Howdy, folks. Just a quick note to confirm that the Editorial Letter is in my hand and first round revisions have begun in earnest. My intention is to turn around the new draft of BoAT by Christmas. Only then, when Inkshares can assess how well I have executed on said revisions, will it be time for a serious conversation about a release date.

But a wordsmith can dream, can’t he? My hope would be a release for the fall of 2020, but we will see. I REPEAT – that is my hope, not a given. It may even be wildly unrealistic, but we will see where we stand in the new year.

What is the significance of next fall? Each October, Ottawa plays host to CAN•CON – the Conference on Canadian Content in Speculative Arts and Literature. This is the place to cross paths with authors, gamers, poets and illustrators of fantasy, science fiction and horror. The creative community of the National Capital Region turns out in force, joined by colleagues and special guests from across Canada and the U.S. I support CAN•CON on the media relations side as a volunteer and am also a recurring panelist.

It would be fantastic to have a launch event for BoAT at CAN•CON 2020!

But before we get there, there is lots of work to do. For Inkshares, it’s not just about how quickly we can arrive at a strong and polished product, but when it makes the best business sense to launch it into the market.

For now, my focus must be on taking to heart the awesome insight that my editor, Sarah, has provided on the manuscript and forging ahead with those revisions. She has made great observations about some things I need to work on with character and pacing and effectively getting the reader oriented and grounded in this world that I have created.

But while there is still much work to do, Sarah’s overall assessment of the manuscript was as follows:

“Bane of All Things is an exciting, rich novel that creates a truly vivid and complex world that is original and interesting. Obviously, comparisons will be drawn between your novel and A Song of Ice and Fire and perhaps An Ember in the Ashes, but it is a unique entity. Your novel is engaging because the fantasy realm that it draws us into is intricate and compelling and the themes of loyalty, faith, and loss help you to tell human stories in a fantasy setting. You’ve created a fascinating cast of characters and creatures.”

That works for me.

Good morning to all of you!

Last week, I received my editorial letter from my new editor, Sarah. I am so excited to start working on my next draft with their fantastic and intuitive feedback. Sarah had many good things to say and praised the ingenuity and uniqueness of the story, the world I’ve created, and the characters at its heart. There are still improvements to be made, as I expected, and I am thrilled to have new, specific goals to keep readying this work for publication. 

With this fresh draft, I will be delving into a few more aspects of world-building that I had only glossed over in previous drafts, namely the more intricate details concerning Paz government and the criminal justice system. Sarah’s simple suggestion regarding those two needs sparked my imagination to weave in a compelling new aspect of paz society that I think will not only address the necessary specifics, but will impact Inquieto and Carmen in powerful ways throughout the story.

In addition, I will be really flexing my writing muscles to perfect my first-person prose. "First-person" is the term used when a book is told directly from a character’s perspective. Example: "I went to the store yesterday, and an employee asked me if I needed help." Alternatively, the term "third-person" is used to describe a book that is told from the author/narrator’s perspective. Example: "The woman went to the store yesterday, and an employee asked her if she needed help."

Some of you know that Curio Citizen is the first and only novel that I have ever written in first-person. I naturally gravitate toward third-person, but I really felt from the beginning that Curio Citizen needs to be told from Carmen’s perspective. Her personal experience on Paz is vital to this "fish-out-of-water" tale, and while that is achievable through third-person prose, I think this novel will be far more powerful if the readers (you!) can experience everything exactly as Carmen does.

First-person prose can be tricky and is, in ways, a different art form than third-person. The ideal outcome would be for my voice as an author to disappear completely from the narrative, and only Carmen’s unique voice would shine through. In this round of revisions, I will be digging further into Carmen’s head to develop the natural course of her inner monologues and to describe the world as she sees it at a deeper level than what I have written in my previous draft.

After ten months of writing other books to practice my craft, I am certain I am up for the challenge for these new improvements. I am beyond ecstatic to dive back into Curio Citizen and return my focus to the heart and soul of the book--Carmen and Inquieto.

Thank you again for you interest and support! I will keep the updates coming!

Best,

Katherine

Last month, I took a trip to Europe with my brother Mike to o some research for scenes that take place in Europe in 1945 during WWII. We visited Antwerp, Koln and most importantly Nordhausen, site of the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp and the underground factory known as Mittelwerk where 20,000 slave laborers dug out tunnels in an old gypsum mine and manufactured the V-2 rockets used to bomb London and Antwerp.   

While I had done research for these scenes, there is an additional level of verisimilitude that gained from walking the same steps that scientists like Wernher von Braun did when he visited the camp, or where the 104th Infantry rode tanks into town to liberate the prisoners. 

I’ve received helpful and detailed feedback from the publisher on the most recent draft. The bad news is, there’s still a lot of work to be done. The good news is, it’s mostly about stripping out a lot of complexity that has grown into the story so that it can be more focused on the historical fiction elements. In the coming weeks, I’ll be re-assembling a new outline before diving back into the next draft of the novel that will be even better than the last.

