Congratulations everyone, with five new readers yesterday there will be a $50 donation made to the Le Sueur American Legion. Well done!

And today we are starting a new charitable partnership for “Crow’s Gambit”. As some of you know Le Sueur MN is a small town that is very fortunate to have a great public library and librarian. In the past I have helped raise money for the library to continue its many activities (many of them kid related). Today I pledged $1 for every copy sold of “Crow’s Gambit” to the library. Not $1 for every copy sold during the contest but for every copy sold period.  

Of course that puts a little pressure on me to actually get the book published. With only ten days left in the contest if you are still sitting on the fence I hope you’ll decide to jump onboard.

You should have just received an excerpt from Chapter 12 of the story. It helps give a tiny bit of background on what the world faced after Net-Day. I hope it makes you ponder the possible impacts of Net-Day in the story.

Thanks for the support!

PT

So I tried fourth place for a little while. It wasn’t for me.

We’re back in third! And still climbing, too. I don’t like being passed, so I’m pretty determined to snatch that second place position soon. There’s still an irritating chance that we might get knocked down to fourth again, and I’d very much like to put some distance behind me asap to keep that from happening. So please keep up the good work and share our updates, and ESPECIALLY tell your friends and families about this book. The more people we get on board, the better our chances are of really securing our place in the top three. We’ve only got ten days left. They all have to count.

I am way too stubborn to lose this contest. Much like today’s highlighted character: Captain Lucas Sicarius: the man so determined to hold onto his power, he simply refused to die.

Lucas Sicarius

The youngest of three brothers, Lucas spent most of his life trying to live up to the expectations set in place by his eldest brother. When Jacob joined the military at eighteen and became an all but overnight war hero, Lucas followed in his brother’s footsteps. His skills were impressive, enough to get him assigned to the elite taskforce known as the Razorbacks, alongside his brother. Upon joining the Razorbacks, Lucas was implanted with an Erymanthos combat AI named Eidolon, which further enhanced his skills. However in spite of his impressive natural talents, Lucas and Eidolon continued to be overshadowed by Jacob and Proteus throughout most of their military career.

While Jacob’s skills were focused on ground combat, Lucas’s talents were keyed more toward combat support. He was especially adept at piloting various aircraft and spacecraft. Eidolon assisted with this, adapting its primary function as a combat assessor and target finder to aid Lucas in performing complex flight maneuvers. It also adapted its battlefield memorization programming, allowing it to memorize the controls of every vehicle Lucas piloted, enabling him to feel as familiar with a new vehicle as if he’d been piloting it for years. Lucas became one of the Razorbacks’ best combat pilots, and at last it seemed that he’d begun to make a name for himself, rather than merely being “Jacob’s younger brother.”

This all changed when, during a mission on the perilous sun-blasted planet Buyan, the dropship Lucas was piloting was struck down by a surface-to-air missile. All hands were lost in the ensuing crash, save for Jacob and Lucas. Though both men were gravely injured in the crash and one of Buyan’s two deadly suns was about to rise, Jacob managed to save both their lives by burying them both in the sand until rescue could come during Buyan’s brief dusk.

Battered, bloody, and deeply discouraged, Lucas found rescue worse than death. Once again, Jacob was hailed the hero, while Lucas was merely the one who’d crashed a ship. When both men were offered the chance to retire from active duty with honors, Lucas accepted, while Jacob did not.

Lucas served for a few more years in the military in various behind the scenes functions, but found no fulfillment in it. Several years later when Jacob was offered the coveted honor of being the leader of the future colony on Bella Rosa, Lucas was invited to join the mission. Initially, he was to join Jacob and their other brother Isaac in cold stasis, the three of them being revived together upon arrival at their destination.

But Lucas knew when they arrived at Bella Rosa, it would only be the same old story again. Once again, Lucas would be living in Jacob’s shadow, forever known as “Jacob’s brother.” He saw an opportunity to choose a different fate.

Instead of joining the colonists, Lucas applied for the captaincy of the Somnambule. His service record was more than satisfactory for the job, and Lucas was declared captain. As his brothers bid him an emotional farewell, Lucas watched them submit to the deep sleep of cold stasis. He knew he would never see them awake again in his lifetime. He knew, from this point on, he was the only Sicarius people would talk about.

For decade upon decade, Lucas served as the absolute authority on The Somnambule. The entire crew answered to him. He was the master of all he surveyed. At last, he had found his own importance. For 75 years he ran The Somnambule. When his body began to fail from old age, he had his life prolonged through cybernetics.

