It has been an honor, a challenge and an opportunity to learn for me this past contest. Unfortunately, I have to cut off the campaign here, with 45 days ahead of us. I do not think I am ready to publish this tale for multiple reasons and I wanted to tell every one of you exactly why.
First off, life gets in the way. I know it will happen. All the time. But for the past months now, I have not been able to make any major progress on the book, let alone the series. And right now, a new chapter of my life is about to start, in 10 days exactly and until I get situated with the changes, I will have to postpone the book as well as a few of my other projects. By the time I can return, the campaign will have most likely run out. So I prefer pull back now and being frank about it rather than let it die out and not being honest with you all.
Next, at the point I am now, I don’t think publishing REB1RTH now would give it justice. The tale in itself is still a bit too young to my liking. Since day 5 of the contest, I started wondering if I should pull out of the contest but I decided to do as much as I could before the end of the contest and act then. But here we are and my thoughts have not changed.
What will happen with the book you ask? The book (and myself) are returning to the benches. I have a lot to learn to make this series the best it can be and I intend to make it through at some point. Here’s how the next few months will go for me, book wise.
Late July - Mid/Late August
Getting my foot in my new situation. Things will be changing a lot for a while. Until then, I will be putting every creative project on hiatus.
Mid/Late August - Late September
The Hiatus is lifted. Work starts again on my projects. REB1RTH is continued (hopefully the initial draft is completed before the next step.)
October
The National Novel Writing Month creeps in and I start gathering my stuff for it. Depending on the situation, I might take a small breather from creative during October or focus on other creative projects for the time being as November will be filled with writing.
November
NaNoWriMo starts and ends that month. Whether I am starting the draft of the second book of the Stratos Saga or another book (nicknamed Bloodblossom) will depend on the state of REB1RTH and how I feel about the setting of the second tome.
Start of December - January
Depending on what I started in November, I might be going for an Encore, completing the draft of the book of November or returning to REB1RTH for the first major run-through.
During all these steps, I will try my hardest to come by to you guys once in a while for an update. The page might had reverted to a Draft, but in my heart, it will still be on the doorstep, waiting for the door to open in front of it.
That is all I have for you guys today. Until the next time I update this page, please keep an eye out for the book and I will see you all next update.
I have been meaning to write this update for a few days but I just now have the time to do it.
Thanks to every single one of you following the project. Those of you I knew before the contest, everyone I met because of the contest. Those following the contest, my fellow contestants and those who came on here for the book. Those who have pre-ordered, those who have not. (Hoping there is a "yet" somewhere.) Thanks you to every one for your attention to the book. It makes me proud to know that my book is interesting to people.
Since I will have more time to create content for the campaign, I want to ask you guys something. I have heard from my close friends some of their reticence about the book. And they have for the most part been corrected. But I never asked you guys, the 90%+ of my followers, what made you reticent with pre-ordering or showing the book to your friends and family members.
Where can you tell me such things? 1) Here, on Inkshares, through DMs. 2) You can go through my e-mail also. Everyone should also have received at least a single message from me on their e-mail. 3) Twitter. Send me a short tweet about DM and I will follow you so we can talk. 4) Facebook. The book has a page on Facebook even though I didn’t get the time yet to post everything I have here. I should resolve that soon. Still, you can send me message through the page.
I can’t thanks you guys and gals enough for the attention you are giving me. The Stratos saga is a project I have been preparing for a while now and, as stupid as it may seems, it has to be the story I want the most for people to be able to read.
I wanted to give you guys a quick update on stuff.
I unfortunately don’t have much time left to write stuff for the book for the moment.
Between the day job burning most of my time (schools are out for the summer so most of my colleagues are taking their vacation in the next few weeks), staying alive (eating, sleeping, etc.), keeping the small amount of social contact I have and trying to make progress in my other projects (if you are following me on Twitter, you might have noticed my Game Dev streams since I use that media for both Inkshares and the stream), I am unfortunately at my mind’s limit.
That said, I still have a little something for you guys, to get a better feel for the book.
So, as is already revealed by everything on the project’s page, the world in which REB1RTH is based, Stratos, comes from a video game. That simple thought, at first, lead to me thinking of everything in the world as elements of a video game. Including the characters of the story. Thus, I give to you, a quick rundown of the class archetypes of all the members of Steel Tempest, as of the first chapters.
Shimeon : Commando
Equipped with many weapons and a quick mind, Shimeon controls the battlefield through cunning and gunpowder.
Elder : Bastion
Wielding a shield and a combination of revolvers and pistols, Elder excels at holding tactical positions or slowly creep forward on the battlefield.
Ivy : Drone Technician
From simple quad copters to sacrificial planes bearing explosive payloads, Ivy uses the air to her advantage to control the situation from afar.
