Joseph Isthemani, that should be your pen name. Congrats on over 250!
Happy Holidays, You Animals!
Just yesterday, "The Animal in Man" reached 200 inkshares readers. That's amazing! I can't say thank you enough! I also can't think of a time in my life when my fingers have had to hit the exclamation mark so many times!!! Seriously!!!
Enjoy this video of myself and my lovely assistant pulling the next five lucky winners in the second 100-reader raffle! Agh, there's another exclamation!
(Did you know you can read The Animal in Man's prologue and second chapter right now by visiting my writing portfolio website? If you have the time, find out what happens to Maxan when he wakes up.)
Goodbye for now, friends!
Hello my Dear Animals!
I’m proud to announce that soon after this past weekend concluded, “The Animal in Man” had crested over the halfway mark of the Sword & Laser publishing contest! Thank you all so much for bringing me here! As you know, I’ve been tirelessly reaching out to you, but it’s only because of your support that my work is worth anything. Thank you.
Author Jamison Stone has invited me to post more details about “The Animal in Man” on his blog! The short essay I put together delves a little deeper into how the story was born from my experiences with D&D, how it’s been shaped by Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave,” and how I struggled to commit myself to writing it as life got a little busy. Please check it out!
And check out Jamison’s amazing book “Rune of the Apprentice” as well! There’s good reason this story by a very gifted writer has attracted over a thousand readers already: the hunt for Aleksi is one of harrowing action and suspense that will captivate your imagination and not let go. I cannot wait to see where the chase for this hero leads us. All of Jamison Stone’s pre-order profit will go directly to support US Military Families, so there is literally no reason I can devise for you not to put through an order for “Rune of the Apprentice”.
Again, thank you all so much for your support of the Inkshares platform. It is because of you that writers like myself and Jamison can tell our stories to the world. Thank you!
12.1.15 - Weekly Update Two: Maxan, the Reluctant Hero
Hello, Readers and Followers of “The Animal in Man”. I have so much to share, so I’ll jump right in…
RAFFLE! I’ve thought about it and thought about it and thought some more… I couldn’t make up my mind on whether or not I should do a raffle. On one hand, I am rewarding my readers with an amazing story, but on the other hand, I want to reward them even more because the chance they’re giving me means so much to me. So why not? As soon as I reach the first 100 readers who pre-order the book will be entered to win one of five $20 Amazon gift cards! ...and if I can get 100 before midnight of this weekend’s end (Sunday, 12/13), I’ll bump that up to $25 just for the hell of it? Am I made of money? No! Am I completely out of my head? Probably! Have I told the wife about this plan? …….no.
So, please lock in your pre-order NOW! I look forward to drawing your name out of a hat! If you don’t get it this time around, I plan to do an even more extravagant raffle when “The Animal in Man” reaches 200 readers! ...don’t tell my wife....? Today’s update will shine a brighter light on the character I’ve been mentioning a few times here and there. Maxan. The protagonist of “The Animal in Man.” I personally know how amazing the world of Herbridia is, but I know that no matter how dazzling the setting, an audience will never latch onto your story unless there’s an interesting character doing interesting things within it. Maxan is a fox, born just before or perhaps just after the Awakening two decades ago, so his exact age is unknown. As the story begins, he is in the employ of the Crosswall city guard, but he doesn’t keep vigil on a wall or scrutinize passerby at a gate or patrol the lanes of a market. Maxan is a shadow, a special kind of guard who infiltrates and observes areas of the city where the king has deemed only a minimal guard presence necessary. In this age of the Strayn disease, Maxan thus finds himself often in the Western District, infiltrating, hiding, and observing criminal activity from the rooftops of the dilapidated structures that cram into this vast space of Crosswall.
It’s a lonely job. It’s the perfect job for someone as lonely as Maxan. But don’t feel sad for him. He believes he has good reason to shun companionship. Moving backward in time, we would see a younger, teenage fox training as a thief with The Commune, a once-notorious gang of thieves comprised primarily of foxes like himself. He wasn’t always lonely. Maxan had many friends in the Commune. Day in and day out, his gang would take what they could from the city’s nobility and gather in their hideout to share spoils and stories. Maxan’s life was good, until one day he was forced to make a choice that strained and eventually severed his relationship with the Commune. A few days after that choice, he tried to return and make amends, only to find the hideout engulfed in flames and witness whatever friends the fire spared dragged away in chains or put to the sword by several cloaked figures. It wasn’t the fear of these assassins that stopped him from charging, nor lack of courage. It was the fire. Maxan the fox is deathly afraid of fire. Why?
