Nov 14, 2016

Hey all,

Been awhile. Sorry for the, uh, "conservative" backer updates.

I am not, for the record, lying dead in a gutter, presidential protests trampling my lifeless body, hand still clutching the rain and blood soaked pages of IN BETA. Nor am I in Tijuana, peeling off green leaves of Inkshare backer money to buy another round for the Los Locos biker gang.

I am working diligently on IN BETA, every day, and I’ve finally crossed the halfway point! As I mentioned forever ago, I originally wrote IN BETA as a feature film. I found early on, though, that the comedy and action from the script didn’t feel right for a novel. It reminded me of that novelization of Terminator 2 I read in back in fourth grade, which I didn’t enjoy even as a fourth grader, and would be embarrassed to hand over to you.

So there have been a few radical departures in the story to make it work. For instance, instead of Seattle, I moved the setting to a rural high school in the Cascade Mountains. This works better for a number of reasons, primarily because I can better draw on my own high school experience (fun times), and because a microcosm seems to help ground things and make the premise a little more believable. Gives it kind of a Truman Show-vibe. I’m watching Westworld, and yeah there are some similarities there, too (though much lighter in tone).

Thanks again for your patience everyone, and your support. This has been a lot of work, and a lot of fun, and I think you’ll get a kick out of it, once it’s ready.

TLDR; Good book. Coming along. Promise me be better re: updates.