While thinking about a release date for my debut novel, The Superiority Contest, I discovered there is such a thing as World Tourism Day. And that is today, September 27.

World Tourism Day would have been an appropriate occasion to release a world traveler’s tale, but the novel wasn’t ready, and it’s more important to get that right. Over my long adulthood I have learnt that Hamlet was right when he said, “The readiness is all.”

In this discussion with his bestie, my favorite literary character was referring to his impending duel with Laertes, which could possibly end in his death. (Which it does. The play can’t go on forever.)

This dialogue is not as grand as his soliloquies—Hamlet is always most poetic when talking to himself—but it comes at one of the most poignant moments in the action. When faced with the possibility of his own end, our dithering hero is finally resolute and ready for action. And that readiness is all that truly matters.

British novelist Luke Jennings’s luminous 2010 memoir, Blood Knots, has a memorable exchange between two Catholic priests serving at different schools in England. One of these is the author’s alma mater, Ampleforth College. When the other priest says his school’s mission is to prepare their students for life, the Ampleforth priest replies, “Ours is to prepare them for death.” (I am quoting this from memory and will add the page citation later.)

Perhaps Hamlet and the priest were referring to death the event, but what I mean is the afterlife. Preparing for that is more consequential, and the Bible’s most famous verse tells us how we do so. But Hamlet’s words about readiness apply to other areas too. Including book releases.

Even though my novel is not ready for release today, I was able to launch the Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign on September 25, my youngest niece’s birthday. Moments after I shared the link to my Facebook page, Meta AI appeared under the post promising to tell me more about my book. Curious to know what it had to say, I clicked on the tab.

Meta AI has nailed the main plot, though it missed the subplot entirely, and its description of the genre and inspiration need tweaking.

While The Superiority Contest certainly contains elements of humor and adventure, it has more farce than satire. And alas, I wish I’d been a world traveler in real life. I have set foot in only ten countries to date, with less than nine hours each in France and Switzerland. The story comes mostly from my imagination.

This is the description on my Kickstarter page:

The Superiority Contest depicts a fictional world tour undertaken to study the subject of Superiority continent by continent. Inspired by an international beauty pageant and funded by the largesse of a late great-uncle, the world tour is recorded in a journal that gets sold to an illustrious New England publisher. The protagonist’s interactions with various members of the publishing house, including a pesky editorial intern, form the subplot.

Please join in the Kickstarter campaign if you can. My crowdfunding goal is a modest $2,500, which will cover production costs. Anything above this sum will be used towards book promotion. Which, as I have discovered since becoming a published author in 2013, is both expensive and nonnegotiable.

(c) 2024 by Sharon Arpana Edwards. All rights reserved.