As he continued to cling to his twilight years of power and life, eventually becoming so dependent on his cybernetics he served as more of an autopilot than a captain. His body was plugged directly into the ship; it’s systems became as much a part of his mind and body as his own. Even as death tapped its foot patiently waiting for him, he refused to relinquish the control he’d found. He refused to let go of a life he’d already prolonged too far. He had found his kingdom; a world all his own.

Then, with a freak act of sabotage in the stasis bay, Jacob Sicarius awoke once again…

Exciting news, readers: 1000 Faces has been chosen as the monthly pick for the Break the Bechdel with Strong Female Characters Syndicate. This is a real honour and I’m so delighted to share with you the syndicate’s reason for picking 1000 Faces:

  In 1000 Faces, J. Graham-Jones has captured one of the most insidious fears that waits below the surface of almost every modern interaction- privacy. Kara, the protagonist, is a woman who seems to wear a mask to keep out those around her as well as all those who read her story. Jones’ voice is crisp and mysterious, masterfully easing us into this very possible future through the eyes of a woman we can’t wait to see come into her own.  

The support of the syndicate has pushed 1000 Faces into 5th place in the Nerdist contest. We’re now within 16 readers of the top 3 and victory!

Don’t forget to check out the teaser trailer on Youtube, and my interview with Natacha Guyot’s Nexus.

More importantly, don’t forget to preorder. There are only 10 days left in the contest, and your preorder could be the difference between Kara Finch hiding behind a mask forever, or stepping out into the spotlight...

~ Jenny

Greetings Jackolytes,

Sync City and Jack Trevayne have been out in the wild for a few months now. If you’ve had the chance to stroll through Jack’s adventures, then it’d be fantastic if you could put a review up on Amazon and/or Goodreads (follow the links). Books live and die by reviews, so your contributions would be vastly appreciated!

The reviews can be good, bad or indifferent; they can be long or short, it really doesn’t matter. What does matter, is that you chuck your two cents’ worth in. Let people know what you think!!

For those folks in Australia, the UK and South Korea, the Kindle version is now available. Hit the country link and you’ll get right there.

I look forward to seeing you on Amazon and Goodreads!!

Cheers,

Peter

I’m afraid I have some bad news, friends. For the first time in almost a week, Proteus is not in the top three. We had a long and trying battle with the book that had been in fourth place today, jumping back and forth between being one order ahead and one order behind. Then today, that book blasted right past us straight into the second place spot with more than a dozen orders in rapid succession. Quite an impressive feat, I must say.

The good news is that the book that was in second place that is now in third is now only three orders ahead of us, so we can retake our rightful place in the top three soon enough. But only with your help! I need a real outpouring of support, guys. The danger of not making it to the top three by the end of the contest is very real. Something like what happened today could happen at any moment, and there’s no way to see it coming.

Unless, that is, you’re the Crone of the Lower Decks, Marion Krieg: one of our story’s antagonists. She sees everything coming....

Marion Krieg

Marion Krieg was one of the most brilliant minds to come out of Crisium University. At the age of 18, Krieg graduated with twin PHDs in quantum computing and AI engineering, with minor focuses in cybernetic engineering and cyberneural integration.

Despite having a broad variety of career paths to choose from, young Marion Krieg opted to accept an invitation from the Expansionary Coalition to serve as head scientist aboard the newly built colony ship Somnambule. Not being a naturally social person, Krieg felt no particular qualms about spending the rest of her life aboard a starship thousands of light years from settled space. The opportunity to conduct unlimited scientific experiments with no government oversight or restriction was, to her, its own reward.

On The Somnambule, Marion spent the first several years developing technologies to assist future generations of the crew, including an exceptionally adaptive level-five AI designed as a universal tutor in any field of study on record. In spite of this invaluable educational resource, Marion also took to training her scientists personally.

Marion’s career on The Somnambule’s science staff spanned more than seven decades, and she taught and worked alongside four generations of scientists. She never considered retirement, nor did her impressive intellect dull with age. In fact, it was in the later years of her life that Krieg developed her most impressive, and most divisive, scientific breakthrough yet.

Krieg developed a quantum cortical implant so sophisticated, it could allow its user to literally see future events. Or at least, this is the claim Krieg made. The handful of initial volunteers who underwent the procedure to receive the new implant did demonstrate an uncanny ability to predict events several moments before they occurred, lending credence to her claim, incredible though it may have been.

Krieg was not satisfied with the implants’ performance, however. As impressive as they were, she believed she could enhance them to project even farther into the future. Following several waves of improved versions of the implant, she finally implanted one into herself, granting her the ability to see so far into the future that she could witness The Somnambule’s arrival on Bella Rosa.

