A Conversation with Jamie Rockers,
Author of "6,000 Miles From Hollywood"
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| Featured Author, Jamie Rockers "6,000 Miles From Hollywood" |
Why did you feel you had to tell this story?
6,000 Miles From Hollywood: A Tale of Wanderlust in South America was written for anyone who has ever wanted to just go out on a limb and do something different, like quit their job and go travel! This is what led me down the path I am currently on and I haven’t regretted it for one minute. Argentina was the first country I ever visited and lived in outside of the U.S. so it has a special meaning to me. It was where I truly caught my travel bug which has been with me now for over 12 years and 50+ countries later I am still exploring!
In 6,000 Miles From Hollywood: A Tale of Wanderlust in South America, I follow the fork in the road that takes me to the hot spot of Buenos Aires to immerse myself in the language, culture, and tango of the porteños. Buenos Aires, 6,170 miles from Hollywood, seemed to me a place bright with promise.
I felt I had to tell this story because there are not many stories that reflect on what was going on during the financial crisis of Argentina in 2001 and how it affected the people and the chaos that followed; protests on the streets where the citizens banged pots and pans, the vandalizing of banks, and the extreme distrust of the government.
This book is not all doom and gloom though, it’s fun and exciting, with lots of vibrant characters. I really felt their stories also needed to come out in their characters in my book.
Where do you get your ideas?
The ideas come from real life! My stories are travel memoirs so they reflect events that really happened. I do change the name and circumstances in some of my books to hide the characters true identity but otherwise the stories are true. It helps to keep a journal while you are traveling and to write whenever you can, while you are on a train, bus, or right at the end of the day because the details about the smells and sights are harder to recreate from memory if you haven’t written them down already. If you want to be a writer, you have to start writing.
My first book published was Savannahs & Sunsets: An African Overland Adventure which detailed my journey overland across the lower half of the African continent. Each of my books focuses on a specific region.
Do you ever experience writer’s block and how do you overcome it?
Not really, since my stories come from real life so the story really writes itself. Writing is a lonely job however and practice really does make perfect in this case. The more you write the better you get, just like with anything else. I always find it’s hard to write the beginning and the ending of a book. And when you write those last few sentences of a book you feel a bittersweet feeling, one because it’s finished and two because it’s finished!
What advice would you give to aspiring writers on the writing and publishing process?
I would tell them to keep practicing and also to keep reading! It’s hard to write if you don’t like to read in the first place. Read lots of books in the genre that you want to write in and admire different writing styles.
Also, a lot of people finish their books and think the hard part is over but that’s not really true. The hard part is marketing your work and or writing query letters to agents, etc. There are countless things that go into writing a book, just the same as making a movie, etc. There is always a team or some go solo behind the scenes!
How do you market your work? Have you found some avenues to be more successful than others?
I think word of mouth is the most powerful thing. If one person likes your book and recommends it to another, it spreads from there. I usually use social media to market my work and I often participate in travel chats on Twitter. I also find getting editorial coverage in newspapers, etc. always helps to spread the word about your book.
What are you reading at the moment?
Time Out London- a current events magazine that keeps me up-to-date on all that is happening in London, where I live currently.
A book I really want to read for fun is Haruki Murakami’s new book, Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. It’s not set to be out (translated into English) until 2014 though. I will be waiting and am a huge fan of his work as I lived in Japan for four years and became familiar with his books while living there. I have no idea how he comes up with the things he writes about.
How did you become interested in writing?
I first became interested in writing when I was about 25 and I had just spent a year in Japan and traveled across China, Mongolia, and Russia by Trans-Siberian train. I started my first travel memoir when I got back but I never finished it. It’s another project that I would like to complete in the future. I started out writing by writing blogs for www.gaijinpot.com, Japan’s biggest website for foreigners, where I wrote blogs about culture and food while I lived there.
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About the Author:
Jamie Rockers is from Garnett, KS and began her traveling “career” in Argentina in 2002. Although she studied film at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles and worked in Hollywood, she blames Argentina for her continuing wanderlust and for her departure from Hollywood. Since that time, she has studied in London and and lived in Japan for four years, where she worked on a number of projects, including as a paid blogger on www.gaijinpot.com, followed by over 2 million people. She has published 16 articles about traveling in Japan in Japan Today at http://www.japantoday.com/search?q=Jamie+Rockers
She moved to Australia after backpacking through ten countries in Southeast Asia in the summer of 2010 and has currently relocated to the London, England. She has traveled to over fifty different countries and lived in four, from staying with nomads in Mongolia to bush camping in Mozambique to traveling across Russia by train. Savannahs & Sunsets: An African Overland Adventure is her first published book and 6,000 Miles From Hollywood: A Tale of Wanderlust in South America is her second published book.
6,000 Miles From Hollywood: A Tale of Wanderlust in South America is available at Amazon.com in both Kindle and Paperback version at http://www.amazon.com/000-Miles-From-Hollywood-ebook/dp/B00EMV4U3Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1377729163&sr=1-1&keywords=6000+miles+from+hollywood
Savannahs & Sunsets: An African Overland Adventure is available at Amazon.com in both Kindle and Paperback version at http://www.amazon.com/Savannahs-Sunsets-Overland-Adventure-ebook/dp/B00D378XF6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1377729077&sr=1-1&keywords=savannahs+and+sunsets
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For blogs, photos, and upcoming news, please visit her website at www.jamierockers.com.
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FOR MORE INFO:
Website: www.jamierockers.com
Blog: http://blog.gaijinpot.com/author/jamie-rockers
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jlrocker
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jrockersauthor?ref=hl
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/jlrockers/boards/
Google+: https://plus.google.com/107640220968693457275/posts
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BUY THE BOOKAmazon: http://amzn.to/14oWNdq