Greetings Jackolytes,

We are storming ever closer to the 250 mark with fewer than 10 pre-orders required. Jack would love to ride into existence before the weekend is out, and I’d love some new readers to come along. The necessary conditions are simple: computer, credit card and cognizant. Does this sound like anyone you know? Does this sound like you? You can find Jack at: www.inkshares.com/books/sync-city It’d also be cool if you could share this link with those around you. As always, you can get hold of me at blooryan@hotmail.com .

Cheers,

Peter

I was pawing through my blog archives for an old April Fool’s bit  - and I actually stumbled onto something I don’t remember writing. (All too common.) It’s from 3 years ago, after I finished my first book. It’s strange and sort of wonderful to look back and feel like maybe I’ve gotten a little closer to the things I talk about here -- and it’s all because of you.

I Want - 4/25-2013

Like Heinlein said, I want the Roc’s Egg.

I want the leather of my sword-grip to creak as my knuckles go white. I want the lightning to crackle between my fingertips like Egg Shen. I want the Flux Capacitor to ignite as I travel through time.

I want the power, I want the fairy tale.

I want to run down the secret hallway, and slam my rainbow colored key into the console of the Black Lion.  I want to save the universe with Rock and Roll, my electric guitar made of steel and griffon-talon. I want to wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of Holmes and Watson clattering by in a horse-drawn carriage.

I want the legend, I want the world of doors.

I want the Master Sword dreaming in the glade, and Excalibur in the Lady’s hand, and Cloud picking up Zach’s sword — his mind all wind and shadow.

I want all the promises that the world is not as it seems. I want Mulder and Scully in a Ford Taurus arguing with the night. I want all the possibilities, the promise of wonder. I want Seven Dragonballs, even if I never get to make a wish.

I want the doors. The endless, endless doors.

I want this world to be not as it is. Or, at the very least, I want the walls of this world to get a little thinner. Thin enough to hear the music from the Universe One Over.

I want to tell my story and I want my mom to get better and I want there to be enough money and I want Emerson back. I want my Beloved to never know pain or doubt, and I want my friends to never know want or despair.

I want to break the rules. I want to undo and shine and defeat and cheat death, cheat life, mashing in the codes on my controller and rolling back the cruel grip of time.

I want to snatch the lost from death’s grip.

I want to not be afraid. Of the Unmaker and its thousand, thousand shadows.

I want there to be more magic in this world, because there is so little — just a tiny, tiny drop.

Such a little thing to shine in the darkness. The secret flame we clutch in weary hands through the wind and rain.

I want the thousand heroes, I want the doors open wide.

Most of all, I want you to help me pry them open.

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No reminders or promo-flogging today. Just wanted to share this and say thank you again - for helping a stranger tip-toe down an uncertain path. And I use ’stranger’ here in the way you would ’baker’ or ’potter’ - something I make, not that you don’t know my social media profile.