Hello all!

Thanks for all the support as I tried out this new thing! I'm a little late with this final update, but you know how the end of the year gets. Or if you don't, then let's just say life gets busy and I start getting more interested in wine by the fireplace than staring at screens more than work requires. But I digress. New year, no holidays, the time has come to rev up my creative engines once more.

I would not be surprised if Inkshares has already sent out notes to you all on my behalf informing you that Beneath White Clouds is back in "draft mode." My book did not meet its funding goal for Inkshares publication by its December 31st deadline. This is not a shocker. 750 pre-orders were required, and I think I gathered sixty-odd. No worries, as promised, the book will plow on.

Business: If you pre-ordered under the old model, where your payment info was saved for future withdrawal, pending I hit my goal, well then no fundage will be charged to you. If you pre-ordered under Inkshares' new model, where payment was taken up front, then that money is back to you.

Seeing that my crowd-funding drive was going to stay in "I think I can" territory without actually getting over the hill, I started snooping around for other stuff to try out. Last December I participated in #SFFPit, a twitter event wherein authors hurl book pitches into the twitterspace and see if anything sticks. Pitches for Beneath White Clouds picked up a little love - 3 small publishers and 2 agents showed interest. As of this writing, I've contacted all but one of the publishers (who seemed shaky to me). "Thanks, but No" responses have come back from 1 agent and 1 publisher. I'm waiting to hear back from the others. Patience is the name of the game as things progress at the speed of the publishing industry.

If nothing comes from those avenues, I might try Kindle Scout - It's an amazon thing that works a little like Inkshares, but with no  money exchanged, just votes, and no hard goal. Just gather lots of votes, and some Amazon droog will take a look and deliver final arbitration as to whether the book gets Kindled. I dunno. Might try it, but on the other hand, I'd hate for the book to only be available for Kindle. On the other, other hand, it would cost nothing for anyone, I wouldn't be asking for money, and I might get paid. Eh, we'll see.

In any case, no matter what, I can always self-publish. I did that for BREAK!, and had a lot of fun doing it, and that's what really counts. (Oh, hey! As a thank-you for being a supporter, and for reading this far, here's a gift. If you like Epic fantasy, you can download BREAK! in any e-book format from here. Use the coupon code JA52C to get it for free. Enjoy!)

So, one way or another, Beneath White Clouds will come out in 2016. I'll keep in touch personally, and remember each contributor in the book. Look for news to come through e-mail from my addy: eland001@gmail.com. You can also keep up with all my ranting and occasional useful info through facebook, twitter, and ericlandreneau.wordpress.com.

It's been a fun attempt. Didn't work out, but I learned some great new things and made connections with some fantastic people. Can't put a price on that. Thank you all. Most of you are writers, all of you occasionally have to write something, so I'll end with my preferred send-off: Happy Writing!

Peace,

Eric Landreneau

Wow!  It's only been a week since I first put up the draft of The Two Stegosauruses, and the response has been amazing!  As I am writing this, the project is one of the top trending books on Inkshares.  My phone wouldn't stop buzzing with notifications yesterday!  Thank you so much to everyone who has followed me and my book. I'm glad that there is something in The Two Stegosauruses that is resonating with you.   And a HUGE thank you to those who have recommended the book to their followers or friends and have sent me such nice comments and reviews.  As an artist it's easy to get lost in the vacuum of your own concerned opinions during the creative process, and to hear all of your kind words really helps me to remember that this is a project worth pursuing.

I am currently redrawing some lines on a few pages that I felt weren't clean enough for the finished product.  I'm not ready to start selling preorders just yet, but please keep your eye out for that announcement soon.  I don't know if it's possible, but it would be great if we could get The Two Stegosauruses fully funded and ready to be published before Valentine's Day, as I think it's a pretty great gift to give to a significant other.

Again, if you have any questions or concerns about the current state of the book, just let me know on the project page.  And if you know anyone else, on Inkshares or otherwise, that might enjoy a book like The Two Stegosauruses  please let them know too!  Every follower helps towards getting this book published.

Thank you,

Daniel 

Hello everybody,

The 2nd S&L contest is only 8 days away from closing, and we are currently sitting at 4th place. While it's unlikely we'll be able to rally in time to secure one of the top 3 spots, I'd like to ask everyone who is following the book but has yet to pre-order to grab a copy today! 

I've posted 8 chapters of the book now, and added a variety of extra incentives to ordering. For your purchase, you not only receive an entry into the prize-drawing for a $250.00 Amazon Gift Card, but you also earn a whole bunch of great rewards, including amazing artwork and more! I've had the first of three pins commissioned for backers of the digital/soft-cover versions of the story, and will have a fourth on the way soon to reward any and all Wolf-Rider backers! 

