Hey everybody,

Wanted to give you one more update: today KILL CREEK was named as a Top 10 Finalist in the Launch Pad Manuscript Competition!  It’s a huge honor, especially considering it started this journey in the Top 75.  KILL CREEK is a passion project of mine, one that I’ve always hoped would be read by more than just family members, so it’s incredibly exciting to know that others are enjoying my wicked little ghost story.

Thank you to everyone who has supported KILL CREEK by pre-ordering it and/or sharing it with friends.  And if you haven’t pre-ordered a copy yet, there’s still time!

Best,

Scott

To my readers: I am both humbled and thrilled to share the exciting news that King’s Daughter just made the Top 10 finalists in the Launch Pad Manuscript Competition. Dreams do not happen without the investment of friends and dedicated supporters, and each of you has brought me one step closer to achieving mine. Though this is a long-held goal pursued with a singular focus, it is not ultimately about me. It is about you--the people I hope to impact, entertain, and inspire with storytelling. There’s nothing I’d rather do with my life than this--take the seed of an idea and develop it into a full-blown offering to the world.

I meant to send this update out last week, but I am forgetful.  First off the edit I decided to do on Magus is going to take longer than my original estimate, because it always takes longer than the original estimate(I suspect all my fellow writers will understand that).  As I’m looking over I’m finding not just the matter of a few descriptions which could have been more clear in their wording, but also a few bits of dialogue that with some minor tweaking can be much better displays of the characters’ personalities.  Its still minor changes, but also one’s which will only make the book stronger.  Unfortunately its also the kind of changes which require I go over the entire book word by word.

Now on to the slightly more detailed explanation of my plans for Magus.  First I’ll start with what I had intended for Magus when I started writing it: for it to be released in a serialized fashion, basically a sequential release of short stories which each told their own story and part of a larger story.  This was started years ago and at the time I looked around and decided that while there are obviously still magazines that include short stories, that serialization had faded to a point of near non-existence so my plan wouldn’t work.  As a result I hadn’t looked into it in the years since, but after my first campaign ended I was contacted by a website asking if I wanted to serialize through them.  I decided to wait on that since I knew I wanted to give an Inkshares campaign one more shot, but it did cause me to go on a bout of new research into serialization options and the resulting discovery that a decent number of them had popped up in the time since I abandoned the idea.

So, stage 1 of my Magus plan is to go the serialization route.  Since most of the terms for such sites understandably state that the book cannot currently be available elsewhere in a digital format or free online that means I will be taking down the chapters I have posted here as well as those on Goodreads and Wattpad.  Starting next Tuesday I’ll take down one posted excerpt every other day.  This will begin with the first excerpt (chapters 1-3) and continue sequentially from there so if you want to get a free read of any of the chapters that’s the timetable you’re looking at.  Once that and the current edit is done then I’ll start submitting to some sites I have in mind.  I would most like to get Magus on either Serialteller or Channillo (you can actually read the work of another author who started funding on Inkshares and then moved to serialization, Rebekka S Leber, here on Chanillo), so hopefully that will work out.

I do still want to one day get a print run of Magus out there, so stage 2 of the plan occurs concurrently with stage 1 as I scrape together funds to get the book into the condition I want it to be physically both from an editorial perspective and interior artwork-wise.  My current idea for a serialization outline would have it running about a year, maybe a year and a month, so I hope to have gotten everything to where it needs to be by the end of that time, finances allowing.  If I’m still running short on financing I may consider running a Kickstarter to make up the difference closer to that time, but I would prefer to avoid crowdfunding if possible.

Also part of stage 2 is a continued effort to get my name out there and attention to Magus via a more active posting on my own and others’ blogs.  A general idea of attracting readers through actually writing basically.  I know full well that it will be a difficult task since I’m only one small voice in a very crowded field.  Try and I may fail, but don’t try and I will always fail.  Just gotta forge ahead and hope I can make the smart choices at the right times.

