I always knew this was how the game played. Every reference book, website and other source I’ve seen has stated that literary agents and publishers reject close to 100% of the manuscripts/queries they get sent. Ouch.

But, as I often remind myself, even bestselling authors were at one point unpublished, and there is an axiom often heard by aspiring authors: there is a word for writers who never give up…published.

So here I am, ready to brave the coming onslaught of form rejection letters. I won’t paper the walls of my house with them, but I am going to keep them - just so I know which unfortunate souls were stupid enough willing to reject my writing.

I’m done!

But I’m getting ahead of myself, as I’m not quite done yet. Still got to format the manuscript, put the finishing touches on my query letter and synopsis, but as I’ve been working on them little by little throughout this whole process, I don’t think it will take long for me to have everything ready to go. I definitely see myself sending this off to publishers and agents by the end of this month. No doubt.

Sweet!

By the way, since I will (at some point) be a published author, I’ve set up an “Official” website. I haven’t decided yet what moniker I will use as an author, so for the moment I’ve got three different homepage addresses, all pointing to the same place:

http://www.jonathanehead.com
http://www.jonathanhead.com
http://www.jehead.com

Someone’s already registered jhead.com (Doh!) and though I’ve had it backordered for quite some time now, I haven’t been able to snap it up yet.

I’ll keep you all posted. As soon as my manuscript gets bought by a publisher I’ll let you know!

The answer is no. I would like to be financially secure enough that money doesn’t become a deciding factor in anything I do (for most people, that would qualify as being ‘rich’); however, I don’t want the money for the money. I don’t want the money so that I don’t have to work. Ideally, I want to find what it is that I love to do, can do every day, and that will provide me with a livable income.

I don’t want to be famous. To be perfectly honest, I despise the media (media being defined as newspaper, magazine, television, radio, etc. where the people reporting ‘the story’ blow up, exaggerate, misquote, harass and otherwise completely disrespect the intelligence and privacy of others - all for the sake of ‘the story’) and have no desire to have a screaming fan club. I would like to be pleasantly inconspicious but responsible for something that other people find of value.

So what are my strengths? I’m good at alot of things, but according to the above criteria there’s only one thing that takes advantage of a strength of mine with the potential to become financially secure and create something of value to others.

Becoming an author.

I wish I could say that’s how I came to be writing, or that I’ve always wanted to write since I was little, but that simply wouldn’t be true. I remember the very first time I tried to write a book. I was in middle school, living in rural Garner, NC and started scribbling on lined paper out on the back deck. I quickly realized that there was a lot more to writing a book than just writing, but the next time I would pick up a pen to try again would be more than ten years later. The catalyst for doing so? Short answer: I realized my dream of becoming a world class professional table tennis player was not realistic. I looked at the phenomenal success of J. K. Rowling and said to myself, “I want to have an impact like that, to be responsible for creating a legacy that will endure beyond myself.”

There it is. That’s why I started writing again. The funny thing is that I used to not like writing. Or, as I realized later, not like to do the writing I was forced to by my middle school and high school teachers (AP English doesn’t encourage creative writing). It was during my tenure as a exchange student at Waseda University in Japan that I came to the realization I actually was good at writing.

The journey from that day in early 2004 - in the common room of Waseda Hoshien (the dorm I was staying at) where I first started seriously writing - to this one, has been a long one filled with a tremendous number of mistakes and learning experiences. If you happened to read the rubbish I first wrote, and what I write now, you would probably:

But if there is one thing I consider a stregth of mine, it’s enduring the hardships that invariably come before reaching a goal. Not to say that I’ve reached my goal. I won’t have until my book is published, but my book (the first in a five part series) is almost done and I have confidence that my writing is of publishing quality material.

Of course, finding a publisher is perhaps the most difficult part of actually getting published. I fully understand that, and will do whatever is necessary to reach my goal. If I must, I will send it to every publishing company and literary agent in the English speaking countries of the world. If necessary, I will go back to square one and objectively evaluate my writing to make sure it’s up to snuff - if it’s not, I’ll make sure it is. This road to publication could potentially be long. Very long. One day, however, I will make it.

See you on the bookshelf.

My book is progressing very well, albeit slower than I was anticipating. This is probably due to my leisurely writing pace, as I typically only sit down and write for about three hours a day or so. According to J. K. Rowling, that’s a bad day for her….So I’ve decided to ramp things up a bit. I’m spending more time writing to reach my goal of having this ready for submission by the end of April. Not sure if I’m going to make that goal without writing ten hours a day or so, but we’ll see.

I’m free! Yes, finally free of all the weighty obligations and expectations that come with being a Government Sponsored Scholar. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve really enjoyed being here in Japan, have learned a great deal and am tremendously thankful for the Scholarship I received. But there were some things that were just so incredibly annoying that I am very glad to be free of it all.