Jackie : Connected Mind
While physically and mentally fit to act as a frontline soldier, Jackie excels at electronical interactions, from simple rewiring of security systems to actual network hijacking.
Chimera : Marksman
Wielding high caliber rifles, Chimera excels at long range target removal and pressure.
Makar : Tracker
Quick on feet, slippery and subtil, Makar excels at covert missions and quick assaults, using his bow and close range weapons to his advantage.
Jackal : Jack of all trades
While not excelling at any role, Jackals trade that for being relatively good at every role, whether it’s long range target acquisition and removal, frontal assault or demolition.
I have not updated you guys on the project for a while now and I think I should remedy to that.
I don’t have much to report this time around, although I will say there are some things currently in the pipelines waiting for the stamp of approval.
Some of you may have noticed (most likely not since Inkshares doesn’t give out an event when you update a file) that Chapter Nine has been updated! I recently took some time to polish the chapter as much as possible in the recent days and I have to say, I am quite happy with it. A lot more than I was before.
One final thing before I leave for my cave, I want to give some stats about the book:
Action scenes currently leads with about 30% of the book dedicated to it. You can expect these to be rather fast paced, often spanning less time per word count than other categories.
Character Development then comes with about 25% of the book. These scenes usually are slower in their essence and are often full of dialogues but there are some exceptions.
Romance, Tactics and World Development then closes out the numbers with 15% of the words each. These range from time skips and fast forwards to dialogues packed with valuable developments.
What does that mean for the book? As much as I would love to pack the book with action, this book has to bring a lot of things together for everything to make sense in the end. And thus, you can expect some small doses of everything intertwined together. In a sense, I think it helps to bring the whole thing together. After all, as much as anyone may like romance, action or discovering a new world, I don’t think being drenched in it every single second of reading would really be enjoyable in the end.
It is a beautiful moonlight night here as I write this message and bring you some good news!
If you remember the road map I gave 48 hours ago, you will remember 4 things being on my list for the very near future. And I am happy to say, 2 of those are checked, stroked and have drawings of cakes and balloons over them! (I need to stop, now...)
First, I have to thanks a whole lot Landon Trine for the beautiful cover art. He contacted me for the cover and I have to say, he did a wonderful job on the cover in such a small time. If you want to help me thanks Landon, go on his page and look at his books and follow/pre-order what you like, recommend, review. He deserves any positive attention you can give him.
You are back? Gives you more clues on the style of the book than a prologue doesn’t it? What? The redaction thing? Let me explain.
In Chapter Nine, Chimera talks at some point about her past with Sliver, a character we see a few times in the previous chapters of the book and I thought, ’If it isn’t for this part being a bit of a spoiler, this chapter is just perfect as a preview. Combat, discussion, mystery. It has everything the book loves.’ So, I had to cut that part unfortunately. Sorry about it. I promise I will keep the spoiler redaction to a minimum in the future samples.
So, now that those two elements are done, what’s next this time?
The book is still in the same state it was. I haven’t had the time to do any writing between the day job and edition. So that will come next. Until then, I will be laying low on excerpt. I might post a quote or two from characters here and there as I see them.
Also in the short term scope, the video. As much as I dread having to do a video with my voice, I will be looking into something for the video as I can see the importance of such a media piece. More on that in the close future.
Replacing the two marked off elements on the list are small excerpt, apart from the book to wet your appetite on the world REB1RTH builds into. Character bios, creature logs, city descriptions, etc. These most likely will end up in a free online companion piece or as a compendium at the end of the book.
Finally, I need to get my advertisement shirt on and start reaching out further than I feel comfortable doing so. Currently, I have been running a silent campaign outside of my personal social medias.
While this update is getting long, I would like to quickly end with a list of people I thankful about:
Landon Trine, for the cover. Can’t thank you enough.
J-F Dubeau, for giving me the final push into jumping on the contest. Go give his books a look.
The Nerdist people, for the contest.
Inkshares team members for the wonderful platform.
Every single one of you giving this project attention.
On this note, I will return to the moon’s glow and keep on plotting the destructi- eh, I mean continuation of this world of mine.
The contest starts today and I have to say, I am pretty stoked about it. So before I go to sleep for the first night of the contest, I want to give you a glimpse into the pipeline for the upcoming week:
First off, I am going to be working on finishing the draft so that I can push out more chapters as the contest progress. I am currently looking at one chapter in particular to upload pretty soon. Maybe Wednesday, maybe Friday? At worst, it should be out Sunday. You won’t want to miss it as it is a mix of a everything you can expect from the book in a single chapter. Yeah, crazy, I know.
Next in the pipeline is something I have a little less control on. You may have noticed I have a blank cover for the moment. Well, I am looking into it and I might just have someone designing a very simple but elegant cover for the time being.