Since I will need to save up as much money as possible, that also means that I’ll soon have to stop almost all non-essential spending.  This unfortunately also means the backing of funding books on Inkshares, a freeze that I’m delaying until 1/1/2017.  I still want to do what I can to help others meet their funding goals though, so I’m going to try to do my best to keep my eyes open and spread the word about those books I really want to see published via recommending/sharing/reviewing and so on.  If you have a book you want to see get funded, whether its your own or someone else’s, still feel free to point it out to me.

Finally, stage 3 is actually getting that print run done and out into the hands of people who want to read it.  I have no doubt this will be even more daunting than stages 1 & 2, but I’m just too stubborn to not try.  Its also pointless to talk in more detail on this until the time draws nearer and I have a more clear idea of the strategies I’ll employ.  For now my main focus is on stages 1 & 2, with only light planning/brainstorming for stage 3.

Of course once these three stages are completed its far from over, since I’ll need to repeat some version of these stages for each book I try to put out whether its one of the many in the Exile series or one of my other projects.  I do hope that one day I can build a following large enough to reliably fund and release via Inkshares, but I have a lot of platform building to do before that day is here.

Feel free to contact me for any reason, though especially if you have any advice/tips/tricks for me as I prepare to forge ahead.  As always, thanks for your time and support, and keep reading and enjoying!

Earlier this year, despite some solid success, I let the Inkshares funding campaign for Mission 51 end without asking for an extension for two reasons: I wanted to focus on the writing and not on the campaigning, and I wanted to submit Mission 51 to Hollywood’s Launch Pad Competition 2016. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed it didn’t make it to the finalist group, but today I received some very strong encouragement!

I received the formal Feedback Notes from Launch Pad, essentially an opinion about my submitted sample from an industry judge. Let me give you a few excerpts from the report:

"This is a knockout premise, and those are very rare."

"The fact that Mat’s story... is an immigrant story, takes this premise from being a great high concept to being a great high concept with real emotional subtext, and one that has resonance with our modern world today."

"The pages here consistently communicate the story clearly, with great momentum, and a very palpable sense of empathy for ALL the characters... This is a great read, and a very capable execution of a highly evocative premise. This project has tremendous potential."

"The quality of the writing here, not just on the conceptual level, but also in terms of the story in these pages and the writing of that story, is uniformly strong. The dialogue’s good too, voice specific and smart in its use of subtext."

"This project feels like it has strong potential for either a TV or feature adaptation, and stands on its own as a great read as a manuscript."

Well isn’t that just awesome!!! I am greatly encouraged that I am on the right track!

Looking forward to the next suitable Inkshares contest so I can jump in and try again. I really want you to read the story!

Peace, and Happy Thanksgiving!

👽

Hey everybody!

First of all, thank you for everything you’ve done to support KILL CREEK.  I truly appreciate it.  I’m currently just shy of 100 pre-orders.  There’s still a ways to go to get to 250 for light publishing and a long way to go to get to 750 for the full publishing package, but there’s also still time to reach one of those goals.  If you know anyone who you think would dig this book, please encourage them to drop $10 or $20 to make this book a reality.

In other news, Inkshares has announced their list of the best unpublished books on their site.  This list is called, appropriately enough, The List 2016.  I’m happy to say that KILL CREEK made The List.  So here’s another chance to get the book out into the world: the top 3 books with the most unique pre-orders by December 31st will be published.  

So if you haven’t pre-ordered a copy yet, please consider doing so.  And if you have, please consider mentioning KILL CREEK to someone you think would enjoy it.  It’s not just for hardcore horror fans.  It’s a character-driven, slow-burn ghost story that builds to a horrific, violent climax.  Fans of everything from The Haunting of Hill House and The Shining to Insidious and The Conjuring will not be disappointed.

Thanks again!  And have a great Thanksgiving!

Scott Thomas