Greetings, adventurers!

Happy Mushroom and Anchovy Monday!… on Wednesday. I had every intent to get this out on Monday, but I’m finally starting to recover from a nasty sinus infection and, let’s face it, life is kind of chaos. So, without any further ado...

I’m so sorry for the silence over the past few months. Between moving, the pregnancy, the holidays, birthdays, illness, and now being on leave, everything has been really chaotic. Our due date for our newest family member is approaching swiftly—less than a month away, in fact—so now we’re getting everything ready. It’s going to continue to be a very busy time!

The good news is that I have a bit of an update for you. After reaching out to the lovely folks at Inkshares in the new year, I have been informed that they are only a few months away from Mushroom and Anchovy’s production kickoff. This is very exciting news. I hope to have a true update for you in a few months, but for now, at least we have this!

We moved to our new home back in November and have been settling ever since. The cats are very fond of this place and have been happily bonding. I won’t go into too much detail, but if you’re curious for some shots of our updated kitchen and other points of interest in our home, please head over to my Instagram or you can watch live from my Twitch channel, where I do cooking and baking 3x a week (for the time being)—in fact, we’re having an on-stream baby shower this coming Sunday the 8th, and we’d love to see you there! I also would like to add that I participated in Vlogmas this year--that and more content can be found over on my YouTube. I’ve also recently partnered with the amazing folks over at Wild Cherry Spoon Co., who make beautiful artisan kitchenware. Very exciting times!

I have been pushing myself to produce 2 blog posts a month—one recipe, one prose—over on my website www.thepracticalescapist.ca. Hope to see you there!

I won’t update again until production has kicked off, now that I have some news. I hope you’re looking forward to an exciting 2020 with me!

May your travels be fraught with wonder and just enough peril to keep them interesting,

K. M. Cooper

Aloha All,

I’m happy to share with you that Lost in the Fog is nearly ready to reach your hands and eyes as a published book!  Inkshares is currently doing the design pour, which is one of the final steps before it’s printed.  While I don’t have a hard date yet, publication will be either this April or May.

I also have the cover I can at long last reveal to you! 

Lost in the Fog shares a few strands of DNA with the Maltese Falcon, the Big Sleep, and a few other of my favorite classic mystery novels.  And the cover is a pulp fiction inspired throwback to those books, designed by the immensely talented team at Coverkitchen.  I present it to you below.

There was a ton of back and forth and revisions, and I’m thrilled with their final version.  Although I love the old pulp covers, I wasn’t sure if it would work for my book, and originally considered more modern designs.  But in the end Xavier and Rafa of Coverkitchen came up with the throwback concept, and nailed it.

So excited to be in the home stretch, and I’ll continue to keep everyone updated!

Greetings wonderful followers!

Today is a very special day. Two years ago today, my first novel, Beyond the Code, was released out into the world. Alot has happened in that time. I’ve met tons of like-minded writers from all around the world, Beyond the Code has been praised by several professional book reviewers, got it made into an audiobook, got Beyond the Code on bookshelves of major bookstores along with doing signings at said stores, and spoke as an author at a couple panels at a writers convention.  It’s been a crazy couple of years and, even though I’m not at where i wished I would be, I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished. It isn’t much in the grand scheme of things, but those small victories are earned and I am grateful for them.

I’ll admit, these last two years have had there share of bumps. I’ve had to take a hard look at what I truly wanted, both professionally and personally, and it made me re-evaluate my stances of things. I’m still figuring out the kinks in my future plans but I think I’m getting to a good place, slowly but surely.

Sorry for digging deep on you but I was feeling nostalgic, due to the date, and I wanted to mark the occasion with something. Not with links or pleas to check out my work, but with a heart felt thank you. Most of you are the ones who decided to follow and support my work in the campaign stage and I wouldn’t be where I am today if not for all of you. So again, THANK YOU!!

The sequel is coming along and I am super excited about where it’s going. Once I get my footing on it, expect some teasers in the future and I may be reaching out to some of you in the beta readers stage. Wish me luck.