The future she claimed to see was dire. She had witnessed a vague and terrible catastrophe at the journey’s end; some threat unknown and imperceptible, but utterly devastating to the mission and the lives of crew and colonists alike. Having witnessed this disaster, Marion insisted that the mission, already 70 years underway, must be aborted.

The captain refused to alter course for any reason, but Marion persisted. By this time she had amassed scores of followers among the scientific and civilian communities aboard The Somnambule and, after multiple fruitless attempts to convince the rest of the crew of the danger at mission’s end, Krieg declared outright mutiny.

She led her followers in an ill-fated attempt to seize control of the ship, but were ultimately repelled and temporarily subdued by The Somnambule’s loyalist security team. They managed to push Krieg and her rebels back to the lower decks of the ship. A stalemate was reached: Krieg’s forces had the advantage of precognitive enhancements, making them all but impossible to capture or kill, while the security team was far better armed for combat. Neither side would relent, and so began a long and bloody civil war for control of The Somnambule….

NOW, I want everyone to panic. We’ve been passed, aggressively. Crow’s Gambit is currently sitting in 3rd place and only two orders above a worthy contender in 4th. Now would be an absolutely excellent time to make a Pre-Order or drag a friend to a computer to make an order. 

I have to apologize. I promised you a Q&A video. I’m a little behind on that and I wanted to explain why. Besides the normal student advising, starting a major research project on vertical axis wind turbines, and finishing a project related to engineering student retention…I’ve spent the last three days as an instructor for a “Teach the Teacher” program. We had fifteen K-6 teachers from the region come in for an intense workshop exposing them to what engineering is, demonstrating classroom activities, helping them work on curriculum ideas, and getting them into a couple local manufacturing companies for tours. It uses up a lot of my time but it is one of the most fulfilling activities of my year and I feel like it really makes a difference. 

So, bear with me please. The video is on its way. In the meantime make sure to take a look at the excerpts that came out over the last few days and don’t forget the new incentives for each Pre-Order level. 

Thank you all. More to come… 

PT 

Greetings all! I can proudly say that we are now on day five of holding on to third place in the Nerdist contest. Our position is far from secure, however. The fourth place contender is tenacious, and second place keeps dodging our attempts to overtake them. At the moment, we are only three orders away from falling back down to fourth, and I don’t like that margin. I also don’t like not being in second place, and right now only five new orders stand in the way of seizing that coveted spot for ourselves.
We can get there, no doubt. I haven’t played all my cards yet. But we definitely need as much support as we can muster! Remember, keep sharing our content, keep telling your friends and family about it. If you’ve already ordered a copy, find one other person you know you can convince to do the same. If everyone who’s already ordered a copy got just one other person to do it too, we’d be in first place right now.
I’m planning on launching an incentive for you soon, so stay tuned. But don’t wait for it! We’re so close to taking second and securing our place on the final leaderboard, I can taste it. It tastes like victory.
I like victory.
You know who else likes victory? Our protagonist: Jacob Sicarius! He might like victory a bit too much, in fact. Let me take a moment to introduce him to you all....

Jacob Sicarius

General Jacob Sicarius stands as one of the most respected, and most decorated, soldiers in the entire Expansionary Coalition.

Enlisting in the Coalition Marine Corps  at the age of 18, Jacob showed great promise from the very beginning of his military career. His coordination on the battlefield was exemplary, and his dedication to every mission was second to none. His tenacity in the field earned him a reputation among allies and enemies alike.
Jacob’s excellent combat effectiveness swiftly earned him placement with the Razorbacks: an elite commando unit specializing in particularly hostile combat arenas on the Coalition’s frontier worlds. As part of his initiation into this elite unit’s ranks, Jacob was implanted with a CE 1500 Erymanthos cybernetic AI implant named Proteus. Proteus enhanced Jacob’s already formidable combat abilities well beyond the range achievable by any normal human being. Though all members of the Razorbacks were implanted with an Erymanthos, none seemed to work quite as flawlessly together as Jacob and Proteus.

Shortly after Jacob’s younger brother Lucas joined the Razorbacks, the team was deployed to a contested strip of land on the perilous desert world of Buyan. Tensions between the Expansionary Coalition and the Colonial Hegemony had risen to the point of open armed conflict, creating a localized war on the frontier world’s constantly shifting habitable zone.

The conflict between Coalition and Hegemony troops lasted several months. During the latter days of the conflict, Jacob’s dropship was shot down near the trailing edge of Buyan’s habitable zone, leaving both him and his brother badly wounded and the rest of the squad dead. Acting quickly despite being crippled by the crash, Jacob managed to save himself and Lucas from Buyan’s deadly day cycle by burying them both alive, protecting themselves from the lethal heat and radiation emitted by one of Buyan’s paired suns.

