June! I heard back from Inkshares. This time the Director of Marketing and the CEO read my draft and...THEY DON’T HATE IT. Haha, Yay! They like a lot of it and had loads of nice things to say. They don’t want me to change the story or structure, which is huge. They do want me to focus on character now, especially my main character, Cassidy, and continue to hone my prose, so I’m working my way through a reading list of craft books and comparable titles. Be on the lookout for a title change coming soon. A few days ago,  I went through my whole outline and added notes about what to add and change, so as soon as I finish this next book annd have a check in call with the publisher, I’ll jump into the writing. We’re getting closer!

Maybe my most exciting news is that for Mother’s Day, my husband gifted me a writing getaway, which I plan to take this summer!

Also exciting, my short story, "Rachel Rose, Semite" was accepted for publication in the new Writing Bloc Anthology.
The gist is this: A misunderstanding in kindergarten led everyone to believe Rachel Rose was Jewish. Now she’s been pretending for twelve years and is up for a college scholarship-- if she can pull off a school-wide Passover Seder. Can she fool her classmates, and the scholarship committee, one more time? Look for it in Fall 2019!

Thank you, as always, for your support!

Happy May Day! Solidarity Forever! Bread and Roses!

The CEO/Editor at Inkshares has had my draft in hand for a couple weeks and I’m anxiously awaiting feedback. 

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to focus on some other projects. I submitted a story to the new Writing Bloc Anthology (and you can too! The deadline is midnight tonight!) The theme for this one is "Deception" and I wrote a piece that I think is pretty funny.

I submitted a poem to this year’s Travelin’ Appalachian’s Revue Zine. This one is also still open! You can find more info here and submit until June 1. 

I’ve also been throwing some ideas around for my next novel. I’m hesitant to really jump in because I know there will still be changes for Rock of Ages, but I also know that once it gets the  green light, things will move quickly. Now that I know the publishing process takes so long I’d like to have something to start pitching to agents soon after! I’m excited to tell you about the next project once I get going with it. 

Thank you, always, for your support!

Hello book backers- 

We have a date...(drumroll)... ’My Place Among Men’ publishes August 6!

One year ago today, you helped me meet our Inkshares pre-order goal of 750 copies sold. You kept your end of the deal. Now I’m keeping mine. 50,000 words, photos and a new cover will be in your hands in August. We’re also printing plenty more than 750 for everyone else who wants to order copies now.

Check out our new cover here: 
https://www.inkshares.com/books/my-place-among-men-0699d4

Thank you for supporting my misadventures in the wild.

Your wordsmith,
Kris Millgate 

To my incredibly patient followers and readers,

Let me begin by thanking you profusely. Thank you for your continued support and interest, for messaging me, stopping me in the office, or spotting me randomly in a store and asking me when the Hell After Death is going to come out.

It makes me feel terrible for the long wait, but it also makes me feel good that so many people are excited to read this novel on which I’ve now spent ten years of my life.

I apologize for the delay. Much of that is simply out of my hands, as I’m merely one of many talented authors whose work is being developed and published by Inkshares, and each of them are as anxious and as deserving of attention as I. 

That said, my number has been called. And over several conversations with Inkshares CEO Adam Gomolin — over email, phone, text, and in person — a plan has been hatched to, yes, once again restructure the novel, this time sharpening its focus on the characters of Cara Lindley and her grandmother Meryem Nurzhan. 

The character of Icara Lightfeather and her entire storyline is going to be cut from the book. (Boy am I glad I didn’t pull the trigger on that tattoo of the compass from the map of Icara’s planet!)

Let’s please take a moment to admire the incredible work of artist Andy Gouveia, who created the map for me.

To those beta-readers who considered this aspect of the book their favorite part, I can say only that Icara and her world will most certainly one day see the light of day in some other shape or form (these things almost always eventually do), and that I have every intention of cannibalizing the crucial plot elements from her storyline in service of this more honed concept.

Meryem’s backstory will be expanded even further, going into deeper detail regarding the previous outbreak of the plague in Kazakhstan and her life in the years between then and her emergence as the world’s preeminent expert on the Fever. 

Some of the novel’s trippier aspects will survive, but will be made far less prominent, and the book will center more on how three generations of one family were affected by a disease, becoming less Cloud Atlas and more Sharp Objects, which — you know what? — is going to be pretty cool and a lot more accessible.

This will take time, of course. Adam’s hope is that further developmental editing will take eight months or so, with our eyes set on a potential July 2020 release date. Whether that comes to pass obviously depends on a number of factors, not the least of which is my own ability to pull it off. 

But I am eternally humbled and grateful to all of you who have stuck by me through this, and who continue to anticipate this novel’s eventual publication. It means so much more to me than you can possibly know, particularly at this moment in my life.

In the meantime, please consider picking up a copy of Writing Bloc’s ESCAPE! An Anthology. It’s packed with twenty gripping tales of escape, including my short story "The Grave Ordeal of Jawbone John South," about an 1885 bank robbery gone very wrong when an outlaw attempts to evade the authorities by ordering his gang to bury him alive with the stolen loot.

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If you are so inclined, you can also pick up a copy of my short story "The Equestrian," the slim tale of a jockey and his horse, and the night of horror that would bestow upon both an incredible ability and a terrible curse.

I’ve also gone and uploaded a bunch of my poetry, essays, and film criticism to my website, Dan-Lee.net, including my poem "Ode," which was previously published in the Santa Clara Review literary journal, "Incidents in a Traffic Jam," the piece that made me a California state finalist for the National Poetry Slam, and my critique of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which went unexpectedly viral a couple of years ago. 

If you have some free time, please do check that stuff out!

You are all so wonderful. And I can’t say enough how much I appreciate not only your support and patience, but that of the friends I’ve made through being part of the Inkshares community. I’ve never met a more supportive group of writers.

I’ll try to do a better job of updating more frequently, but if you don’t hear from me, please be assured that I am hunkered down, doing the work. And that one day in the not-too-distant future, you will find out what happens After Death.

This month’s update is a few days late because I wanted to wait until I could say I FINISHED THE REWRITE! 

That’s the second complete rewrite, for those keeping track. This one changed the whole book from first person to third, focused on the quality of prose, and added lots of historical detail. 

I’ve treated the last six months or so as a giant research project for the historical parts, reading, watching films, and interviewing people. The novel now stands at 115,416 words! The last draft was 90-something thousand, and the original manuscript I sent to Inkshares was 54k!

I’m letting the draft stand for a week before I go back and read the whole thing out loud to polish it and send it in. Please send me "take a break" vibes and also "don’t lose your mind while you’re waiting for feedback on this thing you’ve worked your ass off on for half a year" vibes. 

Thank you, as always, for your support!