And finally, once the book is done and another chapter is out, (since I don’t want to rely on Chapter One since it doesn’t necessarily do the book justice by it being a prelude) I will be working on a video to quickly explain the concept of the book to anyone who doesn’t have the time in their busy life to read everything I will be releasing during the contest.
So yeah, I think I have my work cut out for me in the next weeks. Until I can show more signs of life, I will return to my little book hut and write, write, write, write....
Volvary, out.
PS: I might post some exclusif stuff at some point from the point of view of the characters. Keep your eyes peeled for that.
Survivors, thanks a lot for the ride.
Survivors of the warp, thanks you.
I have been meaning to write this update for a few days but I just now have the time to do it.
Thanks to every single one of you following the project. Those of you I knew before the contest, everyone I met because of the contest. Those following the contest, my fellow contestants and those who came on here for the book. Those who have pre-ordered, those who have not. (Hoping there is a "yet" somewhere.) Thanks you to every one for your attention to the book. It makes me proud to know that my book is interesting to people.
Since I will have more time to create content for the campaign, I want to ask you guys something. I have heard from my close friends some of their reticence about the book. And they have for the most part been corrected. But I never asked you guys, the 90%+ of my followers, what made you reticent with pre-ordering or showing the book to your friends and family members.
Where can you tell me such things? 1) Here, on Inkshares, through DMs. 2) You can go through my e-mail also. Everyone should also have received at least a single message from me on their e-mail. 3) Twitter. Send me a short tweet about DM and I will follow you so we can talk. 4) Facebook. The book has a page on Facebook even though I didn’t get the time yet to post everything I have here. I should resolve that soon. Still, you can send me message through the page.
I can’t thanks you guys and gals enough for the attention you are giving me. The Stratos saga is a project I have been preparing for a while now and, as stupid as it may seems, it has to be the story I want the most for people to be able to read.
~Xavier
Hey survivors,
Elder : Bastion
Ivy : Drone Technician
Jackie : Connected Mind
Chimera : Marksman
Makar : Tracker
Jackal : Jack of all trades
Hello again, survivors.
Survivors of the warp, hello again.
It is a beautiful moonlight night here as I write this message and bring you some good news!
If you remember the road map I gave 48 hours ago, you will remember 4 things being on my list for the very near future. And I am happy to say, 2 of those are checked, stroked and have drawings of cakes and balloons over them! (I need to stop, now...)
First, I have to thanks a whole lot Landon Trine for the beautiful cover art. He contacted me for the cover and I have to say, he did a wonderful job on the cover in such a small time. If you want to help me thanks Landon, go on his page and look at his books and follow/pre-order what you like, recommend, review. He deserves any positive attention you can give him.
Second, as promised, a new chapter is up, called And They Fought till Dawn. Go read it. I’ll wait.
You are back? Gives you more clues on the style of the book than a prologue doesn’t it? What? The redaction thing? Let me explain.
In Chapter Nine, Chimera talks at some point about her past with Sliver, a character we see a few times in the previous chapters of the book and I thought, ’If it isn’t for this part being a bit of a spoiler, this chapter is just perfect as a preview. Combat, discussion, mystery. It has everything the book loves.’ So, I had to cut that part unfortunately. Sorry about it. I promise I will keep the spoiler redaction to a minimum in the future samples.
So, now that those two elements are done, what’s next this time?
While this update is getting long, I would like to quickly end with a list of people I thankful about:
On this note, I will return to the moon’s glow and keep on plotting the destructi- eh, I mean continuation of this world of mine.
Volvary, out.
Hello survivors of the warp,
The contest starts today and I have to say, I am pretty stoked about it. So before I go to sleep for the first night of the contest, I want to give you a glimpse into the pipeline for the upcoming week:
First off, I am going to be working on finishing the draft so that I can push out more chapters as the contest progress. I am currently looking at one chapter in particular to upload pretty soon. Maybe Wednesday, maybe Friday? At worst, it should be out Sunday. You won’t want to miss it as it is a mix of a everything you can expect from the book in a single chapter. Yeah, crazy, I know.
Next in the pipeline is something I have a little less control on. You may have noticed I have a blank cover for the moment. Well, I am looking into it and I might just have someone designing a very simple but elegant cover for the time being.
And finally, once the book is done and another chapter is out, (since I don’t want to rely on Chapter One since it doesn’t necessarily do the book justice by it being a prelude) I will be working on a video to quickly explain the concept of the book to anyone who doesn’t have the time in their busy life to read everything I will be releasing during the contest.
So yeah, I think I have my work cut out for me in the next weeks. Until I can show more signs of life, I will return to my little book hut and write, write, write, write....
Volvary, out.
PS: I might post some exclusif stuff at some point from the point of view of the characters. Keep your eyes peeled for that.