When they were rescued by the rest of the Razorbacks during Buyan’s brief second night cycle, both men were on the verge of death from exposure and blood loss. Jacob’s injuries were more severe, requiring extensive cybernetic reconstruction, including both legs below the knee and his left arm at the elbow. Both men were decorated for their bravery in surviving the ordeal, and both were given the option to retire with honors. Lucas took this option, but Jacob refused.

Jacob remained with the Razorbacks for another two decades, eventually becoming their commander. Many further engagements left Jacob with injuries that required further cybernetic replacements, and he had some of his existing replacements enhanced to increase his combat effectiveness.

Despite never losing his edge in battle, Jacob’s continued promotions led to his seeing less and less time in the field. He proved to have a natural gift for strategy, which was further enhanced by Proteus. As a general, he became a master tactician, and helped the Coalition come out on top in many subsequent conflicts with the Hegemony and numerous other hostile nations.

As a reward for his service to the Coalition, Jacob was selected to be the commander in chief of the Coalition’s planned colony on the newly discovered resource-rich planet of Bella Rosa. Though reluctant to leave the field of battle for good, and more reluctant still to embark on the one-way 150 year journey away from civilization as he knew it, Jacob eventually accepted the position.

Submitting himself to a long sleep in cold stasis aboard the colony ship Somnambule, Jacob found himself dreaming…of war.

It has been just under a month since the campaign ended for The Walls are Closing In, and I am standing in line clutching my ticket to the developmental editing show.

Inkshares groups books by season, and they are swamped with their summer releases. Some great titles have hit the shelves recently and others will be in the coming weeks. It has been a pleasure to watch the journey of these fellow authors and to get a sneak peak of what is to come.

It is my understanding that once Inkshares can turn their focus away from the new releases for a spare moment, they will be assigning developmental editors to a few of us at once. My hope is to be grouped in with the late spring/early summer 2018 releases. I will provide an update on that as soon as I know - try and stop me.

On my end, the full manuscript has been submitted, along with several pages of intimidating, exciting paperwork on topics ranging from ideal launch locations to cover design concepts. I was given a Properties Page that will be used to sell (fingers crossed) Movie & TV, Foreign Language, and Audiobook rights. I have also reworked the book’s main page to reflect the ’in production’ status.

Since everything is all turned in for the moment on my end, I have done what every author is to do instead of thumb twiddling, I have started the next book. If everything goes according to plan, The Walls are Closing In will be a trilogy.

So, for today’s update I am going to include an interview that I had with an online magazine, Inigo Online, during the campaign for your reading pleasure. Feel free to read on, or hit delete, or go to bed, or return to binge-watching Orange is the New Black.

Until next time!

-Jacqui

_____________________________________________________

Melanie: Jacqui, why do you think The Walls are Closing In is so relevant today?

Jacqui: Well, we are living through a profound time in history. Almost every day, some days it seems like every hour, a breaking headline emerges that shifts our current paradigm and leaves many of us struggling to regain footing. This is a time when most, regardless of political standing, are asking ‘what if?’ This story is simply my imagination’s answer to a few of the many ‘what ifs’ floating around today, and what the world could look like if they came to fruition. How would future generations be impacted? The main character, in my mind a future granddaughter/great-granddaughter living in 2090, struggles with living under the omnipresent eye of her government while attempting to separate her thoughts from the propaganda surrounding her. What would individuality and truth look like in this kind of world?

Melanie: Give us a short summary of the story.

Jacqui: The Walls are Closing In takes place in a post-border wall America in which mass surveillance, confinement to city centers, and addiction to mindless entertainment keeps everyone subdued and in line. Citizens are conditioned from a young age regarding acceptable conversation, history and world geography are classified, and a charge of ‘treason’ is slapped on just about everything outside of strict compliance. The protagonist, Patricia Evans, is a scientist who has the rare opportunity to work in some of the last remaining locations where one can have an unrestricted conversation— dilapidated national and state parks only protected because the uncontaminated soil contains final strains of the healthy bacteria needed for medicine and food production. While on a routine assignment, Patricia and her co-worker Rexx discover unedited banned books in a pre-wall van tucked out of view. This leads them on a destructive journey to dissect the truth about the time surrounding the erection of the border walls.

Melanie: What inspired you to write The Walls are Closing In?

