Don't be discouraged! First off, you are WAY ahead in sales than I am at this point, haha. Also, if you haven't seen it yet, check your email. You should see a message from Inkshares this morning regarding their new funding goal changes, including "light publishing" for any project that hits 250. Congrats man. You are going to get published. :)

It has been a while since I updated. There is no apologies necessary for me to give, since it is my own doings. My request for an extension was heard and granted, and in the first six days of this brand new achievement, I have had less than ten books ordered. 

I am losing hope quickly. I hate to say it, but it is true, and why should I lie. I need to go get more parchment paper, is it parchment--nope! Need to grab Cardstock; more for my flyers. I have been discreetly passing them out to prechosen guests where I work, and that seems like a fruitless endeavour, but I still have some hope in the strategy. 

Someone, just a couple hours, asked me why are you even doing this? After getting defensive, I formulated a response: because I have to. I have to get this published. Since I put so much into this crazy story of mine, anything less would be detrimental to my well being and core belief in myself as a writer, entertainer, and story teller. I would rather see this in the broken shelves in the discounted section of a failing bookstore, discounted cause no one wanted it, than bliking at me as a word doc I have selected and am just dragging around from one email to who knows what folder(s) on my laptop. 

Please take a look into my mind, and if you like what you see, type out the necessary info to get your pre-order. I am at 250 copies as we sit right now at...2:50 AM/84 days left/out of 1,000 needed to complete my goal. 

I thank you all to those who have helped and went anove and beyond the call for help. The people who took the "Dead End Ahead", who commented on their favorite passages, and who took the U-turn to insure this book gets its chance with the big boys. The inkshares!

Checkmate and Rummy my dear Gladiators

I need more galactic races in my life, so I hope you continue on with this and are successful.

Feeling a little of that discouragement that creeps up on you, often times when you forget to eat and you are wondering why your stomach is making that weird noise.

My deadline has 34 days left in its funding goal of 1,000 copies. Inkshares does not make it easy, does it? You know what though, it shouldn't. Books take time, a lot of time to invest--drafts that are outlined, worlds are created, and hours are collected, and fused into something miraculous. This--takes--years.

If everyone's book was published, then the magical terror of that would be lost. I have 207,  hypothetically speaking, followers reading these words in the next couple days to come. 

Have a look, a real good one at the two stories I have written, both at the same time, interlocking different realities, for yes...A Long Time. If you have already pre-ordered I ask you  look into the possibility of ordering again, or liking excerpts, highlighting your fav passages, commenting on what could use work. I am very open to criticism. 

It is at this point, I am wondering if the book deserves to have a spot among the published books that Inkshares has and will bestow upon our society. Will this doubt flutter away? I sure hope so. If there are those of you who have not hit the button under 'Hazard Lights' or 'Dead End Ahead' to add another book to your shelf, I hope you are moved to do so. 

Below is a little behind the veil of a cop on the edge a few years back before our story begins, caught up in the world of botched criminal proceedings. 

Checkmate and Rummy my Dear Gladiators!

           O'Collins continued on, taking big gulps from his 24 oz date for the evening, "one day, I'm gonna go up to that pile of robed shit and tell him exactly what I think of him." Unfortunately, Officer O'Collins was a man of conviction who stood by his words, and one day waited outside the Judge's house and shot him.

            He was drunk and his aim held stupid. He got him in the arm, and he may have escaped it for a bit, but the officer was heated and drunk, and he came out of hiding. "You like that? Not so tough behind your stand huh?" He got right up to him, passing some parked cars, people running like greyhounds chasing their animatronics rabbit in opposite directions, single file. "Where's your gavel?" He punched him. ""Where's your gavel now?" He punched him again, the gun in the other hand falling away from him, and then his pals arrived. Being a member of the black and blue, the arriving officers on scene allowed him one more 'kiss goodnight' before asking him to freeze. "Overruled!" O'Collins dropped his reeling fist, breathing like a cornered dog that still had half a cat's paw sticking out of its haggard mouth, and obeyed. He knew the order of criminal takedown and he followed the steps, this time from the other end, and he had his fellow officers haul him up and take him to HQ.

            The trial was another story, one with just a sad ending. No lawyer would handle the case. They could have been too scared, some of them were, others were just not willing to sully their name with a drunken cop's bloodlust for a member of the higher courts. Bonds though, he was hard for it. He wanted to take the defense for O'Collins, but Bonds was the last person he wanted on his side, so he said his 'f@!k yous' and pleaded guilty. "I'd rather rot in jail, then spend a couple long afternoons burning in hell sitting next to your rank ass." O'Collins had a mastery of the English language."

This is probably one of my favorite Promotion items to date. This is now the cover photo for both my Facebook pages: Personal and Professional

It is now the weekend and looks like there is only one month to go for this book to become a reality...(my co workers think I am writing about them). Now, it is true, especially for Lauren.

"36 hours ago I was having the kind of dream that would give our savior one true realization: there is no God. A dream, swirling with excitement and terror, no man should face. The strongest of us would buckle under its sheer madness, and I was the lucky participant."

The image above is the best depiction of the "Maker's" I have ever concocted in my strange deliriums I frequent often:

"A 'Maker' could vary from: a scaly five foot desert sand brown to a towering, slimy, as big as a telephone pole behemoth. The similarity was in their jaw. The bone structure was a steel vice grip, sharp as diamond."

I am at  234 copies sold and still need a whole hell of a lot to get to the goal of 1,000. A number that seems so out of reach, but I will drive this hell bent British Morgan of a story as far as it will take me. 