Again, I want to implore everyone to push your friends and others to buy a copy of my book. I'm very proud of the novel, and equal parts thrilled and floored by the feedback and genuine love others have shown for the story and the characters. I really believe in this book, and I know it's something special. The trick is just getting people to actually take the time to read it. So thank you to everyone who has supported me so far, and here's to one big rally at the end!

P.S. 

Here's a preview of one of the pins/buttons. Artwork courtesy of Fallingstardusk@gmail.com

Thursday update time.   First we've made some forward motion, 74 copies ordered and 269 followers, but with only 2 weeks remaining we need to make a great deal more progress in order for me to get this book into all of your hands.  That means that I need and beseech all of you who haven't ordered to do so, preferably now but anytime before the deadline will earn you my heartfelt thanks.  And for those of you who have already ordered, I hope you'll continue to recommend to everyone you know who would also enjoy Exile, Magus.  All of the support I've received thus far has been truly heartwarming, and I don't intend to give up so I hope you don't either.  Inspirational big game speech done, now on to the geek stuff.

I've always been a complete map-geek, and seeing John Robin's recent update has made me really want to get back to doing my best to prettify my maps of Pentaz' world(or more specifically the continent on which his story takes place).   I've pretty extensively mapped out that continent over the decades of my obsession with this world, and also far less extensively mapped out the 2nd largest continent on that world.  Unfortunately all of those maps are cluttered, worn-out messes which are pretty much only decipherable to me at this point.  With that in mind I had set out to draw up new copies of them, and to make them a joy for others to look at.

As some of you may remember I did previously post up 2 of the newly drawn maps, but they were of what amounts to two different islands which are both kinda speckish on the larger map(which I have yet to finish a new drawing of to show you all).  At one point I even purchased watercolor pencils in the hopes of fully coloring the maps to give the full effect, but alas my schedule became too hectic and I had to let the map remaking fall by the wayside.  I make no promises, but I do say now that I fully intend to finish the map of the Zaltruscan empire, Frozen North, and Llanchland which I had started some months back and share it with you all before this campaign is over.  This would show you the area in which the bulk of Exile, Magus takes place(only chapters 5 - 8 take place in areas not shown on this particular region).  The next map after that will be the Badlands and the peninsula known as the blade which will cover the areas in which chapters 5- 8 take place.

Also, for those of you who have read chapter 3 as well as the first section of chapter 6 I posted up recently, you may recall talk of two ancient(and long dead) civilizations - Thirosia and Melexi. While neither of them are of vital importance in Exile, Magus, they do each have various parts to play throughout the series (such as a certain Thirosian artifact in Exile, Hunted).  I don't dwell too long on either civilization at any point in Exile, Magus or Exile, Hunted for the sake of narrative flow, but I do love discussing them which is why the idea for a blog post I mentioned on Tuesday focuses specifically on them.

Beyond that if there is anything you have seen mention of in any of the chapters I've posted up that you're curious about, or just any questions you have about my world and/or characters in general, then I hope you won't hesitate to discuss them with me either on Facebook(https://www.facebook.com/redthomasjarnold) or Twitter(@thoasoold), though I will keep all such conversations spoiler free. Hopefully anyway. I also periodically post a bit of insight into my mind/world on my blog(http://thomasjarnold.blogspot.com/).

Now, because I enjoyed it last time(and I hope you did too), I'm going to give you another short pronunciation guide. This time I'll focus on Chapter 1. Just as last time, feel free to ignore my way of saying any word and instead read/say it however you want to.

Thierdenvolgenlund: thear'den'vole'ginn'lund.  This name was actually inspired by that time I read the Nibelungenlied.  I wanted a name that had the same cadence as Nibelungenlied, so I just let sounds roll around in my skull until Thierdenvolgenlund jumped out screaming and waving an axe.  Sidenote:  I cannot say Thierdenvolgenlund without sounding a bit like the Swedish Chef(Muppets).

Kerutda Magul: care'oot'duh mah'ghoul. Never mispronounce this in her presence, she's known as the Lady of the Hammers for a reason.

Muix: myoo, not to be confused with moo. That's right, the i and the x are mostly pointless and there only because I like the way it looks when written out. Fun fact: only 1 person other than me has ever pronounced this right without any prompting or hints from me. My jaw dropped at this occurrence.

Palkaz: paul'kaz or pal'kaz or paul'kuz. I can never make up my own mind on this one, just depends on just how much I'm giving into my lazy Southern tongue.

