Thank you everyone that has been following Human Resources here on Inkshares. Today I received some exciting news. Actually, "exciting" doesn’t cut the mustard in this circumstance. 

Today, The Launchpad Manuscript competition announced its Top 75 finalists -- and Human Resources is in the list! I am humbled, excited, and a little intimidated -- but I am strapped in and ready for the ride now taking off.

If you don’t know about the Launchpad Manuscript Competition -- it is one of the "Inkshares" competitions, but a little different to their others. This one is run independently in conjunction with Energy Entertainment and  Scott Free Productions 

(yes, *that* Scott). 

Apart from being a partnership, this competition differs from Inkshares regular fair by having an expert judging phase -- entrants had to submit a traditional synopsis and up to 50 pages of manuscript for industry judges to assess. 

The Top 75 have been selected by that panel.

 You get to pick the winners (hint -- pick me). 

At some point there will be a more traditional Inkshares crowdfunding competition -- I’ll be reaching out to you when that happens. For now, I’m just too excited not to share the news!

Robert

The Animal in Man is done. I can hardly believe it. No one doubted that this day would ever actually arrive more than me, I assure you. After months of what I called Radio Silence, I’m back - fingers trembling - to send out this reader update.

So what happens now? Well, I’ve sent all 350+ pages to Inkshares just an hour ago, and from there they’ll put together my production timeline and all the other wonderful things they provide. I’ll collaborate with them to nail down some ideas for the final cover design. In the months that follow there will be edits… load upon load of edits. The more meticulous work, you see, is really just starting.

I’ve never finished a project this massive in all my life, and yet, it’s not entirely finished. Still, I can’t contain my excitement. This is a turning point for me, and I couldn’t have done it without all the follows, all the interest (all the pre-orders!) for The Animal in Man. I just wanted to thank you all for your continued support. You’ll be hearing from me on the reg from now on!

(“Natural Collapse” - Design by Diogo Hornburg via threadless.com)  

Hello readers,

So...sorry for accidentally maintaining a radio silence for three months. I had meant to post an update on how the Remains is going and keep the good folks here up to date on these things. But I guess being bad at keeping up with self-made promises is one of the reasons I’m slightly overweight and are writing a novel instead being a blogger. Well...I’m not gonna make any promises here that I think I will accidentally break, so let’s move on.

The Remains is chugging along at a steady pace...and I shall now unveil The Remains of Civilization V2.0! 

Here’s a slightly more typo-free, 200% more humorous, and punchier chapters of the book! I promise this time the revision I made to the chapter will make rereading them be like adding sprinkles on a vanilla-flavored ice-cream on a hot, sunny day instead of a reptitive task. I would be interested in hearing your feedback on the story so far and your opinions on it. The reader’s voice is essentially the lifeblood of writers, we REALLY can’t live without ’em.

Chapter 0

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Other than that, I can now also officially announce that I will finish this draft before or during NaNoWriMo and also had finished planning and writing down the ending for the story. Funny how the ending was almost completely different from how I had finished the first draft, but that was never meant to be the real ending anyway, the ending to the first draft served as a placeholder for when I thought of a better ending and a reminder that if you don’t plan...eh things can really become a mess really quickly. At the end, the current draft is more a rewrite than an edit, really.

Well, that’s unfortunately all. I’ll probably post another update next month. Until then.

-Yicheng Liu

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present the ground floor plan for the Veterans’ Club.

Not shown: fireplaces. Yes, there are multiple fireplaces, because this place was built in a time before proper central heating. Possibly it has been renovated since, but there are still fireplaces. And if you’re wondering why a gentlemen’s club has what is clearly a ladies’ restroom: the gentlemen members do bring ladies in to dine from time to time, and may God have mercy on their souls if a lady has no place to powder her nose.

(I do invite comments and criticism on this plan. I confess that I have not actually made an in-depth study of the club building layouts around St James Place.)

Meanwhile! How are we doing? The third Peterkin Investigates game is still in production. I hope to have it out before Friday ... some of you may be aware that IFcomp 2016 begins on 01 October, and everyone who plays these things will be playing and judging the competition games. So I’d like to get my game out before that flood begins. I may have to make a rare mid-week update just to announce the game.

Watch this space, folks!

This week something pretty amazing happened. Inkshares sent me the back cover text and author bio for The Punch Escrow. I was also given an official publication date, which is a lot further in the future than I originally imagined, but makes sense. The book will be released at San Diego Comic Con (July 19, 2017) and will be given a big promotional push by Geek & Sundry there. We haven’t even started coming up with what sort of pomp and circumstance we’ll do, but I’m sure it’ll be fun. Anyway, the rewrite is moving along swimmingly. Some days more swimming than others. Right now with around 35% of the rewrite complete, I can’t seem to get out of the limbo that exists between 28,000 and 29,000 words, but I’m very motivated by deadlines and I’ve committed to handing in the manuscript by November 1, so I’ll get there. For those curious about the back copy and author bio, here’s what they look like (some of you who have been with me since the beginning of this campaign will note that International Transport has gotten better at marketing, they’ve eliminated "Journey" from their slogan):

Back Cover Synopsis:

It’s the year 2471. Advancements in nanotechnology have enabled us to control aging. We’ve genetically engineered mosquitoes to feast on carbon fumes instead of blood, ending air pollution. And teleportation has become the ideal mode of transportation, offered exclusively by International Transport—a secretive firm headquartered in New York City. Their slogan: Departure... Arrival... Delight!

Joel Byram, our smartass protagonist, is an everyday twenty-fifth century guy. He spends his days training artificial-intelligence engines to act more human, jamming out to 1980’s synthpop—an extremely obscure genre, and trying to salvage his deteriorating marriage. Joel is pretty much an everyday guy with everyday problems—until he’s accidentally duplicated while teleporting.  

Now Joel must outsmart the shadowy organization that controls teleportation, outrun the religious sect out to destroy it, and find a way to get back to the woman he loves in a world that now has two of him.

Author Biography Back Cover Version

Tal M. Klein was born in Israel, grew up in New York, and currently lives in Detroit with his wife and two daughters. When she was five years old, his daughter Iris wrote a book called I’m a Bunch of Dinosaurs that went on to become one of the most successful children’s book projects on Kickstarter —something that Tal explained to Iris by telling her, “your book made lots of kids happy.” Iris then asked Tal, "Daddy, why don’t you write a book that makes lots of grownups happy?" Tal mulled this over for a few years, and eventually wrote his first book, The Punch Escrow. It won the Inkshares Geek & Sundry Hard Science Fiction publishing contest, and will be the first book published on the Geek & Sundry imprint.