Kelsey Rae Barthel

Inkshares editors have indicated a need to be more consistent with descriptive language throughout my story. I wrote this today and it makes me feel good so I wanted to share it with a little bit of chest pounding because whether it’s good or bad isn’t as important as that feeling that reminds me of why I enjoy writing. This paragraph occurs in a chapter after the inciting incident in MINE but before the 1st act turn. Plot points are important.

“Is it something I said?” He looks at me with implacable eyes and I feel judgment. Resentment. Not by him. Some other little fiend judges me this day. I shrink into myself while the light spool draws tighter toward gray grayer grayest with rain and more rain draining the world to a dark nothing the way mixing too many colors becomes an oozing brackish mud absorbing everything. Like Mount Vesuvius erupting its smothering volcanic ash leaving a hollow where once, for a mere moment, we occupied a space. Or maybe it’s seasonal affective disorder. “The court order hasn’t been lifted, has it?”

Here’s a link to follow MINE. I always try to follow back. https://www.inkshares.com/books/murder-happens

It’s been a while since the last update, and I’m happy to report that a new draft of the novel is complete. I put it aside for a couple of weeks, while I was busy with a work project and finished re-reading it yesterday. The story has come together much better than the earlier drafts. On the advice of my publisher, I stripped out quite a few complications that were cluttering things up. 

That said, there’s still work to be done. It’s possible that things were pared back a bit too much. I need to spend some time beefing up the opening chapters to give them more breathing room and adding more depth to the main character, detective Jack Waters. But it’s the first time I’ve re-read a new draft and not been embarrassed. So definitely good progress.

I don’t when the next round of edits will be completed, it’s likely going to take a few months. I will also likely tap into a couple of beta readers to provide an objective perspective. The publisher has set a very high bar for this book and I want to make sure it is as good as it can be.

In the meanwhile, thank you for all your support and encouragement. This has been a tougher project than I ever expected, so thank you also for your patience.
--Zack
PS. I attended BoucherCon, a mystery writers conference in October and met a many authors including fellow Canadian David Morrell, who wrote the book First Blood, which became the basis for the Rambo series.     

Hello Friends! 

I hope your holidays were happy and that you are crushing your 2020 goals! 

 

STEVE HERMANOS JANUARY BASEBALL UPDATE

GOING, GOING, GONE! The editorial work on my time-travel baseball novel is progressing. Thanks to the Inkshares staff for working so hard on the book! We are looking at a July 1, 2020 publishing date. 

ASTROS CHEATERS! It’s front-page news. The Houston Astros were caught relaying live centerfield video of the opposing catcher putting down signs. Here’s the chain: centerfield camera focusing on the opposing catcher, to monitor near the dugout, and then a coach or player would bang on a trash can to signal the batter: no whacks--fastball; whacks--curve. The Astros won the 2017 World Series with this help.

In better days, the only electronic device allowed in the dugout was the telephone to the bullpen. In recent years, Major League Baseball has rushed to embrace all sorts of video and motion-sensor technology. They measure how fast every fielder moves on every play. The teams may want this information, but do they need it? No they don’t.

And this is what they’ve reaped, a sign-stealing debasement of the game itself through technology. Talk about a raging fire of cynicism throughout American society in the Trump Era; the Houston Astros cheating scandal pours an oil refinery’s gas supply onto it.

Sure, attempting to steal the catcher’s signals to the pitcher has been a part of baseball forever. But that has relied on the batting team’s EYES and brains, not on artificial technology. There HAVE been scandals using binoculars and telescopes; not cool, but nothing compares to MLB’s current whimpering surrender to technology.

THE BEST WAY OUT OF THIS! Grab a baseball and your mitt. If you don’t have a baseball, grab a tennis ball, or a taped, balled-up sock. Find a loved one or friend or a dog or a wall--and THROW THE BALL! That’s why so many of us love baseball, because we learned it as a kid. It’s a part of us in a way we can’t explain, in a way a cheating scandal amidst teams of multi-millionaires can’t destroy. 

THE THEME OF GOING, GOING, GONE! The cheating scandal and ubiquitous technology underscores some of the themes of Going, Going, Gone! Two players—Andre Velez, and Johnny Blent--and their manager—Bucky Martin—are caught in an earthquake and ripped back in time to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Their MLB lives are obliterated, their identities. Their money, fame, girlfriends, cars and condos. But as they hook into professional baseball in 1906, and take to the field, playing with no cameras examining their every move, without the flashing lights and deafening sound system of 21st century stadiums, they find playing baseball deeply refreshing and their love for it is reborn.

