Bertram's Blog

As part of my week-long book launch party, Pierre Dominique Roustan and I are exchanging blogs. (You can find me at Writing and Reading.) Pierre writes:

Wow, this is a nice place you got here, Pat. It’s not every day I get to step out of my pad at the “Writing and Reading” Universe and explore. Allow me to introduce myself then! Pierre Dominique Roustan. Yes, you readers out there can say it: it’s a cool name. And that’s because I’m cool. I’m a 2^nd generation Hispanic, born in Chicago, Illinois, son to a fiery Puerto Rican woman and a tough-as-nails Nicaraguan man. And, yet, you ask why I have such a French name…. Because my dad’s half-French. Yes. It’s true.

I’ve been writing ever since I remembered being able to walk. It was one of those things you just couldn’t get away from, you know? My parents had me tested for giftedness, and the results came back showing I was gifted. What gift(s) I had? Wasn’t sure. Didn’t care. So much so that I sometimes omit the pronouns when I write. However, my parents cared, teachers cared, others cared; and they saw something in me. It didn’t take me long to realize that I loved to write-poetry, fiction, nonfiction, anything. I just had this need to fill the white space on a piece of paper with some sort of manifestation of my imagination (that’s a mouthful there), so much so that I followed my heart and earned a B.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

As I stand now before you, I’m a published author. My debut will be released in December. The number of people I could thank outnumber my fingers and toes and the fingers and toes of my family. I’m not exaggerating. I think it’s fair that I give you some insight into my journey of publication, though….

I write urban fantasy and thrillers (and sometimes those two genres go together for me). My debut is a fast-paced thriller known as THE CAIN LETTERS. Look for it. However, it wasn’t my first finished manuscript, nor my first project.

I actually wrote my first ‘story’ at the tender age of 10, I believe. It was about 20 pages long. The next ‘story’ I wrote landed me a 200-pager. I can’t remember exactly how old I was, but I think I was a freshman in high school. I then wrote another story that stretched to 300 pages long. Here’s the real kicker, though; the next project I took on actually pulled in about 540 pages…. 154,000 words, and the best part about that was I, initially, thought that was too short!

Go figure. I guess I was long-winded.

And then came THE CAIN LETTERS. At 74,000 words, it moved fast. I had learned a lot about storytelling, about pacing, about plot, about character. THE CAIN LETTERS is a culmination of all that I’ve learned.

For those aspiring writers out there, let me tell you: following a dream kills. The good thing, though, is your passion for writing makes you reborn every single time. Through every rejection, every bout with writer’s block, every setback, anything getting in your way, that desire to write brings you back up. Every single time. Let me tell you how dreaming kills: I received over 100 rejections for THE CAIN LETTERS, about 97% of them from literary agents. And those 100 rejections were spread over one year, almost to the day. The middle of March, 2008, was when I finished the manuscript. I just signed my contract with Eirelander Publishing about four days ago-without a literary agent. Funny how time flies.

You never know what’ll happen. I just learned to keep trying. It paid off.

That’s all I got for all of you, readers. Give it up for Pat Bertram as well! Put your hands together. It has been an honor being her guest, and do give her the honor of reading her work as well. Feel free to make as many comments as you like! Pat and I will be checking. Questions? Concerns? Coffee? Cupcakes? Oh, and stop by “Writing and Reading”, just to check out the scene, check out the pad, http://writingandreading.today.com. I’ll see you later. Taco Supreme.

Pierre is also a guest on my Dragon My Feet blog. See: The Cain Letters and Interview with Pierre Dominique Roustan.

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