If you are reading this as a follower and one who has not made an order, I hope you take the U-Turn. This story has been so much fun to write and I cannot wait for people's minds to snap upon reading it. Yea, controlled chaos funneled into artistic insanity. 

Here are some fliers that you can hand out in your home towns. I see it now, "Hey, check out...this guy. He's weird, but his book! No, I don't know him. It's a publisher. No, it's called Inkshares. I don't know, Polish maybe?"  Yep, exactly like that. 

Oh no, my last name is misspelled at the very top...great. And then on the back you have this!

Thank you everyone for all your help and the time you have taken in helping me get past 200 orders. On to 300 and then 400, and then!? That is up to you. 

Checkmate and Rummy my Dear Gladiators!

At the beginning of the month I was feeling the compounding pressure of my deadline closing in, surrounding me, until only darkness was left.

I wrote a huge update and I accidentally hit tab...and lost 

My sincere congratulations to the top 5 winners of the Nerdist Collection contest!

I first heard about this contest and, most importantly, Inkshares through Instagram via Nerdist, one day after the first submissions were accepted. 

The second book that I pre-ordered, on Aug. 20th, three days after the contest was off and running, was written by one Zachary Tyler Linville. This book has now become the holder of the number one spot. He may be first, but the top 5 are all winners since Nerdist will make the final call, but all will be published. 

I thought about mentioning some other books, one alongside me in the top 15th (I will finish off 17th) and one almost forgotten among the other 300 submissions.

The Talkers are Talking by Janna Grace:

https://www.inkshares.com/projects/the-talkers-are-talking

This is a story that deals with a concept that seems familiar, but then throws you upside down and shatters your spine. The fact that Grace's Talkers was also a dream has me loving it even more. Grace has the kind of writing that twists up your insides and I can just imagine how nauseous she will make us, of course, in the best and only way possible--gut wrenching and unflinching.

The second is Drift by Danielle Mohr:

https://www.inkshares.com/projects/drift

Her story is one she has been working on for years, which I could relate, and I think her world is fully fleshed out, with a dark disarray in a future of genetics gone rampant, and I am hoping this story gets the audience it deserves. I am excited to walk among the citizens of Freemont and eventually go Rogue in the distant time to come. 

As for me, there are 48 days left and I have sold 183/1,000 pre-orders.

https://www.inkshares.com/projects/u-turn-at-next-synapse

 I have met some amazing authors on Inkshares, and some have already become good friends, a collective of writers working together. Outstanding.  This has been an enriching experience and one I am glad I took on with full bravado; no more fear as an author. If I am unable to get this published with Inkshares, then I will get it done by other means. Before this contest, I would be unsure of my previous statement. 

I have been making some off the wall promotional countdown images, so here is the latest as we wind down into the...

And here are a look at the rest, counting down from 6: 

Thank you all, everyone that has been with me since the beginning to those who are about to take the ride. Be sure to buckle up now, for this road is still halfway from our final destination. Will you take the U-Turn at the Next Synapse if you have not already? And who else can you get behind the driving wheel?

I probably should update seeing that everyone else is. The contest ends tomorrow, and I have done what I could. I made it to the 15th spot and hung in the top 20 for a good duration of this contest and for that I am thrilled. As of right now (1:53 PM PST) I am barely holding on to the 17th rung of this harrowing ladder. With only selling one to maybe three copies a day, U-Turn At Next Synapse has been unable to keep the stamina up with with the 23-64 copies a day Giants. 

The contest is over, but the possibility of being published is not. I have 47 days. Repeat 47 Days to have 817 copies pre-ordered by you and your friends, and the world.  

How many people can you get to take the U-Turn? Where two stories meet on the crossroad of a crumbling psyche:

     It was just blind chaos; accumulating as much destruction as they possibly can. We had traveled a lot of road. To be driving in silence was exhilarating. It was pushing back the exhaustion, the burn in my thighs; the body, slowly dying, had exerted what it could. I was in pain, but it was more than just physical. The core was shot. I pulled out the crumpled piece of paper from my pocket, looked over the map, the crude lines resembling rooted weeds of a mansion estate. Even a widespread living quarters had the most intricate buds. There, I saw that Dragon’s Point was ten minutes out. My rest stop...ours.

...

            Christ! The kid! Jerry ran over to Johnny. The outer glass casing of the street lamp was fractured and the pieces were all around where John was moving. This light was damaged and it was done recently. Jerry ran over to help John out with the investigation that was taking a turn, finally. John was looking at the light from every angle on the ground, moving from position to position, sometimes on his back, other times on his knees, one with a jump backwards,  reenacting what might have happened. John pointed his arm miming that he was holding a gun for each scenario. Jerry scooted around John, tiptoeing around the fragmented covering.

The 14th spot has been usurped and I am back to a humbling 15th place. I have maxed out all my contacts via the evils of social media and my post cards are running thin. There is only so much one individual can do, but if we were to form a battalion and strike on the offensive: if each of you, my loyal crew, are able to recruit 3 civilians and they are to pre-order...then U-Turn at Next Synapse may still be a reality. If not, then this could be another piece of an imaginary dream and one that will fade in five days time when we all wake up.

This is something I have worked on for seven years, and it would be an unforgettable life changing moment to hand over copies of this epic story into my parent's hands. Mom in New Mexico and Dad in California. As an only child, they are my greatest fans.  

Thank you all for your time and your undying support. Each pre-order has been so kindly accepted and I cannot thank you all enough. Sincerely, I hope you guys enjoy this story: one near and dear to me since I first had this dream in my sophomore year of college. 

Checkmate and Rummy my dear Gladiators.