It’s been almost a month since my last update on Human Resources, and I’m pleased to report that month has been productive. I have now completed the second draft of the novel and handed it over to Inkshares for editing.

Thanks to the support of my wife, I was able to take January off to focus on this process. There was a lot of work required to complete the second draft — every existing scene was re-written and thirty-one new scenes added, rounding out the story. The manuscript grew from approximately 58k words, to 70.3k words, then settled back to just under 70k.

This is a critical milestone. From here, the formal editing process begins. There are three stages of editing with Inkshares; developmental, copy, then proof-reading. 

The developmental edit is structural: 

• Is the pacing right? 
• Are there any plot holes? 
• Does this character make sense? 
• Does this sub-plot go anywhere interesting? 
  

The developmental edit should take about three months.

The copy edit is technical. It focuses primarily on grammar and spelling, helping make the writing as clean as possible. This edit takes about one month.

Proof reading is the final step, fresh eyes are given the completed manuscript to read cover to cover and provide feedback. When working on the previous two editing stages, you can lose perspective by spending so much time working on specific details. This stage helps make sure the novel "works." This stage takes about one month.

In parallel to the editing, the publisher will have designers working on cover designs etc. I’ve been told who will be working on Human Resources and I’m excited about it. I’m waiting for confirmation as to whether it is something I can announce — stay tuned...

If you would like more details about the publishing process with Inkshares, and what will happen at each stage, the company recently released a post about it here.

New Excerpts

The novel page on Inkshares has several excerpts available to read from the first part of the book. Their platform enables readers to highlight sections they like, and add comments to discuss with other readers and the author. Up until now, I’ve left these excerpts alone as much as possible. I’ve received some great engagement from the community, with a lot of comments and interactions on the excerpts. However, with the second draft finished, I needed to update these excerpts with newer versions. This is now done, so don’t be thrown if all the comments have disappeared. Hopefully, you’ll all agree the new versions are an improvement.

Mailing List

I’ve started an author mailing list and will be sending out a monthly newsletter to people who subscribe. There will be some overlap with my Human Resources updates, but the newsletter will be broader; it will include some of my short stories, blog articles on writing, and information on other projects I become involved in. You can sign up here (and obviously unsubscribe any time if you find it isn’t for you).

Other Projects

I wanted to take an opportunity to highlight some other interesting projects currently funding on Inkshares:  

• Arcadia, Andre Brun: Peter Pan meets The King in Yellow. Ten strangers must band together and find a way to defeat Suelitta before they lose what is left of their sanity (Horror).
• The Walls are Closing In, Jacqui Castle: Decades after The Seclusion, during which America constructed massive border walls and sealed itself off from the outside world, thirty-one year old Patricia Evans lives within the panoptic nightmare of a total surveillance state (Dystopian).
• How to Kiss Like a Movie Star, Leslie Nipkow: What happens when a real-size girl decides to become a movie star? How to Kiss Like a Movie Star is a love story: tragic, funny, unrequited, and occasionally illegal, about death, acting, boxing, breast cancer, secrets, and soap opera (Memoire).
• King’s Daughter, Julia Bobkoff: King’s Daughter brings to life the 10th century saga of the spirited Danish warrior princess Thyra Haraldsdatter and the man she loved and lost, Norway’s legendary maverick King Olaf Tryggvason—a tale of love, war, betrayal, and redemption (Historical Fiction).
• The Phantom Forest, Liz Kerin: In a war-torn tribal city inhabited by mystical spirits, a young woman named Seicha is ritually sacrificed to a demon and must navigate the dangers of the Underworld to protect the family she left behind from beyond the grave (Fantasy).

Hello Readers,

10 days into funding for Wake up Call, and I might be a little behind. Fear not for I will work my hardest to have Henry’s story told. In the last week new readers have followed the book, and for that, I am grateful Also to the readers the have already gone ahead and grabbed a copy.

THANK YOU!!! I want you all to know that you mean the world to me and I will not let you down. That being said if there is anything extra that you all would like to see, a scene with some of the other character, or such let me know. I want to do as much as possible to make this work.

Enjoy your weekend.

Campers,

Inkshares apologizes, but due to an unforeseen scheduling swap, Sunshine is Forever will now be released on August 29, 2017. All good things are worth waiting an extra fourteen days for...

Sorry about this, they promise that the date will not change again.

Kyle T. Cowan

Friends, Readers, and Sorcerers All,

It’s been awhile. Things have been very busy here at the Codex Arcanum, in no small part because of all the wonderful book things that have been happening at Inkshares. Sorry for not updating sooner, but after three months of crazy crowdfunding, I think a little breather was in order for us all. 

But good things are happening. We got notes back from Staton, our editor. Lots of great suggestions for changes and improvements, which I am in the process of implementing. We got a production schedule from Avalon and a marketing plan from Angela. Both have confirmed that this is really a thing that is happening, and it’s now my job to make it as awesome as can be. 

We also have a release date - August 1, 2017! It’s crazy how close that is (in a good way), and how many items still need to be crossed off the to-do list (in an exciting way). But we will make it happen, fear not. We are sorcerers.

Finally - the moment for which you’ve truly been waiting. As you know, one of our last funding prizes was the offer to name a character in the book after one of you lovely book-buying supporters. So after consulting the tea leaves, throwing the bones, and clicking the button of a random number generator between 1 and 255 unique readers, the Fates gave us back the number 213. Going down the list, that means the winner is ...

MOE MOE!  

One of the best names I’ve ever encountered on a human now gets to be enshrined for all time as a character in the Codex Arcanum series. Thanks again to all of you have supported the book. We’ve got some cool info coming down the pike. Stay tuned ...

mh

Friends!

I apologize for the lack of updates. My nose has been pressed against the old grindstone, and in spite of a slew of interruptions and several "I’M THE WORST WRITER IN THE WORLD I F*****G QUIT WHY DIDN’T I GO TO MEDICAL SCHOOL" text messages and the holiday season sucking the dregs of my soul out of my withered retail worker body, I will be handing what I’ve managed to cough up to the copy editor on Tuesday. As in, less than a week from Tuesday.

This time last year I barely had 75 pages of what would ultimately become the one-act novella that started everything. As of right now, Devil’s Call has 151 pages and I still have about 20,000 words to write before it’s "finished," but it will be a quick 20,000 words. I’m not sure at which point things will shift from "Surreal" to "My Life Now," but I have an agent and a promotional schedule and Devil’s Call has a cover, which if you haven’t seen it yet

I’ve ganked it from Target.com’s website for your viewing pleasure.

According to the schedule the lovely Avalon Radys put together for me, I’m going to start being way more vocal about the novel’s progress starting in March, so enjoy the silence while it lasts.

-J.