Pentaz: pin'taz

Duertanso: dyoor'tan'so. A bit of a compound origin to this one.  When the Muix family first popped into my head, the main focus was Duertanso's grandson, Gwydion.  Gwydion has(or I suppose more accurately will have) a lot of brothers, the most unremarkable of which is a fellow named Bartanso.  I always felt kind of bad that poor Bartanso is the one brother who really has nothing going on for him, so when I decided to dive into telling the story of Pentaz(who had always been pretty enigmatic in Gwydion's tales) as well as Palkaz I decided I wanted to reflect a bit of Bartanso's name in their father's name.  I knew Duertanso was sort of a thinking action hero in his younger days(I mean, he led a squad to kill a dragon after all) and probably a bit of a swashbuckler at that, so my brain naturally went to The Three Musketeers(my brain has very crooked roads, so my natural does tend to be convoluted) and thus I combined the 'tanso with a bit of D'Artagnan to make Duertanso.  Well, now that I've shared that long winded origin that no one wanted to know I'm gonna call it a day on the pronunciation guide for this update.

 I have taken up far too much of everyone's time now though, so I'm going to leave it at that. Since we've hit the threshold(and are near to hitting more thresholds) I will be posting up the next section of chapter 6 on Saturday.  If we can get hit more thresholds(every 10 orders and 20 followers), then I'll post up more sections of chapter 6.  If we hit 100 orders by Saturday I'll post the remainder of chapter 6 as well as section 1 of chapter 2 on book 2 (Exile, Hunted).  Thank you for all of your time and support, and don't forget to buy and recommend Exile, Magus.

One week of the Sword and Laser Collection Contest left. It ends at noon PST on Jan 15th. A Herculean effort will propel me into the Top Three. Not impossible. Perhaps more accurately, that place where the possible and the impossible meet. If I can get enough preorders by Friday of next week, perhaps I can achieve the possimpible. 

Why spend your hard earned money on my little novel? 

It's a damn good story, that's why! 

If you like novels that capture the essence of Bladerunner, or the novel which inspired it Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, you may like Transilience. 

 If you enjoy classic science-fiction, you may enjoy this novel. 

If you are a fan of old school Noir and Hardboiled Detective Fiction, you may want to read Transilience. 

Transilience is also a completed novel. No waiting around for me to finish it. As soon as this baby hits the necessary support levels, the publication machinery can hit the ground running. 

Transilience is a well-written novel. It is an opinion held (fortunately) by more than me. Full of strong verbs. Well constructed syntax. And a balance of dialogue, action and exposition to move the narrative along to a conclusion that echoes such cinematic greats as Sunset Blvd., A Touch of Evil, In a Lonely Place and Double Indemnity. Transilience could very well be the best novel you've read this year! :) 

I also have two novels featuring Daniel Helmqvist planned. Getting Transilience out there will certainly help with the others. Book Two is already underway. If Transilience has an ISBN, I can only imagine how much more motivated I would be. (Sorry about the triple alliteration. These things get away from me sometimes). 

 I'll stop here. I hope you agree with all or some of what I've written. If you do, your support of Transilience will be welcomed and thanked beyond the superlative. 

 Cheers! 

Kev  

So, as promised, I followed through with a raffle for all my readers.

I recorded this video late last night, announcing the first four winners. Check it out to see if you won! I will be contacting the winners directly later today.

By the way, the "peer pressure" thing I mention in the video was a joke -- I really am excited about doing this for all of you who have supported me!

If you haven't pre-ordered my novel yet and want to be included in the raffle, all you have to do is hit that 'Pre-Order' button that's calling out to you.

Anyway, I won't waste anymore time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTaTMRjtAjw

p.s. - I promise the next raffle video won't take as long, because I'll spend less time explaining the prizes and just draw.

Have a great afternoon!

Hello everyone!

I have decided that I am actually going to put writing the rest of this novel on hold for right now because I have temporarily lost my inspiration and can't get myself to write any of the last few chapters. I will hopefully be back to writing it in the next few weeks so that I don't completely lose my momentum with the story. 

I am still going to be making updates on the novel's Facebook page, so please check that out: https://www.facebook.com/Isolation-150428755318601/?ref=hl

Also any reviews or recommendations of the story are helpful to kind of get me going on the story again and I might update with some art later on this week as I try to push through finishing my three novels and getting covers done. 

Thank you all for your support!

Hello friends

Just a quick update. I have submitted my manuscript to Inkshares, and we expect to start the editing work in a couple of weeks. I believe this process last  6 to 10 months. Even though I would love a summer release, a Holidays release doesn’t sound bad.

I want to thanks the always patient and encouraging Avalon Radys —at Inkshares— for guiding me through the paperwork and submission process. Avalon said to me “you'll have plenty of work to do and deliverables to send at certain times. Take a break.”

So I’m taking her advice and using the time to support 3 authors that you should check out.

Andrew Wood

His book Storm of Fury is 89 pre-orders away from funding, and his deadline is in 64 days.

