February! 

I’m still working on my second developmental rewrite. I’m on chapter 13 of 42 and this draft is much harder. As I’m learning more and more about what it takes to make a book exceptional, I’m working more slowly to try to incorporate what I learn. 

I woke up around 5am for about a week to try to get writing in before the kids woke up, but then my daughter started waking up at 5am. Lately I’ve just been squeezing in writing time wherever I can. 

Inkshares had me read a manuscript of another in-production book an an exercise. I wrote a letter about the idea, characters, theme, conflict, plot, prose, and setting, and soon they will send me the official editor’s letter about those same things. It should be really interesting to see what  I caught and what I missed and then apply that to my own book. It’s not a book I would usually pick at all, but I loved it. Writers, read outside your genre!

I usually ask y’all to send encouragement, but this month...send babysitting!

Thank you, as always, for following along and for all of your support!

Finished draft 3 of MINE about a month ago and submitted back to the Inkshare’s editing team. Haven’t heard back, but I reckon them folks is busy as (fill in the blank here). Haven’t been engaged in marketing, because it’s not an easy thing to do as noted by Leo, author of Bane of All Things. But, I did put up the revised chapter one of MINE titled Oh My Darling. It’s a quickie, 3 minutes on average, so take a gander and let me know your thoughts. Most appreciated. Might put up more. Might not. You never know. Life’s a mystery. Also, took some proactive steps to get the Dean Fearce author page spruced up on Goodreads. And heck, now that I’ve mentioned that site, might as well throw in Twitter and Facebook, too.

Oh, and I started writing another story, so there’s that. I told my editor it’s a horror story. She said the last time I set out to write a horror story, I delivered a love story. Same difference, right? (Insert cynical chuckling.) Peace out, MINErs!

Oh, one other thing. Michael Welch needs sex talk advice. I know, right? I’m as shocked you all, too!

Greetings wonderful followers, 

Guess what! As of Jan 30/19, it has been a full year since my first novel, Beyond the Code, was published and sent out into the world. And what a year it has been. Just for fun, let take a look at my author journey so far. 

I got Beyond the Code on the shelves of Indigo Books and did several book signing events at Indigo and Chapters all over the city of Edmonton. Actually had a kid want to take a picture with me because I was an author. Really cool. 

I was a guest panellist at panels on character development and Urban Fantasy writing at the When Words Collide writers convention in Calgary. 

Beyond the Code has been given great reviews from Roll Out Reviews, Literary Titan, The San Francisco Book Review, Readers Favourite, Opal Publishing, and Delusion of Literacy. These are people who know what they’re talking about. Also, from the reviews of my readers, Beyond the Code is running at a 4.23/5 rating on Goodreads and a 4.8/5 rating on Amazon.com. 

I was a guest on several podcasts talking about my writing and other geeky stuff. I’ve been on Spilling Ink, Just Joshing, Functional Nerds (this was my favourite one), Stories by Nerds, Alive after Reading, and Go Indie Now. You can check out these episodes through the kelseybarthel,ca website or the Beyond the Code Facebook page. 

And, last but not least, Beyond the Code was a featured book with the Scifi and Fantasy Network. 

Like i said, it’s been one hell of a year. So far it’s been a pretty good showing for my first novel and I am very happy with it. As for the future of Beyond the Code and me as an author, that’s still very much in the planning stage. Right now, I’m working on Beyond the Code’s sequel Beyond the Masquerade (working title) and like always, i will always endeavour to keep my readers informed. 

Thank you all for staying with me on this journey and I hope I can continue to deliver, 

Kelsey Rae Barthel 

A happy new year to everyone, and all the best for 2019! We’re kicking things off with an interview with Battles of the First World War, a podcast which delivers exactly what it says in the name, a comprehensive examination of individual WW1 battles. Mike, who runs the podcast, took a break from the trenches to have a few words with me about my own military experience and how it relates to my fiction.

So, things seem to be going well. Over on Amazon.com, we’re just four (4) reviews short of fifty. I’m told that fifty reviews is when Amazon begins to take a book seriously, and starts doing a bit of the work in pushing it -- which in turn means I and everyone at Inkshares can devote more energy to creating the next book. So if you haven’t left an Amazon review yet, please do.

As for the "next book", an initial draft of "Cat’s Paw" has been written; tomorrow, I begin working on the next draft. I think we should be getting definitive news within a few days about whether it’ll be chosen as one of the "additional winners" of the Mystery & Thriller contest. Fingers crossed!

(Pre-ordering now should entitle you to a signed first edition, by the way. I admit that I never really understood the draw of things signed by me -- unless it’s a cheque -- but I was recently contacted by a bookseller asking for a signed copy of "A Gentleman’s Murder", so clearly I know nothing about how these things work.)

Meanwhile, I’ve also been working on a pilot screenplay (there’s a possibility I might be tapped to write the proposed TV adaptation of "A Gentleman’s Murder" myself) and catching up with my reading. On Inkshares, the latest projects to have caught my interest are "Goodbye Horses" and "All That Glitters". "Goodbye Horses" is a comedy; there’s murder involved, of course, but primarily it’s about the madcap woes of a Texas small town sheriff. "All That Glitters" is a mystery woven through one woman’s relationship with her parents when repeated murder attempts come knocking. So, yeah, check ’em out.

And have fun!