Tagalog. My Short Story got too long and it was not included in the compilation of all our short stories into one Book. I was the only one who's story was not included among my classmates.

I was really hooked into my own story, that I really thought about writing a book series about my two Protaganist Lovers and giving them new adventures. I tried to write the manuscript on paper and the outline of the coming Book Series.

Back then I have no knowledge how a book is published and all I know is that I need to print my manuscript and get it book bind by a local book binding service. I did not have any money to get it book bind so I quit the idea about the books I wanted to write.

I first knew about self-publishing that way. But I always end up in losing my confidence to complete one Book. The next time I tried writing a story was in 2009 where I found out about this Avatar Website called Gaia Online, I saw that they have this writing forums for stories to post and get critics.

I tried to write my short story called ''the little witch'' most did not like it and there were lots of criticism about the story in the technical sense of writing. But it was not a discouraging one just things to keep in mind. I deleted the post because I thought that I did not have the talent at all.

I thought for a moment that maybe I could turn it into a Book and get it Book Bind. But since I did not have any money, I just forgot all about it. In 2010 I was searching for Harry Potter trailers for the Half-Blood Prince Movie in Youtube. Just on the other videos on the side of the screen I saw a documentary of J.K. Rowling: A year in the Life.

I watched the whole video about her life and the process in how she wrote a Book. I was not just inspired to write a Book but also got motivated to become an Author myself. That is the only documentary about an Author I have known about since then.

After watching that documentary I got inspired to write my own book and started to plan out what story to write. J.K. Rowling was an inspiration to me and her story motivated me to write and finish a Book. It took me a year to finish just 50,000 words with all the revision and editing.

In the end literary agents rejected my work plenty of times and there were nice rejections that says ''maybe try another agent'' or ''We want you to continue your work'' and while other agents is discouraging and begs me to stop writing all in all saying ''you are no where near the standard of professional writing.'' or ''You will never be good enough.''

But with that, I started to discover ways to self-published online and hoped I could at least get lucky that my works will get noticed. I continue to write as a Hobby maybe not Professionally but Passionately being an Author.

It is inspiring that J.K. Rowling continues to receive rejection but moves on using them as motivation just when she used a pen name that is not recognizable. But eventually people get to know, it was her for her similar writing style on the Roberth Galbraith books.

We try to write our story to our Heart's content but we are sometimes bothered by how long a story should be when it comes to traditional publishing and self-publishing.

A Writer who can fit a lot of necessary things to make the story more appealing with less words has a unique skill of story telling with quality. But depending on the Genre more words maybe necessary to add detailed descriptions or make used of good vocabulary to make it sound more poetic.

We only need to consider word count as a way to properly compress our stories as to what the Publisher may demand of us, but we should really write to our hearts content and after the first draft. We trim down the less relevant scenes of our story and use lesser words that will express what we are writing about.

Quality and Quantity should go together hand in hand in their respective use. We should follow what Literary Agents and Publishers demand of us in word count in the case of Traditional Publishing. It is a really a skill for an Author to compress or extend his or his story to its best form.

Writing can not only become a hobby or a profession but also a form of therapy. When you write you let out things that you can not always speak in words or in public. You can simply write about things and still keep those things for yourself, if you don't want anyone else reading it.

It is a skill to express yourself in writing just it is in public speaking. In writing you can express more quickly as fast as you write and there is no limit to it, you can read what you write and can change and modify it to what is best. As a way of self-expression writing can be a useful let out for your stress and emotions that can't be expressed publicly.

There is more writing words than just typing it or using a pen. It is also one way to explore ideas and be more creative either in story telling or just describing old memories to a more poetic way of expressing it. Writing down things allows me to take out a load of ideas in my mind so that it won't bother me at night were it will affect my sleep.

Writing keeps me calm and takes away the tension. When I am angry or lonely, writing down my feelings is a great way to observe my acts without expressing it on a way that it can harm or bother others. Writing should be treated as a way of expression and to take off some load not only from the mind but also from the heart.

It was in 2010, I was searching for different trailers of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Movie on Youtube. On the side panel I saw different videos of J.K. Rowling and chose to view the documentary ''A Year in the Life - J.K. Rowling.'' I watched the whole video and got inspired to write my own book. It really has everything, the Authors life, her struggles as an Author and The Process in how a book is Written and Published.

I decided on making plans for the story of my book and came up with ''The Destiny of Uncharted Fates'' unfortunately my drafts got deleted somehow. It is a story about a captain and his family with other new settlers landing on an isolated continent called Arcanus. It is here were the captain Malachi begin to explore the continent and during his exploration he found a floating girl in suspended animation.

Malachi was able to break the force field surrounding the girl and somehow able to adopt her without knowing where she came from. The girl started to live with Captain Malachi's family and she began a close relationship with her adoptive Grandfather who was an inventor and scientist. The Girl was making all this technological stuff that surprised the old man.

Thus I thought of an origin story for the girl, and came up with my characters from ''Toyz''. I was creating an alien race which the girl originated from, where the kids at a young age were creating high-tech toys of their own for being Alien and all with high Intelligence. I recycled the characters for that story to make them live on earth instead and their story in the form of a Comic which is now ''Toyz''.

I will still write a series about the Destiny of Uncharted Fates with a different origin for the girl sometime with a different origin story. I came up with the ''Bunny Syndrome'' story when I thought of the character in ''Toyz'' of having a white hair with red eyes. That gave me an idea of a story about a boy who looks like a white Bunny or Rabbit.

A story comes up to me through a single character at first then a world is being pictured in my mind. There is a lot of possibilities even for just one character to create stories out of them. I like using my imagination and writing down what is useful to become a full story.

Sometimes we have writers block and don't know what to write about. But the Best Solution is to go outside and observe the nature and the people walking around you. Just in the silence of your thoughts allow you imagination to run free and wild. There are things to see and listen too. Just look at the leaves being blown by the wind and try to create a poetic scene about it.

Go to the park and observe people walking and passing by, they have a story and try to guess where they are heading in just looking at what they wearing. If you use your imagination a story will come into you without any effort of thinking to much. You see a couple on a bench and talking to each other. Imagine what they are talking about and invent their dialogue that fits their situation.

You can't expect everything to come out of your own mind, there is something beyond you the you need to discover and explore. When you create characters for a story, give them their own personalities so that they will have their own life and something may come up that you never expected them to be.

Don't think to hard it will only give you a headache. Relax give some time to contemplate, give it a break and have a snack or something. It's like when you close your fist you can't expect anything to come into your hands, but if you open your palms. You can receive something.

If you don't know how to continue writing about your story, try writing about something else until you have the drive of writing more.

Sometimes I don't usually have any ideas coming out of my head when I am writing a story, I just let my characters have a personality of their own as if they are really living people. Then I just get something out of their behavior about how they will act in given scenario or situation.

We do get writers block at times and also sometimes an idea just appears out of nowhere and we are totally inspired like a whole new story comes up. It's best to write it down and take down notes about the Idea before we forget it. On a notebook or anything we could write on, either through pen and pencil.

I like writing down ideas I come up to make sure I don't have to keep remembering them until I write it on my manuscript with a risk of forgetting. It is a good therapy to write down notes from ideas that came up all of sudden. It is like a puzzle piece you have to collect and then fit them properly to form a bigger picture of a puzzle.