Now, I can focus exclusively on my book, which is going very, very well. I finished the rough draft and am doing the necessary editing/rewriting that accompanies this stage of development. The story is, as J. K. Rowling would say, “growing in all sorts of strange and wonderful directions”. I am REALLY excited about polishing it off and sending it to publishers and literary agents in the States, which should be sometime in the next month. Hopefully, they will consider it worthy of publication. Wish me luck!

But come the end of March my research period ends, as does my scholarship (ouch), and I will officially strike out into the ‘real’ world to pursue my dream of becoming a published and successful author. The first book is very near completion, and I hope to have in ready for submission before the end of March. Certainly plausible, but at the moment my research is taking up a significant portion of my time. Oh well, only for a few more weeks!

In this case, even I care - and for good reason. News has it that Mr. Federline filed court papers disputing Ms. Spears claim for sole custody (I can understand that, he is the father after all, albeit, if reports prove to be true, he’s a rather miserable one - partying out all night while the mother stays up with the kids), but that’s not all.

He’s also trying to get Ms. Spears to pay him ’spousal support’.

Ohhhh, that really irked me. What kind of man is so weak and pitiless that he takes his ex-wife to court for ’spousal support’? I’d be willing to bet his two kids that the only thing he’s interested in is a hefty sum of money from Ms. Spears’ fortune.

Despicable. Absolutely despicable.

Go make your own money, dude. You are a guy, and therefore should be endowed with all the necessary abilities to go out and provide yourself with income. In fact, word has it Mr. Federline has been hired as a dance instructor at a prestigous dance school in California. So what’s the deal then? Why would he need ’spousal support’? He doesn’t. All he’s interested in is getting a big chunk of change he didn’t earn so that he doesn’t have to work a job.

Despicable. I could just spit.

I would love for my books to become as popular as the Harry Potter series, but I don’t want to be unrealistic. That, coupled with my mentality to aim high (if you go for the top of the lamppost, you might not get off the ground, but go for the moon and at least you’ll make it to the top of the lamppost), means that my goal is for my series to be MORE popular than the Harry Potter series. In fact, I would be thrilled if my series (planned to be a seven book series, and no, not because the Harry Potter series is) actually sells more copies than the bible. *Horror* Blasphemy, I know, but the bible is the best selling book of all time and I am aiming to be number one.

I feel very fortunate that I have discovered My Dream so early in life. My Dream is to create something of value, a legacy for which I will be remembered and which will enrich other people’s lives. For me, the way to do that is to write. My single, most favorite thing to do when I was young was to read. Now I want to share that joy with others by writing my own story.

And I won’t stop until I’ve done just that.

Granted I may run into the dreaded writer’s block, but so far have been free of any such obstacles. It also helps that I’m in the middle of my summer break and have a lot more time to spend writing than I normally do. Another encouraging thing is that the more I write the better I get (at least as far as I can tell, we’ll find out next year if any editors agree with me).

That’s all for now.

The next thing I know, almost ten years have passed, and though I’d dabbled with using Macs I’d never bought one again. So last year my famous musician brother, Nathan Head, asks me which platform he should use, Windows or Macintosh. Macs have long been known to be the better machine for graphic, design and music professionals, so I pushed him to get a Mac. As expected, he loves Macintosh, and when Apple annouched their plans to switch to Intel chips, it got me thinking.

But, let me back up a bit. Even though I had been using Windows, I wasn’t really satisfied with it. Instability, viruses, a clumsy and clunky interface, the blue screen of death, sudden freezing and on and on ad naseum, all really made me a very reluctant user of Winblows…err Windows. So every once in a while I would dabble with Linux. I liked the stability, lack of viruses, no blue screens of death, so sudden freezing, etc. but a lack of comparible applications kept me using Windows. Nowadays, Linux (my personal favorite is Ubuntu Linux) has programs like OpenOffice.org (which is free and can do everything Microsoft Office can), Firefox (so much of a better browser than Internet Explorer), Gimp (who needs Photoshop?) and many other applications that really remove all excuse to stick with Winblows…dang, there I go again.

This is why Ubuntu Linux is now my main desktop operating system at home.

But back to Macintosh. Talk about computer sex appeal. Talk about ease of use. Talk about all the things you love to use computers for, without all the headache that Winblows *oops* gives you. Now I use a MacBook and am loving every minute of it. And just in case you didn’t know, Mac OS X is based on an open source Unix kernel (called Darwin) which means it has all the built in reliability, stability and security that Unix systems have. For anyone tired of Windows *whew, had to really work to get it right that time* I suggest you take a look at a Mac or check out Ubuntu. You’ll fall in love with your computer again.