Greetings all,
In an effort to be more professional I've now got a cover for Sync City and I've also updated the About Sync City section.
Let me know what you think and have a great weekend.
Cheers,
Peter
Greetings all,
In an effort to be more professional I've now got a cover for Sync City and I've also updated the About Sync City section.
Let me know what you think and have a great weekend.
Cheers,
Peter
For the past several nights, I've been putting together my game plan. It's a sick form of procrastination from which my writer friends know I suffer: Instead of just sitting down and writing the actual story, I'll write pages and pages of outlines, timelines, character backstories, and all kinds of 'preparative' work. (Wow, that's actually a word.)
You see, so much of "The Animal in Man" has changed since I first started writing it. ...before I can pick up where I left off, I thought it would be a good idea to get my notes straight.
But to hell with that.
For the past several nights, I've skipped the damn preparative work and just re-wrote chapter one. I only meant to tweak a sentence here or there, but I ended up tossing out and rebuilding probably 90% of the words from the ground up. No lie. The shape of the chapter is the same, you'll see, but everything changed.
And I think it's better. My god do I think it's better! I worked really hard on this first chapter. It would be an honor if you would spend a little time reading it. (Inkshares says 33 minutes...?) Please enjoy.
CLICK HERE to go straight to Chapter One of "The Animal in Man".
And I swear my next update will be further along in time... next time. But just so you know, I will be working tirelessly every night, armed with a Jameson and Ginger Ale in one hand, a keyboard in the other. (...That makes little sense. Must be the Jameson.) Cheers!
Hello humans,
Just a quick update - I'm still very much a corporeal being in this reality, rumors of my untimely dematerialization have been greatly exaggerated.
So, I've finished revising character sheets, which can be fun and a chore at the same time (especially when you just want to get stuck back into the writing). No only do I better understand my characters, I also know a lot more about the world/galaxy/universe I'm building (sci-fi is BIG). As a result, I have begun tweaking Genesis to include these new developments, which I think will make the story more interesting.
Those of you with writing experience know that this is the reverse method, especially for someone who had very little exposure to fiction writing. My consolation is that I didn't succumb to world-builder's disease. Haha. Anyway, I've begun first pass author-edits on Chapters 3 and beyond and hope to get a second pass editing soon after.
To those of you who have $5 credit from pre-ordering before the 31st Oct 2015, here's how you can further assit me by pre-ordering the e-book for FREE:
Live long and prosper!
P/S: Congratulations to the winners of the Sword & Laser sequel contest! Matt, I knew you could do it! Well done!
Hello readers!
My dear Machiners,
Where do I begin? I will start by saying that I have now had over 48 hours to decompress. I took some extra time before writing my post-Sword & Laser update. I just didn’t quite feel that I was coherent enough to write the update I wanted in the immediate aftermath. At this point, the fact that I can call myself a “soon to be published author” has not fully sunk in. That this story, which I poured myself into, will be in print and on a bookstore shelf is still hard to believe. When I do see it on that shelf, it will be serious reality check time.
For now I must say Thank YOU. Thank you with all my heart. I cannot thank everybody enough. I want to stress and stress some more that this was an unbelievable team effort. I wrote the story but bringing it to a wider audience through crowdfunding on Inkshares was undeniably a group effort. And a tremendous one at that. Many, many people went above and beyond the call to bring new readers to our cause.
To illustrate this unbelievable outreach, we can break the campaign into two chunks. There were the first 4.5 weeks of the campaign: We brought in 170 readers and this was phenomenal. We were in a strong 2nd place position and hoped it would be enough to stay in the top 3. Then there was the final 1.5 weeks of the contest - and we brought in 180 readers! In my wildest dreams I would never have expected to more than double what we did in over a month in just 10 days. Thank you for the incredible support to finish this race. I feel honored and humbled. I want all of you to feel that you had a hand in making this happen. Because it’s true. The eBook or paperback you receive is yours as much as it is mine, and far beyond the money you contributed.
I must give a hearty salute to my co-winners Joseph Asphahani author of The Animal in Man and Craig Munro the author of The Bones of the Past. It was an absolute pleasure to compete against them. An experience that was full of camaraderie and goodwill. Their books are awesome and I look forward to receiving my copy of both. It is well worth your time to go check them out, and also the other excellent work by talented authors in the top 10 in the Sword & Laser contest. The contest was filled with wonderful creative work - those outside the top 10 also deserve your consideration. Here is the rest of the top 10:
Adam Greven and Matt Deller’s The Knight Proper
Byron Gillian’s The Children of the Forest
Amanda Ornekc’s Deus Hex Machina
Andre Brun’s Lies and Deception
Michael Sebby’s The Inhabitants: An Unremembered Life
Alexander Barnes’s The Amaranth Chronicles: Deviant Rising
Edmond J. Wedge’s Ocean Black: The Noble Exiles
The journey is just beginning for The Last Machine in the Solar System. There will be future updates as we continue down the road toward publication. This is all new and exciting for me and I am sure I will learn something each day. I look forward to sharing that with you, my benefactors. Without you I would not be here, and neither would this story.
Until next time,
-Matthew