Dear friends

How’s 2017 treating you so far? For me, the last couple of months have been an interesting time of struggle and opportunity. I won’t bore you with details of my up and downs, but I do want to share the lesson I learned.

Pouring your entire soul into what you love is essential to achieve your dreams, but also essential is to be kind to yourself. At some point in the last two years, in between attempting to write three novels, holding a full-time job and trying to launch a writing career, I stopped listening to my body. As a result, my physical and mental health declined to a point in which I was not able to do any of the things I love. I couldn’t run the New York City Marathon, and I didn’t finish writing Bad Medicine: Slay it Queen!

Fear not, this is not a sad update. This update is about discovery and opportunity. I’m not the kind of guy who makes New Year resolutions, but this year I made one: I will be kind and patient with myself and with others. I will tune out the negative noise that surrounds us and walk the road that leads to my dreams with no rush.

I have many projects and ideas that I’m excited about. Worlds Walker is done, and Bad Medicine will be a scary and hysterical ride. My hope is to deliver the manuscript to the patience folks at Inkshares sometime in the spring. I also have a stack of short stories that I will be releasing for free on Amazon Kindle starting in March.

I’ve been reminded through this struggle that my goal was never to become a famous writer. That my goal was not for The Catcher’s Trap to be turned into a movie or sell a million copies. My goal is to share the stories swirling in my brain. My dream is for those stories to find people who connect with them and enjoy them. Many of you have reached out to me to tell me how much you enjoyed The Catcher’s Trap, for me, that’s winning.

So here’s to a great year ahead of us. A year of creativity, magical thinking and kindness.

As always, let’s end this update with wisdom from my favorite hero

Hello everyone!

It has been a while since my last update, but today marks a special anniversary for me – exactly one year ago, The Bones of the Past won a publishing contract. This is going to be a long update, so bear with me!

There has been far more work involved in getting the book into shape for publishing than I ever expected – I’m just now working on my review of the last proofread – but it has been an amazing experience and the book has evolved into something I am extremely proud of.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you once again for your continued support and interest. I would never have made it this far without you!

Now, I do believe I owe you some news about the book including when and where you’ll finally be able to get your hands on it!

First of all, you’ll see in the attached picture that we have the back cover and spine of the book finalised and we’re just missing the “placeholder attributions”. These mini reviews are from authors who read the book in a raw form (still full of typos) and who had some positive things to say about it!

I’m very proud to say that I received some “cover blurbs” from three really amazing authors and I am truly humbled that people as talented as they are would have such positive things to say about my book.

Joseph Asphahani’s excellent SciFi/Fantasy novel - The Animal in Man - secured publishing through the same contest that I was in. His book isn’t out yet, but I’ve had the privilege of reading an early copy of it and I can’t recommend it highly enough. So, keep an eye out for it!

Rick Heinz’s The Seventh Age: Dawn is an incredibly exciting take on urban fantasy vampires and demons. It kept me up late on more than one occasion and is a book that anyone with even a passing interest in the genre should run out and buy right now!

Alan Campbell is the author of a number of bestselling novels. Most notable is his Deepgate Codex series. He does fantasy differently than any other author I’ve read and the result is something you won’t soon forget. I’ve been reading his books for at least ten years, so having him read mine (and like it!) is more than a little surreal. The Deepgate Codex is a trilogy that’s available in its entirety right now and should be on any fantasy fan’s ‘to read’ list.

So… what did they have to say about The Bones of the Past? I’ll share that closer to publication date or let you read the blurbs on the book for yourselves!

And so, we come to the publication date. The process is still on track for a May 30, 2017 publication. That means that you should get your copies a little bit before that if you ordered through Inkshares. If you haven’t or if you’d like to pick up a hardcopy, please go ahead and pre-order it through your local bookstore! That will make one store that’s more likely to keep my book in stock and on its shelves! All the major chains have it listed already, and most independent bookstores can get their hands on it easily enough :)

Book sales, and more specifically launches, are all about creating buzz. So more pre-orders and more attendees to the launch event go a long way toward making a book stand out and succeed (second only to reviews!).  The launch event will be held in Ottawa at a date somewhere around May 30th. Work has already started on nailing down exactly where and when. I’ll let you know as soon as I have something solid.

Thank you all yet again!!!

Hey it’s that anniversary update I was talking about!

It’s now a year (more or less) since Ghosts of War successfully finished it’s funding campaign. Now I know you’re all probably wondering the same thing...

’Dude...it’s been a year....where’s the book?’

A valid question. No doubt. But the last year has been good to Ghosts. It’s a rather different book to where it was at this time last year. For one: it’s finished. At just over 106,000 words, 32 chapters and maybe north of 400 pages, it’s boiled itself down to a story that I’m really rather proud of. Now I say that as it’s author, and the only one who knows how it ends, but I’m quietly confident you’ll like it too (please like it...O_O).

’Yeah, no but for reals...how much longer?’

Not long. I’ve come to realise you can only revise things so much, and at some point you just have to leave it be. As such, I’m currently going through the final polish and tidy up on the current draft and that will be done by the end of January. At that point, I will hand it off to a few beta readers to get their thoughts and then it will be onto the final, final edits.

From there I’ll hand it over to Inkshares (tentatively by the start of March), and it’s generally then around 16 weeks until Pub Day. So, all going well, it should be in your hands by the middle of the year.

’Got anything for us now though?’

I do actually. If you head over here ---->;;;;;;;;;;; CLICK ME

But wait...there’s more...

Chapter 2 has been updated too! Nowhere near as extensively though, I think I only added about 30 words. Most of it was just grammar/punctuation fixes. But it’s still new...kinda.

Chapters 3-8 will be updated over the next week too, so keep an eye out.

Now it wouldn’t be a Ghosts update if I didn’t close with a gif. So...

Until next time.

Dear Fans of the Assasin, Earlier this week I signed all the pre-ordered paper copies of Tears of the Assassin. Today I shipped them back to California for distribution on the publication date of Feb. 7th.  I gotta tell ya, it was really cool to see my book in print.  To hold in my hands the cover, the words, the story, it was very gratifying.  I know I have all of you to thank for that surreal experience of book building culmination!.  With gratitude and appreciation, I thank you for your support.  I would also appreciate it if you would check out my Willian Schiele Facebook page.  Thanks