On a sad note, my co-author Roxie passed away a couple of days ago. We knew she had cancer for the last couple of months and I’m grateful that she had so much energy and enthusiasm right up until the end. The house is eerily silent without her. 
—Zack    

Howdy, one and all. Four months have already passed since the Inkshares crowdfund campaign for Bane of All Things ended in success so it’s time for an update.

(BTW, this is still the placeholder cover -- you will definitely be the first to know when concepts for the true cover arrive, but that is still a long way’s off.)

Things move slowly in the publishing business and that’s just par for the course. As much as I can’t wait to have the finished product in my hands (and in yours), it takes time and plenty of sober second thought to polish a novel from a debut author, and develop its marketing plan, to ensure it has the best chance of standing out from the crowd and doing well.

My editor at Inkshares continues to work on my Editorial Letter. This comprehensive assessment of BoAT’s strengths and weaknesses will give me a handle on what edits and revisions I must make to ensure this story is the best version of itself that it can be. The plan a couple of months ago called for me to have my Letter by now, but it’s taking a little longer than first expected.

In the meantime, Inkshares has already set up my Properties page. Properties is the side of the Inkshares platform reserved for talent agents, other publishers and movie and TV producers. This is where they come to scout out interesting books they may want to licence in some way, or even opt for the Hollywood treatment. So who knows what could happen there!

Also, I vowed as part of the crowdfunding campaign that I would donate one dollar from each copy pre-ordered to non-profit Autism Ontario on behalf of my autistic son and nephews. That donation has been made, rounded up to a nice even $500.

Thanks again to each and every one of you for making all this possible. Stay tuned for further updates as the production process for BoAT moves ahead!

Cheers

Leo

Hello all!

I hope you are having a wonderful summer. Mine has been eventful, to say the least!

I have brief news regarding Curio Citizen--my previous editor is no longer with the company, so my manuscript is now in the hands of a new editor, Sarah Nivala. I am excited to receive their feedback and will keep you all informed as the editing process goes on.

In other news, my family and I made a big change this summer. We moved halfway across the country! I am now a resident of Kansas City and loving it. After three weeks, I’m finally feeling settled, and I’ve managed to make time to write in spite of the busy move.

I’m now in the process of preparing a fresh novel manuscript for a Twitter pitch event in September. These pitch events invite authors to write a short description of their novel within Twitter’s 280-character limit (quite the challenge!). If an agent or publisher likes the pitch, they’ll click that little heart button in the tweet to request more material. I’ve had moderate success with these sorts of events in the past, so I’m hoping this one will bear fruit. Wish me luck! As always, thank you for your interest and support of my writerly aspirations!

Best,

Katherine

Hey everyone,

I know it’s been awhile since the last update, so I just wanted to drop by to let you know this project is still very much alive and well. I’m a new dad and we just purchased our first home, so needless to say I’ve been pretty busy. But I’ve been busy writing and editing as well! My manuscript for The Last Beacon currently sits at just over 80K words, and I’m working hard on the very last scenes in the book.

In the coming months I’ll be launching my campaign, and I’ll need all the help I can get from you. I’ve been thrilled by the tremendous amount of interest the book has received so far, but I know full well that doesn’t always translate into sales. Anything you can do now to help me drum up even more interest would be so helpful as we enter the home stretch. 

With that being said, I’d like to graciously ask for help in the following ways:

• Hit the share button on The Last Beacon’s page to tell your Facebook and Twitter followers about this book and why you’re excited for it.
• Leave a review so you can recommend The Last Beacon to other Inkshares members who have yet to discover it.
  
• Spend some time reading the sample chapters and highlight one of your favorite passages for your Inkshares followers to see.

Thank you so much in advance. I can’t wait to share this entire story with you, and in the mean time please do check out some of the other great books currently funding on Inkshares like The Seclusion: Part 2, Young Donald, and Mina Harker.

Until next time,

Matt

 August!

I’m still working on the latest rewrite but I’ve been able to get through a chapter a day by writing before the kids wake up and in the afternoon while they relax with a TV show. I got ten chapters edited/rewritten on the writing retreat Jared sent me on for Mother’s Day! You can read about that and my tips for planning your own DIY retreat on the Writing Bloc blog. I am hoping to finish this draft by September 8! 

Speaking of Writing Bloc, there’s a new podcast episode up-- this one is on world building and features hosts Christopher Lee and Jacqui Castle along with guest author Rachel Sparks. I’m on the next one, which is about crowdfunding and should be up soon!

Jacqui Castle is currently crowdfuning the sequel to her award winning speculative dystopian novel The Seclusion, which has won a bunch of awards, and is timely and important. If you’ve got $10, consider supporting it-- you get a free copy of the first book and it helps bring new relevant literature into the world.

What else are you reading right now? I’ve been devouring novels on immigrants’ experiences:
Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue,
Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala, and
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sanchez are all fantastic. 
I think that even if you really want to be a good person, it can sometimes be hard not to let hateful rhetoric seep into your brain. Fiction is a powerful way to hold onto empathy and compassion.

Thank you for your support!