Hey Fans, Followers, and Fungi,

That one’s for you, Coop. When I was a youngster, we gave everyone nicknames. I still do, so if you don’t have yours yet, just let me know and we’ll get on that.

Ruining Boise update. Haven’t spent a lot of time with it, work is out of control, but I’ve been exploring themes and using Scrivener to create character sketches, map location scenes and capture ideas. This is new to me. I use Scrivener to write—love it as a writing tool—but mostly was blank paging it. My thought is to develop this as far as I can so it becomes a repeatable process to produce an outline to guide the writing. This is the current arrangement, inspired by Mike, that we thought might connect two stubborn authors into an effective collaboration. And to avoid bloodshed. Unless that’s what you really want…I think Mike’s been taking karate…

This is what I’m doing while waiting for the MINE manuscript to come back from my personal editor before sending it back to the Inkshares editor. If anyone out there needs the services of a professional dev editor, reach out. Mine (hehe) is a superstar. The Inkshares editor ain’t no slouch neither. Two superstars for the price of one!

I’m going to start with the opener, storyboard it. I like to jump right into the action, and have an idea for that allows for a lot of showing not telling of the situation...I’ll be sending that to Mike when it’s more fleshy, but don’t want to distract him either, as he’s engaged in writing his 2nd pass on PrOOF, so it may not come for a while. The point is, I’m dabbling with this story line, sketching it around the edges, and if we don’t realize any payoff with this current promotion, we shall return.

Want to mention a few authors who’ve been supportive with a shout out.

Celso’s paranormal novel in the Horror Contest deserves a look

https://www.inkshares.com/books/the-ghost-tracks

Go watch Chip’s reading of his first chapter. I want to hire this guy to read MINE

https://www.inkshares.com/books/ripe-for-execution

Durena Burns memoir. This book deserves more attention, IMO

https://www.inkshares.com/books/we-re-the-whiteheads

Nick’s entry in the Horror Contest, who doesn’t love a snipe hunt?

https://www.inkshares.com/books/snipe-hunt-639c7f

Hope you all enjoyed a wonderfully horrifying Halloween!

Dean

This message is approved by the Dean Fearce+Mike Welch collaboration machine

https://www.inkshares.com/dean-fearce-michael-welch

Good morning fellow readers & followers!

Yesterday, I noticed there are quite a few of you who are following my novel Ripe For Execution, but who have yet to place a pre-order. Hopefully that’s because you’re discerning folks who will only support something once you’ve had a chance to sample it – and, so far, you simply haven’t found the time to read those first few chapters.

So, to make it a little easier, I’ve read it for you! If you head to www.bit.ly/ripeforexecution right now, you’ll see a YouTube video of me reading the first chapter. So you can hit play, then keep it on in the background while you get on with another important task such as making a sandwich, feeding your pet, washing the dishes, etc.

Please do consider placing a pre-order when you can, though. It only costs $10 (c.£8), and if each follower who hasn’t pre-ordered yet were to do this then Ripe For Execution would shoot to 3rd place in the competition – and that equals publishing deal!

And even if it’s not your thing – or if you’ve already pre-ordered – but you’d still like to show your support, please forward the link above to all the friends, family and colleagues who you reckon would be intrigued by this explosive new novel.

Cheers folks! Thanks again for reading, and I’ll be in touch again soon...

Perhaps the best thing about publishing in this way is that you folks get to influence the manuscript before it’s committed to print. Sure – if just one of you tells me you don’t like something, I might choose to leave it for now because I honestly think I’ve done the best I can. But when two of you make the same point, that’s proof that something needs sorting straight away...

That’s why I spent some time this afternoon editing the first section of my first chapter. For at least two of you, Jake’s section had appeared a bit too staccato, disjointed, and repetitive. While both these readers agreed it was a good way of conveying the youthfulness of Jake’s POV, they also made the valid point that it could be too difficult a read for the very first page of the book. And, after all, we want folks to read on...!

Not only that, but it seems a few of you have missed the fact that the first chapter comprises several sections – not your fault in the slightest, but rather due to my own decision to put each section on a different webpage. So I’ve cleared that up (I hope) by putting all of chapter 10 on one page, marking each section with a new header. That’s probably closer to how it’d look in print or ebook format anyhoo.

There’s the odd little change elsewhere, but nothing major beyond the edit of Jake’s section. So if you haven’t read the whole sample chapter already, please give it a go now – or else, maybe just cast your eye over Jake’s section and let me know if you agree that it works better now.

Or perhaps you preferred it the way it was...?

Any which way, thanks for getting me to 5th place in the competition! It’s currently very close, though: if only 13 more of you pre-order, I’ll be in 3rd – and thus guaranteed a publishing deal.

So if you haven’t pre-ordered yet, please consider it now – it’s just $10 (c.£8), and you get that money back immediately if the book doesn’t win or raise enough crowdfunding.

And if you have pre-ordered, please encourage as many of your friends, family and colleagues to do so as you can!

Thanks again for all your help, folks. Now I shall spend the rest of the weekend working on the second chapter for you to enjoy...