It’s not the first time that his entire life was reduced to ashes. Maxan has fleeting dreams and fading memories of the cozy den where he spent his childhood, of his mother’s face. But he remembers how they came for her, for him, one night, how his mother fought them, and pushed him aside as the flaming timbers of their roof collapsed, how the beam pinned his arm and burned away his fur and flesh, scarring him forever. But he remembers the chase. How after he escaped the burning den, the cloaked figures gave chase for miles, until Maxan miraculously ran into the shining silver greaves of a Leoran knight - the deer-man Yovan - by the river gate at a nearby town. Yovan had a sworn duty of his own - to escort a young rhinoceros by the name of Chewgar to Crosswall - but he would not refuse to help the young fox boy in need. The knight pressed a gold coin into Maxan’s hand and instructed him to seek him out in Crosswall before turning on the pursuers. And Maxan ran on again.
He kept that coin for years. First as a street urchin, living on garbage and scraps. And then as a Commune thief after his natural talents were observed by the gang. He held that coin for nearly fifteen years, until after the fire, the second fire, that destroyed his life a second time. When he brought it, finally, to a guardhouse and spoke the name “Yovan,” it was Chewgar, now all grown up, who greeted him, who remembered the fox boy who ran despite all the years, who took Maxan in and gave him a uniform as a Crosswall city guard. Chewgar may be Maxan’s only friend. Perhaps the only thing he fears more than fire is the idea of losing anyone he grows close to. Of course, that doesn’t stop Chewgar from trying. There’s more to say about Maxan, but we’ve only so much time in the day. Next week, I plan to talk your ear off about The Animal in Man’s diabolical villain (or perhaps villains) - Salastragore.
Thank you for reading, thank you for following, thank you for pre-ordering!
The creep to 300 continues!
Just this past weekend, Alicia Smock, a very talented writer for The Examiner, interviewed me about my book. About the stresses of its Inkshares campaign, about some of the secrets I'm still hiding within its world, and about how all the support you, my dear readers, have given me. Thank you so much. Please click here to read Ms. Smock's amazing article.
I wanted to work in how if it had not been for Mr. Zachary Tyler Linville putting me in contact with Ms. Smock, the whole thing wouldn't have happened. Zac is the author of Welcome to Deadland, winner of the Nerdist Collection Contest. There's a damn good reason he won, too. His book is first in a series, and if you're as big a Walking Dead fan as I am, you should make it a point to check out and pre-order his work. (That's right: ZOMBIES!)
There was one detail which Alicia and I tried to work in to the article, but was left clipped on the editing room floor. See near the end how she mentions only 'three human beings on the planet' know the secrets I'm hiding in "The Animal in Man"? Well, author Andy Ainsworth is one. His fantastic novel "These Old Bones" (buy it!) was one of the very first that ever sold me on how amazing the Inkshares platform could be for us authors, and he's since become the friend of mine who helped me find my own novel's great cover art.
Rick Heinz, who I pretty much consider my Mr. Miagi at this point (though he strives for Yoda), is mentioned. I want to thank Rick once more - because I can never do so enough - for pushing my hesitant *** into the Sword & Laser contest. He believed in me. Rick's next book - the sequel to his "Seventh Age: Dawn" - is already underway. Pre-order Dawn now so you can be prepared when Jack II (the cybernetic assassin I played in his game) makes his appearance in "Rise of Dystopia." (He better, Rick, or else!)
Thank you so much for following "The Animal in Man." We're going to win this thing. I know there are still plenty of followers out there reading this who have not committed to a full-on pre-order yet. There may be an attitude of 'Ah, Joe's already won this thing.' There may be a belief that I'm some arrogant king on a hundred-reader mountain. But neither is the case. I am still in need of your help, and I am simply humbled by all the support I've received thus far for "The Animal in Man." Once the story is done and the book's in your hands, you'll see why I believe in this project so passionately. I hope you'll join me, see the heart I pour into it, and help me get the book to you where it belongs.