Hello, my dear animals! This will be the last update you’ll hear from me for a while, fortunately or unfortunately. I’ll be dialing down the frequency from twice a week to once a month. And this update in particular will go by fast, so don’t blink!

I shot (and heavily edited!) my last Reader-Raffle drawing earlier today. I got my kids to fill the starring roles again, and I could barely contain the chaos that ensued. I want you to know that after the 5 minute drawing, I had an extra minute in which I thank everyone one more time and then plug two inkshares books worth your time, attention, and money (including extra inkshares credits if you got ‘em!). They were “Deus Hex Machina” by Amanda Orneck - a book I have been really, really looking forward to since I first visited the website - and “Transilience” by Kevin Bragg - a book I just recently discovered and instantly fell in love with. 

Look, don’t let your purchase of “The Animal in Man” be the only interaction you have with Inkshares. Get back to the website and check in on the hundreds of other books they offer. Great books by great authors who have great stories to tell, who are working really hard to get published. I know a great majority of my followers probably still have credits attached to their inkshares accounts, credits still unclaimed in their emails, and more still potential credits to earn by signing in and clicking “Recommend via Inkshares.” Why the heck wouldn’t you want to spend free money?

Finally, I want you to know I’ve been busy this weekend. I had kind of like a nesting instinct. My baby’s going to be born soon, right, so I rearranged the basement, I dug out my outline document, revised it a bit, and made a poster. Hung up a poster, a calendar. Most importantly I taped my favorite fortune cookie on the wall, the one I’ve carried in my wallet for three years or more: “Do Not Fear Failure.” This is where The Animal in Man will be born. 

...also there’s a kid watching Frozen, again, in the background. Again. Please don’t think I’m staging that for cuteness’ sake. I’m really not. I. Am. In. Frozen. Hell. Writing this book might help me thaw my way out. Hopefully.

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 

Hey there wonderful 

Things are going good. I am currently working on the revised chapter two and should have that to you soon. I am also very curious what you thought of the changes on chapter one. It's solved some of the issues some of you have brought up and I would love to hear your feedback.  

Also I have some credits in need of spending and am interested in order swaps. If youre interested in a order swap email me at kelsey31@hotmail.com or drop me a line on twitter @BTC INKSHARES

Thanks for your continuing support

Harry Potter just wasn't enough for me. I wanted more. You probably did as well.

Also, oddly enough, Harry Potter wasn't dark enough for me, I wanted darker. Perhaps you did as well.

Everyone say hello to Icarus Hadwell (but do it quietly. He's fractious. For now.)

The multiverse exists as melding of dualities – where does energy end and dark energy begin? When does black become white? More, the multiverse exists as a plethora of parallel verses where all possibilities can be found, where anything that can happen, will happen. What if you were the summit of the force of Creation itself – the endgame of the game – whereby the steady accretion of particle into dust, dust into star, star into planet, planet into life, and life into consciousness became something more? If you were then you wouldn't need to read Icarus Hadwell. You'd think it was old hat.

Let's do a little superposition-ing of the possibilities and align ourselves as one. Let's make Icarus Hadwell happen.

I got my Harry Potter fix with this novel. It's exciting, sad, uplifting, and catchy. When it ends you will want more. But you must read it to get there. The book is written, it needs professional editing, but it stands, as is, without it. The second book is plotted and begun, it only waits for me to align myself again with the possibilities. Help me take a lonely, small boy and create something which can shatter the Mind of Dark Energy.

We can all become Scions of the Book.

Read Icarus Hadwell & The Book of Fates.

The choice is always yours.

Saturday update time.  A bit later in the day than I intended, but with the combination of the campaign and my work schedule I have been somewhat neglectful of family so I gladly took some time to remedy that a little with a bit of a hangout, dine, and game session with my brother.

24 hours and 19,000 words later I am done with the new draft of the story. I actually cried when I wrote it. Not because I finished it but because sad things happened. 

I changed the story a bit and this first book focuses mostly on the hero which at the beginning is a girl but you will mostly be seeing a man as the hero as the story progresses. This is the three in one character that I was talking about for writing Demon Revolution.

I hope you guys can keep an open mind because there is a gay relationship between two angels in this book. There's nothing bad, I just wanted to warn you guys before you read it and freak out.

Please let me know what you think and I think that I will be changing the title of this story as soon as I can think of a better name for it because this book while it is focused on Ivy there's not really a whole lot of her in it so I'll let you know about that too.

I will start posting chapters right after this so please check it out.

Thank you!

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:

1. Sign-in
   
2. Click on INKSHARES (next to Recommend via)
3. Wait 5 minutes for your confirmation email, then click CLAIM
4. Pre-order e-book (credits are automatically applied)

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!