Today I have the most amazing news to share. Yesterday, The Launch Pad announced their final winners of the 2016 Manuscript Competition — I am thrilled by the revelation Human Resources has been picked by Scott Free as one of their winners. 

To discover that a production company with such an impeccable reputation liked my novel — that they believe it has what it takes to become a successful movie — is beyond my ability to describe. Here is the official description of what that this prize is:

Ridley Scott’s company Scott Free was one of the first major companies to take e-books into the spotlight when they found The Martian and developed it into what would become a Best Picture nominee starring Matt Damon. They were also the first company to buy a Launch Pad project, when they picked up Daniel Turkewitz’s Tranquility Base. Now they’re looking to do the same for you. Our exclusive partnership with Scott Free means not only are they represented on our judging panel, they have also committed to option at least 1 project with an eye towards discovering their next break out hit.

More than 24 hours later and I still can’t fully process what has happened. There are no details to report beyond the official announcement. The novel has not — yet — been optioned, but it seems that is likely. My dreams are coming true, and you have all played a key role in enabling that to happen.

Thank you.

Bonus Feature: Advanced Field Intelligence System. 

I’ve created the second of my planned bonus features for you. This time, I’ve unearthed the wiki page for AFIS, the system used by the Special Operations Group in the novel to give them an advantage of the field. If you’ve read all the excerpts on the site, you will have encountered this under the acronym COED — the product has undergone a re-branding.

If you would like to learn a little more about AFIS, follow this link.

Crowdfunding Competition Rolls On 

The crowdfunding competition has not finished! The announcement yesterday was for the formally judged portion of The Launch Pad for 2016. The crowdfunding competition — the part you have direct control over — continues until 16 December. If you haven’t pre-ordered a copy, now is an excellent time!

You can pre-order here.

And then, all of a sudden, it was done.

Okay, update time. A short-ish one.

No calendar chart today, mainly because there was nothing new to put on it over last weeks.

Everything was rather disrupted again this week, must be the time of year. One thing I did find the time to do however, was to listen to the entirety of my book over a couple of days.

Yes. Listen.

Now it may have been with my Mac’s automatic text-to-speech through Scrivener, but it was overall a pretty good experience. The most surprising part of it all was that I actually found myself entertained by my own writing. There were small comedy moments that I’d forgotten I’d written that I actually laughed at. So I think that’s encouraging? Right?

I also realised that structurally, I’m really solidly pleased with the second half of the book. There are a few kinks to work out on the front end, but overall there’s not as much hardcore editing/rewriting to do as I thought. Which is good.

Work is back to focusing on Ghosts again this week, LandFall has hit a bit of a snag which has it in a form of limbo. Hopefully, it will get sorted soon.

Until next time.