Hello all!

Well by now most if not all of you should have received your physical copies of Abomination in the mail. If you don't have yours yet, it should be any day now! I just got back from San Diego Comic-Con where, with the help of the Inkshares crew, I signed a LOT of copies of the book and hopefully helped to spread the word a little bit.

So yeah, by now I hope a bunch of you are enjoying the book. I've been hearing from many of you via Twitter, and that's a great way to send me your thoughts, I'll retweet the best ones I receive. Pictures are always great to see! My Twitter handle is @garywhitta

Oh, and PLEASE PLEASE do leave a review/rating on Amazon and/or Goodreads if you like the book, that's really crucial in helping spread the word. So far we have a 96% positive rating on Goodreads, but there's always room for improvement! :-)

Abomination's page on Amazon is here.

Abomination's page on Goodreads is here.

EDITING AND MODELING

Hello friends! 

Let me tell you a story. Don’t worry, it’s a short one. This is the tale of how I got my first set of edits from the fine people at Girl Friday Productions and the weird emotional process that goes with it. 

I’m no stranger to having my writing criticized, but this is the first time I’m doing so by a professional who is paid to do just that and not a friend or acquaintance doing me a favour. As you can imagine, when I first got the email from my editor with two attachments; one a letter explaining the broader lines of suggested changes and the other an annoted version of my manuscript with comments for each recommendation, I was intimidated. It took me a day to build up the courage to open the letter and go through its content. 

My editor did an amazing job first by spotting some changes I already wanted to make (expect a glossary) but also by couching other criticism in a positive context. There is nothing in his letter that should be perceived as negative. Yet, despite all of this, some of the content triggered my self doubt. It took yet another day and another reading of the letter before I stopped feeling like a fraud and accepted that every writer must go through this, especially those who, like me, are on the first steps of their journey. 

Here’s the good news however; now that’s I’ve gotten over myself and I have a more collected point of view of the modifications and changes that are suggested to me, I’m really excited. 

I like The Life Engineer. I love the world and characters that populate it and I want to play around in that universe some more and everything my editor has given me to work on will make this book better. I’ve already received glowing reviews and criticism from people who have read my book about robots and these improvements will make this an even better read. I might even graduate from being happy with myself to being proud of my work. 

Best of all; I love how much I’m learning. 

In modelling news; I’ve cast the second large piece of the main body of the Koalemos prop I’m building. I’m sorry to report that it’s not a perfect cast. The good news is that the uneven results are easy if tedious to fix and the portions that worried me most came out looking perfect. So I have to patch a few holes and sand some surfaces. Big deal. Assuming all goes well I’ll be painting the main body this coming weekend. 

Between the editing and modelling I’ll hardly have time to do anything else and frankly, that’s how I like it. 

JF

There are a lot of imperfections to fix on this. A lot of putty and sanding.

However the bottom vents came out looking sharp and neat.

Good evening all!  I hope you are well!

(Let's get the business out of the way first) If you haven't followed me here on Inkshares, please do so by clicking here and then click follow!  I'm still working on my best polished draft before I send in my manuscript for dev. edits.  

So, something a little more fun now? Sure, why not?

Those of you who know me personally already know that my wife and I are traveling around our amazing country (USA, for those of you who might be from somewhere else).

Today we had the pleasure of stopping by the Inkshares office in San Francisco.  We had a chance to me the creative team behind this amazing publishing company.  They gladly welcomed us into their little part of the world and treated us with kind words and respect.  Avalon, my contact at Inkshares, helped set up the meeting and it was an absolute pleasure to meet her along with Matt, Thad, and everyone else who help run this outstanding start up.  Read on...you know you want to...

When my wife and I arrived, we were offed refreshments (which I immediately took, San Francisco is all hills, I am chubby...do the math).  We were quickly introduced to several people who were hard at work.  Inkshares is currently in launch phase for Mr. Gary Whitta's debut novel, Abomination.  They were packaging over 900 novels to be distributed across the country.  I was lucky enough to receive a signed hardcover 1st Edition, 1st Print (even though I already had bought the e-book version, and it's great so far).  

Next, we were given a tour of The Vault office area.  There are about 20 start up companies sharing the office space.  We were informed it was the old Ghiradelli factory that had burned during a fire a long time ago.  The office is really cool and it's an inviting place to work.  We finished the tour by stopping in what was called the library.  They had books up that they had recently published (I was given another book that also looks like a great read, a mystery called One Murder More).

I met Thad hard at work in this area and we all discussed the history of the company and the future of the company a bit.  It was all very fascinating.  Then, they were all kind enough to give us some recommendations and hidden gems to explore in and around the city.  

I am happy to get to meet the people who will help make Ageless a reality.  I can freely admit I was slightly nervous; that doesn't happen to me much anymore.  Yet, everyone was so nice and easy going that my nerves melted away and I genuinely had a great time.  

Then it was back to work.  Those books aren't going to pack and ship themselves.

Until next time, keep being amazing and spreading the word.  I don't call you Inman Insiders for nothing...

Paul