Jacqui: Believe it or not, the story began over a year ago, when the reality of what we are currently witnessing didn’t yet seem probable. The idea for The Walls are Closing In came to me during the primary election campaign. I started it as a short story, and it snowballed from there. At the time, I sincerely thought that the story would forever remain in the ‘alternative history’ category, but as the events of 2016 unfolded, the story evolved. 

Melanie: Most often an idea snowballs and the story morphs as you write it. It’s like the voice of the muse grows louder and stronger the longer you are with the story and subplots emerge and before you know it, you’ve created a 3-d world. What are the subplots in The Walls are Closing In?

Jacqui: Though it does walk the line between fact and fiction, more than anything The Walls are Closing In, like other fictional stories, is about the characters. There is a splash of romance and a healthy dose of perseverance as the main characters explore what makes life worth living by finding joy in unlikely places. It is about digging deep, figuring out how to tap into your own truth in a society that conditions residents since birth.

Melanie: Tell us about Inkshares and how it works and why you chose this route over self-publishing.

Jacqui: It is a tough and long road out there for first-time authors, and Inkshares offers a unique opportunity for writers to present their work directly to those whose support matters most – the readers. With the topicality of my book, I knew that I wanted to throw it out there to see if it resonated (and not wait a year or two by making my way through the traditional querying and publishing process, or have to bear the burden of being the sole marketer of my book for the rest of my life through self-publishing).

Inkshares is crowdfunding, or reader-selected publishing. The author throws a few chapters of their book up for the public to read, the book is listed as available for preorder for a specified length (usually 3 months), and if a certain threshold is reached, then Inkshares steps in and offers everything that a traditional publishing house would offer. If a book does not reach a preorder goal, then readers are refunded once the campaign ends. Backers receive updates on the publishing process as it progresses, and are the first to receive a copy of the book once the production process is complete.

The response I have received has been remarkable, and at times overwhelming. The Walls are Closing In has been selected for five syndicates on Inkshares (groups of members who pool together to support one book per month by each preordering a copy. There are currently over 300 books funded on Inkshares, so to be selected by even one is an immense honor).

The community is unparalleled in the publishing world, as far as I am concerned. The moment I joined, I began forming connections with other authors that have been priceless. The Walls are Closing In recently surpassed the Quill light-publishing goal (250 orders), meaning that the book will be published. I am still striving for full publishing (750 orders) for increased visibility. However, even if I had run the campaign and not reached any level of publishing, joining Inkshares would have been worth it just for the community.

Melanie: Writing a book or any piece for public consumption makes you feel a little vulnerable. You’re putting yourself out there, even sometimes exposing inner thoughts that you yourself most often don’t realize you have. What would you say you learned about yourself while writing The Walls are Closing In?

Jacqui: Yes, especially with a book like this. I have received comically mixed reactions depending on the which side of the political fence my readers are on. As a professional journalist, I have discovered how much I enjoy fictional writing. The novel thing is a fresh endeavor for me. I have been a freelance editor and writer for about ten years, and a journalist for the past five. Honestly, I never saw myself writing fiction. Now, I can definitively say that I envision myself writing fiction for a long time to come. Fiction writing is cathartic in a way that non-fiction is not. Being able to express frustrations and desires through characters that you mold in any way that you choose, is strangely liberating.

Melanie: What do you hope your readers get out of your novel?

Jacqui: First, like any novelist, I hope that readers simply enjoy spending time with my characters and being transported to a different world for a little while each day. Also, The Walls are Closing In is a poignant story that confronts some of our worst fears about the current administration and speaks to the need to ‘find one’s voice’ in even the direst of circumstances. I hope that it resonates with readers and takes them on an inspiring, frustrating, poignant, and exhilarating ride.

Melanie: For people who have always wanted to write a book but are a little intimidated what advice would you give them?

Jacqui: Well, I will first say this, and it is a bit cliché, but cliché for a good reason. Write every single day, and you will be surprised at how quickly a book comes together. A novel generally sits at about 80,000 words. So, if you commit to writing 1,000 words a day (only an hour or two of writing), you can have the first draft of a novel completed in less than three months. Don’t worry about it being perfect, just get the first draft down. Also, don’t worry about the story emerging in any sort of linear fashion, you can address that later. If you have an idea for a scene that takes place several chapters away, write it, and connect the dots later. Just write, something, every day. Even if your book doesn’t spark political backlash, anything you write will feel intimidating once you put yourself in front of an audience. But, the first jump is the hardest. If you have a story to tell, tell it.

Melanie: Jacqui, thank you so much for taking the time to tell us about your book. We hope The Walls are Closing In does very well and reaches a large audience. Our best to you and your journey!