Yesterday I was informed that The Punch Escrow will be the official inaugural selection for the Geek & Sundry collection on Inkshares! At this point I am still shocked that all of this is happening: That my book is getting published through Inkshares, on the Geek & Sundry imprint. I love you guys, I’ll never be able to give enough thanks for your help in making this happen.

As for the book itself, I’m still in the midst of the first rewrite, currently in the midst of the eighth chapter, The Sky Cries Martyr. In case you want a window into what that looks like, here you go:

As you can imagine, it’s a long and grueling, but living process. For example, even this screenshot is not up to date, as last night I got rid of the "eye cam" reference because it was redundant and slowed down the flow.

Don’t let my pursuit of perfection worry you though, I think I’m well on pace to deliver the rewrite to Inkshares by my August 1 deadline. Once I do that I’ll be able to share a more concrete publication timeline. I’m really looking forward to working with Inkshares and Geek & Sundry on making this book the best it can be. You guys are awesome.

-Tal

Earlier this week, Geek & Sundry posted a very cool article about how Dungeons & Dragons was successfully being used in social therapy. In The Punch Escrow, I predict that games will replace therapy as we know it in the future.

Here’s an excerpt from the chapter Hiraeth:

In 1979 Edward Packard published the first commercially successful novel in what would become a very popular 20th century series of books called “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure.” In many ways this was a bridging of the worlds of interactive games and books (they didn’t have coms at the time, so they just wrote stuff down on paper), because the reader would play an active role in the narrative by choosing what the protagonist did next from a series of options. Rather delightfully, at least one option usually led to instant death.

"The Cave of Time" was the title of the first adventure published in that series. It was an imaginative story that took its readers on a journey through several real and fictional periods of time, from the end of the entire universe to the days of Camelot and the round table. The story’s mechanism for time travel was rather brilliantly not some fantastic device invented by a Vernian mad professor, but rather a series of tunnels that transported the reader through time, depending on which tunnel they chose.

Sometime in the early 22nd century, with the ubiquitousness of virtual reality and immersive gaming, a team comprised of cognitive neuroscientists and gaming technology experts created a psychoanalytical game based on The Cave Of Time. The virtual-reality game sought to help diagnose individuals with mental conditions, ideally with the aim of identifying such ailments before degeneration took effect. Using real-time analytics of eye movement, heart rate, neural activity, and facial expression, the games provided players with the opportunity to practice engaging in realistic social situations all in the context of a choose your own adventure scenario. The choices people made were helpful in establishing their mental state and whether they suffered from any psychological irregularities. The game itself eventually crossed over into the mainstream when modifications enabled players to edit content and endings. People would record their travels through the caves, personalizing outcomes. The caves became microcosms of their own universe and timelines.

After the Last War, many attempted to play out alternate strategies and endings to the war in The Cave of Time. Eventually it became common wisdom that the Last War would have taken place regardless of what was done in the immediate years preceding it, the prevailing common wisdom was that the clockwork which led to the war’s advent was put into action thousands of years ago. Still, to this day people still try to go back in time through the caves in search of answers.  

One thing I realized is that in my rush to send out the update yesterday, I neglected to thank my parents, who have watched me sweating bullets since this contest began and were quick with encouragement. During one especially stressful morning, my dad, Avi, took me aside, and with his heavy Hebrew accent said, "Tal. What are you worried about? You are my son. You will win." And my mom, Yona, who has the superpower of overhearing anything my dad says regardless of where he is, said, "Avi, you don’t know that he will win." To which my dad responded sternly, "Yes, Yona, I know." And that was it. The universe was compelled to act.

Since yesterday, I’ve received lots of emails, tweets, and messages from supporters and friends. This update will address the two most common questions:

1. When do I get my book?

The first draft of the manuscript was submitted to my developmental editor, Robert Kroese, before the contest began. He delivered a very thorough developmental edit from which I am now doing a COMPLETE rewrite of the book. In fact, I’ll be removing most of the chapters I posted to the Inkshares page because they are all very, very different now. So if you want to feel like a beta reader, get to it now because the MASS DELETION event happens soon. I’ll leave The Big Mac of Theseus chapter as-is, spelling and grammar errors and all as a memento of this campaign for the time being. I will deliver Inkshares a final draft by August 1. After that they’ll let me know more about the publication date, and rest assured I will share with you whatever information is at my disposal.