Andrew is a talented young writer, and his book presents quite an interesting story:

Lantrelia is a world that is under siege, but not by any mortal foe. Angered by humanity's many sins, the terrible god Na'lek has manifested his Fury in the shape of a mighty storm. Now, the fate of this war-torn world rests in the hands of Kaven, who is best known for walking face-first into a door. Given the opportunity to redeem himself, Kaven dares confront Na'lek and perhaps save the world as well.

Byron Gillan

His book The Children of The Forest is part of The Sword and Laser collection Contest (which ends next week). He is currently in fourth place, and he deserves to be in the Top 3.

Here is the description of his book:

In an ancient and broken land, two powerful nations vie for control of their devastated world's most vital resource. Manna. A material spawned from the great roots of Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life. Men'kai and Commigial fight one another fiercely and without quarter in a brutal war with no end or victor in sight. That all changes the day the king of the Commigial - Beric Cohmwell - makes a choice that will forever alter the future of his kingdom and the world.

André Brun

His book Lies and Deception is part of The Sword and Laser collection Contest, as well, but he is also 165 books away from his funding goal.

I find the premise of this book intriguing. As you all know, I’m a sucker for time-travelers.

A religious man tries to prove to the world that Jesus actually existed. He travels two thousand years in the past where encounters another time traveler, a woman trying to prevent the crucifixion. Was "Christ" really betrayed?

Please consider supporting these authors. You have the power to change their lives the same way you changed mine.

Have a fantastic day! 

Hello everyone,

Incredible news! Storm of Fury has been approved for an extension, which now gives us 65 days to reach our goal! We currently have  89 more copies to sell, and I know that's in part to the wonderful support everyone here at Inkshares has given me.

Let's keep the momentum going, and we'll have no difficulty reaching our goal! On that note, I'd like to take a moment and give a shout out to another project here at Inkshares that needs our help;

  Calling all fantasy fans out there! With only 12 days remaining and 177 copies left to order, this book needs your help!

Exile, Magus by Thomas J. Arnold is a fantasy novel set in a land of empires and city-states still haunted by the ancient past. After breaking his people's greatest taboo by practicing magic, a young dwarf must abandon what is left of his family and flee into a world he has only heard of in stories.

To find out more about this project, visit Exile, Magus’ homepage here: https://www.inkshares.com/projects/exile-magus?referral_code=22a64efc

OR, read more about it now: 

Pentaz has lived a relatively comfortable life in the reclusive island nation of Thierdenvolgenlund. His father had won wealth and questionable fame as an engineer, problem solver, and even a one-time dragon slayer. Still the family's peculiar nature ensures that most view them as oddities, but when Pentaz' study of magic the people turn fully against them.

Fleeing home after both a great tragedy and victory, Pentaz enters a world he has only heard of in stories and legends. Now, he must struggle to learn the ways of this strange, new world in order to survive. The dangers of his new life on the road are many though, and they cannot be overcome alone.

Along the way he finds new friends and allies, fellow students of magic, a money-grubbing caravan master, a dwarf of the mainlands whose culture is perhaps most alien to Pentaz, and even an eccentric king overly fascinated by gnomes and their workings. Most importantly he finds Buscidia, a half-dwarven warrior and vagabond, and in her he finds love and hope for a new family to replace the one he had lost. But can Pentaz overcome his own insecurities and pain in order to build the life with her which he desperately desires?

His home has not forgotten Pentaz or his crime however, and unbeknownst to the exile his brother Palkaz has made his way to the mainland as well. As his hunt for the young magus comes to a close, the two find their charged reunion interrupted. 

Thrust against a danger the two brothers never imagined, can they overcome their differences long enough to survive?


Want to hear more? Check out the homepage and read the first five chapters for free!

And take a look at what a couple of other authors had to say about Exile, Magus:

John Robin, author of Blood Dawn says "Exile, Magus brings out the grand voice of high fantasy. Thomas Arnold brings together echos of Gulliver's Travels, Terry Pratchet, and Tolkien with his witty, scholarly narrative voice, strange races with strange names, and sense of a rigorously-thought-out world. I excpect from what I read to enter something amusing, thoughtful, and intriguing all at once!"

Tabi Card, author of says "Exile, Magus is a unique fantasy tale, giving new maenaing to the world 'Epic'. As you follow the life of Pentaz, you will be treated to an intricate blend of myth and magic, sit on the edge of your seat through intense battles, and chuckle at the witty banter of the characters as they face a variety of threats. If you read fantasy, read this - I promise it will not disappoint!"

Go ahead, take a look and buy a book! 

BUT HURRY! The book’s campaign ends on JANUARY 22nd ORDER YOUR COPY NOW!

https://www.inkshares.com/projects/exile-magus?referral_code=22a64efc