Fellow sentient beings,

I require your assistance.

I have great plans concerning my literary efforts. Worry not; The Life Engineered and it's sequel are a huge part of those plans. The Life Engineered should make it's way to your grasping appendages early in 2016. There will be a period of a few months after that to allow you to enjoy multiple readings of The Life Engineered after which I will probably attempt to fund the sequel on Inkshares.

However, what am I to do until then? The answer is evident: Write another book.

As some of you know, I am currently running a campaign for another novel on Inkshares. It is called 'A God in the Shed' and is a completely different genre but it's another project I'm very passionate about and that I think you'll enjoy.

Consider giving your support to A God in the Shed. It doesn't have any robots but it does have a zombie cat. That's almost the same right? Have a look! What's the worst that could happen?

JF

Fellow sentient beings, it’s been an exciting week.

There’s a lot to talk about, so let’s get started.

Nerdtacular

I was in Salt Lake City, Utah over the weekend for the Frogpants Podcast Network’s Nerdtacular event. While I won’t bother you with what I do during my vacation time, I think there are a couple of details that might be of interest to you. The best part was meeting the handful of fans (feels weird writing this) that dropped by. I wish I had more time to chat with each of them and I hope I didn’t come off as too standoffish. If I did, I apologize. I’m of a shy nature.

Koalemos, the model

I was finally able to showcase and award the first copy of the Koalemos model I created. This is the first of eight of these models and while it didn’t come out perfectly and was an absolute disaster to transport, I think the end result was worth the effort. I look forward to building the second model and raffling it off to the people who pre-ordered The Life Engineered.

The first model, which is numbered ‘8’ for reasons all my own, was given to Hammond Chamberlain, host of the Beyond the Playlist podcast. Hammond is one of the 13 people who dropped by my table and I entered is name in a drawing for the model. Mr. Chamberlain is local to Salt Lake and I won’t pretend that I’m not relieved Koalemos wouldn’t need to be shipped. I’m honoured that Hammond set up the model in his home with other prized possessions.

The Sword & Laser podcast

Before Nerdtacular, the good people at Inkshares put me in contact with the inimitable Tom Merritt who invited me to sit for a brief moment on the Sword & Laser panel at Nerdtacular. I wish I could say that the brief interview was the highlight of the panel, and make no mistake, it was a lot of fun and I had an awesome time (Tom and Veronica are absolute pros) but the segment that followed was an absolute blast. I knew the hosts of Sword & Laser were good hosts and interviewers but I had not realized they could be such hilarious improvisational actors. The whole panel is amazing and you can watch the raw footage here.

Editing

This morning I sent out my edited manuscript. Only five days late! There are still eight days before the final draft needs to be sent to the copy edit department and with Nerdtacular behind me I’m confident we can hand this off on time. There were a lot of little changes and a few larger ones but all in all, no cataclysmic reworking of the story and narrative. I’m very impressed by how well my editor ‘got it’ and the quality of the work he handed me. It’s humbling when another human being can look at your writing and understand a character so much as to notice when you fail to stay true to it. The changes are subtle, but this is a much better book now. I don’t know how much more editing remains, but I’m confident we’ll have a very decent product for release day.

I’m also eagerly waiting to get the new cover for The Life Engineered and can’t wait to show it off. Judging from the feedback we gave the illustrator (Eric Belisle) and the sketches we’ve seen so far, it’s going to be amazing.

Thanks again for your support.

JF 

EDITING AND MODELING

Hello friends! 

Let me tell you a story. Don’t worry, it’s a short one. This is the tale of how I got my first set of edits from the fine people at Girl Friday Productions and the weird emotional process that goes with it. 

I’m no stranger to having my writing criticized, but this is the first time I’m doing so by a professional who is paid to do just that and not a friend or acquaintance doing me a favour. As you can imagine, when I first got the email from my editor with two attachments; one a letter explaining the broader lines of suggested changes and the other an annoted version of my manuscript with comments for each recommendation, I was intimidated. It took me a day to build up the courage to open the letter and go through its content. 

My editor did an amazing job first by spotting some changes I already wanted to make (expect a glossary) but also by couching other criticism in a positive context. There is nothing in his letter that should be perceived as negative. Yet, despite all of this, some of the content triggered my self doubt. It took yet another day and another reading of the letter before I stopped feeling like a fraud and accepted that every writer must go through this, especially those who, like me, are on the first steps of their journey. 

Here’s the good news however; now that’s I’ve gotten over myself and I have a more collected point of view of the modifications and changes that are suggested to me, I’m really excited. 

I like The Life Engineer. I love the world and characters that populate it and I want to play around in that universe some more and everything my editor has given me to work on will make this book better. I’ve already received glowing reviews and criticism from people who have read my book about robots and these improvements will make this an even better read. I might even graduate from being happy with myself to being proud of my work. 

Best of all; I love how much I’m learning. 

In modelling news; I’ve cast the second large piece of the main body of the Koalemos prop I’m building. I’m sorry to report that it’s not a perfect cast. The good news is that the uneven results are easy if tedious to fix and the portions that worried me most came out looking perfect. So I have to patch a few holes and sand some surfaces. Big deal. Assuming all goes well I’ll be painting the main body this coming weekend. 

Between the editing and modelling I’ll hardly have time to do anything else and frankly, that’s how I like it. 

JF

There are a lot of imperfections to fix on this. A lot of putty and sanding.

However the bottom vents came out looking sharp and neat.