2. What about the MAJOR PRIZE raffle?

There were over 30 entries to our MAJOR PRIZE raffle, however, of those, only 8 got the International Transport slogan *exactly* right: "Departure, Journey, Arrival... Delight!" Yesterday, when the contest ended, I asked my daughter, Iris, to assist me in drawing the winner. We used Randompicker.com for the drawing. It’s a very cool site that uses hardware based randomization to ensure drawings are completely, well, random. Here we go:

Michael Haase (whose last name I butcher in the video) was the big winner! The universe decided another publishing contest winner should receive the box. I conducted this brief interview with Michael following Iris’ drawing:

TK: I think it’s very interesting that a fellow Inkshares author won this contest. I’d say the process of entering the contest was prohibitively semi-involved, but we still managed to get 34 entries. Of those, 8 were correct, and several were fellow Inkshares authors. I think that speaks well for the community, I’ve noticed that although Inkshares is a small ecosystem, it’s a very active one. How did you discover Inkshares, and what made you want to take the leap?

MH: My sister discovered Inkshares for me. I had no idea such a wonderful playground for authors existed. I have always been a writer in some form or another, and I certainly have forced plenty a story or poem upon friends and family. When my sister heard about the Nerdist Space Opera contest, she told me that I should enter because she thought I could win, even though I had not yet written a Space Opera. With that kind of endorsement in hand, I worked all day on February first and had a rough outline for Mr. Butler by the end of the day. I entered the story immediately, and have fallen head over heels over the Inkshares concept and community of authors ever since.

TK: Adding to the kismet of your win, you, yourself are also a contest winner. I know this contest was completely exhausting for me, could you share a bit about your publishing contest experience? What were the ups and downs, surprises, and so on?

MH: I think no one was happier that it was over than my wife. Participating in a contest requires a ton of dedication and time. From February 1st through March 15th I was networking, marketing, contacting every person I know and ever knew, learning how to market, trying not to back away slowly from marketing, checking my phone like a fiend, tearing up my workspace in my basement, outlining, writing, planning, scheming, making new author friends, reading other authors’ work, working full-time in an ER, raising a toddler, trying to the the best I could for my pregnant wife, and generally burning the candle at both ends until I dropped the candle on a powder keg. I’m surprised anyone still likes me after that contest. But if I had to do it all over again, I would in a heartbeat. I’ve made amazing friends with other authors all over the world, sold copies of my book on all continents except Antarctica (stupid penguins don’t read...), and renewed my confidence as an author. Probably the greatest surprise was the outpouring of support I received. Pat Edwards, who is an amazing author and another Nerdist winner with his book "Space Tripping," convinced me to literally contact every single person I knew. I decided to just go ahead and write every single friend I had on Facebook and Twitter to ask for their support. Almost every time I sent someone a message and thought to myself "Oh, they couldn’t possibly be interested in buying my book," I was wrong. 

TK: Do you think the protagonist of your book, Mr. Butler would be up for teleporting somewhere if he knew that to teleport he’d have to be destroyed in one place while simultaneously being replicated in another? What would go through his mind in making that decision?

MH: Absolutely. He is a man desperate for science and fact beyond what is readily observable. On his planet, he is nearly alone in thinking that the universe is a puzzle to be solved. If he were approached with such an offer, he might question the implications of being destroyed and replicated somewhere else, but the need to embrace the science behind the travel, experience it for himself, and, ultimately, leave the wretched planet on which he lives would drive him to accept the offer to teleport with enthusiastic nods. He wouldn’t even care where he went, as long as it wasn’t to another place on his planet. Only in that scenario would he think twice. 

TK: You are the winner of the MAJOR AWARD raffle. A mysterious box which I claim is from the future, which I also state is scientifically impossible. If you were creating a thematic mystery box for the Madness of Mr. Butler, what would be in it?

MH: A flask of hallucinogenic serum, an astronaut’s helmet, a journal, an 8-track player with several cassettes of rock music from the late 60’s and early 70’s, a noose, a large stick, a quill made from a fishbone, and a ghost.  

Here are the complete results of the MAJOR PRIZE raffle:

Michael Haase - WINNER

Phillip Rendely, Sarra Lord, and Nicolas Coombs - 2nd prize: "TELEPORTING" PUNCH ESCROW COFFEE MUGS

At your service,

Tal