EMAIL, INSTAGRAM, FACEBOOK. Feel free to email me at stevehermanos@yahoo.com. I like Instagram; I’m listed under my name. I check Facebook every week or so.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the successful crowdfunding campaign for GOING, GOING, GONE! Even more than you are, I’m looking forward to holding the book in my hands!

Your baseball-loving friends can pre-order GOING, GOING, GONE! at Inkshares.com

Thanks so much & Swing For The Fences!

Steve

Greetings! Hope all is well with my faithful backers. I can’t tell you happy I am with the responses I’ve received for Under The Rug. I’m grateful for the kind words and feedback. If you would be so kind, if you haven’t already put up a review on amazon, could you please do so. It will be a big help in my promoting Under The Rug. Here’s the link to make it easy to get there.

https://www.amazon.com/Under-Rug-Todd-Wonkka/dp/1947848852

On another note, I realize that some of you received copies later than others. I wanted to check in to make sure everyone got their copies. If you have not received your copies yet please contact Avalon Radys at Avalon@inkshares.com

Once again, thank you so much for your support and patience. As far as my future plans, I am working hard on my second novel currently titled, "Counterpunch". It’s a story about friendship and sacrifice(with a twist of course)...among other things. You’ll all be the first to know when it’s ready. 

With regard to my plans for Under The Rug, I am shopping for film options. Under The Rug will become a movie! If anyone has any contacts in that realm, please, let me know. Aside from that I’m just trying to start 2020 off with a bang by promoting the book as much as I can. If you know me well, you know I tend to shoot for the stars. A N.Y. Times best seller is in my line of sight. You gotta dream big, right? 

Much love.

Good day and Happy New Year! (Is it already too late in the month to still say that?)

Just a quick update on the latest. As previously reported, I sent back to my editor, Sarah Nivala, the revised manuscript for Bane of All Things on Dec. 13. This, if you recall, was the revision based on my first Editorial Letter that I received from Sarah back in September.

Earlier this week, Sarah sent back Editorial Letter #2 with their assessment of where the manuscript now stands. In short, the end is in sight. But as Sarah notes in the Letter:

 “A question we ask ourselves quite frequently at Inkshares when addressing the quality and marketability of a novel is this: ‘What is it about this novel that necessitates its publication?’ What this really means is that we need to see what it is about a novel that makes it utterly unique. We don’t want to publish works that will fade among the crowd of their genre; we develop stories that offer readers a singular experience … what it is that will make critics and readers alike ravenously devour it?”

For a book, a movie or a TV show, it can be hard to predict or engineer success. All we can do is put out the strongest product we can. What does this mean in BoAT’s case? At this point, it’s about doing further work on the characters to make them more well-rounded and engaging for the reader, raise the stakes by digging deeper into the true nature and motivations of the Big Bad Guy, and offering more sweeping spectacle in terms of the sharing more backstory of this world.

If this sounds like I literally need to sit down for a fresh interview with each of my characters, as if I were producing an episode on each of them for the Biography Channel, you’re right. It is a good time of year, after all, to sit back for some relaxed and honest conversation. 

My intent is to turn this around by end of March.

Thank you again for your faith and support. It typically takes 18-24 months for a book to be released from the day a publisher first agrees to take it on. I am doing my level best to shorten that cycle considerably with BoAT. (FYI, the one-year anniversary of when Inkshares said yes is April 29).

Cheers

Leo

Hello friends,

WE DID IT! 759 PRE-ORDERS!

It’s truly humbling to know that so many people support my memoir. The success of this campaign means: The book will be published and (for now) you won’t get any more solicitations from me. I will be doing another round of pre-orders once the book is up on Amazon (and other retailers) and it has an official release date.

I am SO excited to publish this book. The next step is for me to send the manuscript to the publisher and hopefully we’ll have a release date for the book soon. 

I want to thank EACH and EVERY person who ordered the book and shared it. I could not have done this without you. Thank you again for your support, and I will keep everyone updated as I have more information.

Jamison