Hello from a new/old writer

Hi,

Just rediscovered this forum after about five years, forgot I was a member (doh!). I guess the last time I joined I thought my novel Arisugawa Park, a mystery thriller set in Japan, was almost ready to go out into the big bad world of bookstores and Amazon. Unfortunately, it was not.

After several years of inactivity on the Ari Park mss. and a half year of major revisions, I am much closer to meeting my goal of securing an agent. The only respectable agent who responded positively to my work four years ago is now quite enthusiastic about the 500-page novel and had other agents/interns at the firm read it and give me line-editing and revision advice. We recently met over lunch in Northern California, for four hours that flew by pretty darn quickly (thanks in no small part to a bottle of wine).

As I assume the agent's time is precious, she must have a fundamental belief in the book. (I'll refrain from naming the agency until I sign a contract).

Anyway, I am posting here initially and will probably revisit the forum over next few days, putting up a "goals" thread at the start of the (projected) end of this 10-year journey. It is nice to see such a supportive and "flame free" community still exists. We writers are such a mature bunch.

I posted a brief article about Ari Park (appreciate shares and recommends): https://medium.com/@damonshulenberger/arisugawa-park-a-10-years-quest-in-suspense-1-61456e865634

Tom Johnson said:

Welcome back. Good luck with the agent. I love reading stories set in Asia. Japan is an extremely interesting location, as is Hong Kong. I read just about everything I find set anywhere in Asia. I have a Blog at pulpden.blogspot.com that you might visit. Or just visit the Blog in my signature and you'll find me and it.

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Thanks Tom! I like the vintage look of your blog site. Would you be interested in reviewing Ari Park? Could definitely use some pre-publication traction. Although I like to think my "literary" novel is about as far from pulp fiction genre as you can get, it definitely shares some elements with the genre.

Kuranes: guess I need to reach 50 posts before I can share an excerpt, but I look forward to it.

May be a little racy, but here is a 1940s pulp style illustration that my artistic collaborator Victoria Kabluyen has created. It depicts a scene in the book where Eve, a Roppongi hostess who has woken under the dead body of her lover in a love hotel (in an apparent set up) decides to change hair color and take control of her life.

Cool. The agent seems to think Ari Park could merit a (semi-major) publisher release, but I would like to generate pre-pub buzz and, more importantly, gain realistic feedback from literary enthusiasts.