I MADE A VIDEO! Starring me and my dog explaining CHAMPIONS OF THE THIRD PLANET in a little more detail than you’ve heard before, especially as it relates to my childhood obsession with STAR WARS. The video is up now on my page, I hope you’ll check it out.

Making the video took me away from the book and Inkshares for a couple of days, but now I’m back. I’m currently writing chapter 12 of the book -- Milo and the other kids are already dealing with some freaked-out aliens on a far-off planet where I am. Meanwhile, I don’t want to get stuck revising when I still have BLANK PAGES ahead of me but I wanted to jump back and clean up chapters 2 & 3 before I post. Also because I had a really cool idea for something that I’m guessing will happen around chapter 20 and need to set it up in the beginning of the book. 

Fun fact I’ve discovered: I’m bad with alien names. It takes a long time for me to come up with ones I like and then I have to brew on them for a while to see if they stick. I guess you can’t learn that about yourself until you start writing a book with a LOT of alien names.

I also have some pitches to catch up on -- sorry if you’re waiting for a response from me, I promise I haven’t forgotten! 

If you haven’t pre-ordered a copy of CHAMPIONS OF THE THIRD PLANET, please order one. It’s technically a middle grade novel, so it’s aimed first at kids 8-12, so if you know one of those, you should get it for him or her if you want to be considered a "cool" grownup.

But REALLY I’m really writing this book for me. I’d read this book and I’m a grown man!  I mean, I’m going to bow to STAR WARS again here -- George Lucas thought of STAR WARS as a kids’ movie (!) but grown-ups loved it just as much. In fact, most of my favorite movies appeal to everybody at any age: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, GHOSTBUSTERS, BACK TO THE FUTURE. So that’s what I’m aiming for.

Thanks, hope you enjoy the video!

--Chris

Hi everybody,

Just a quick note to tell you I officially launched Champions of the Third Planet!  We are open for pre-orders as of this morning!

I also signed up for the new Nerdist contest on Inkshares, the theme of which is Space Opera, which is a very nice thing for this book.

Finally, I posted a tiny revision to the first chapter, and chapters 2 and 3 are going up very very soon. 

--Chris

P.S. For those of you who pitched me books, I'm sorry I haven't been able to read them yet but I'm going to check them out tonight!

I like the premise. The first chapter seems to be a little rough around the edges, it’s nothing catastrophic. This is one I’ll be keeping my eyes on.