Hi Everybody!

Today is a sad day because unless Squids In finishes in the Top 3 of the Nerdist Video-Game contest, the illustration below might well be the last time you guys get to see Hendrix the octopus. Luckily the final illustration for Chapter 3 is a great one. It shows the burgeoning friendship between Toby and Hendrix, when Toby finally realises that the octopus has been without food for a good few days and so finds some crab meat with which to feed him.

Once again, this illustration was done by Eugene Karasz who I found over on DeviantArt. If any of you guys need an artist for any of your projects, let me know and I can put the two of you in touch.

For a brief period yesterday, Squids In surged up the leaderboard to 4th place! Sadly the book has dropped back to 5th today. It seems that the books sudden surge has pushed our competitors into action. 

If you have yet to commit to ordering this silly book about a video-game playing octopus, please give some consideration to doing so and have a read (or listen) to the chapters I have uploaded. 

It’s gonna be a fun few weeks. Remember, the contest ends on 15th July at 7am in the UK (which probably means I will be up all night trying to scrap the last few orders I can from some Australian supporters)!

Matthew

Sometimes we move the mountains in our own heads., and sometimes the mountains move us.

In the coming weeks, the next ten chapters will be posted online for beta reading. If you’re interested in taking a gander, and to see just how terrible things get for Albicon and company, let me know. Also, if you’re interested in beta reading the first ten, they are totally available to anyone currently receiving this message.

I’m still not dead, and neither is A Beast Requires.

Dear friends and followers,

It has been an exceptionally slow week, but I did say I was going to sit back a bit and consider my next steps. So ... with the manuscript for "Murder at the Veterans’ Club" done, what have I been up to?

Those of you with a taste for Interactive Fiction might be interested to know that I am putting together a little game for our friend Eric Peterkin. Join him--well, BE him--in a little investigation! I expect to have this out in a couple of weeks, so watch this space.

With all the news currently coming out of the UK, I’m reminded that the action of "Murder at the Veterans’ Club" is supposed take place in November 1924. Among other things, this is the month immediately following a general election in which the Conservative Party ousted the incumbent Labour Party with a landslide vote. Much of the Conservative victory was attributed to the publication of the Zinoviev letter a few days before the election, fanning fears of communism and suspicion against the left-leaning Labour Party. Interestingly, this seems to have hurt the Liberal vote more than the Labour vote: perhaps the non-Labour partisans of the day were voting strategically by throwing their collective weight behind the stronger of the two remaining parties.

Was the Zinoviev letter a forgery, though? And would anyone at the Veterans’ Club have cared? The military branches seem to tend towards the conservative, but that’s not exactly a rule. And conscription in the Great War meant that a lot of men, of non-military backgrounds, now qualified for membership at the Club....

I suppose we’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, what’s on the shelves at Inkshares?

1) "American Art Killers", by Andrew Oye. This has some very slick production art, and Oye appears to really know his stuff. I’m honestly a little surprised that this hasn’t had more traction over the course of its campaign.

2) "Falling from Grace", by Felecia Downing. A supernatural mystery, rather than a straight-up murder mystery. The sample is very well executed and shows personality right from the first paragraph.

And now, friends ... it is a glorious afternoon, and I intend to take full advantage of it. Until next week: have fun, and keep reading. 

Woohoo, Squids In has just moved up to 4th place in the contest! 

Thank you to all of my friends, work colleagues, family and the Inkshares community for supporting the book and getting it into this position.

Onwards to 3rd!!!

Matthew

The weeks continue to be hectic, so going to be another quick one.  First off if you haven’t checked out the short story collection I’m a part of "Too Many Controllers", then be sure to do so before the contest and funding end in about 3 weeks(just click the title above to go there).  Also, while I’m on the topic of projects other than Magus, I recently went on a bit of a spree adding idea pages for some of the other books both in the Exile series and not, that I’ve got at various fragment or even draft stages, so feel free to take a look at those and follow any that interest you.

As for Magus, my art search is currently on standby due to the lack of both time and money, but it will by the middle of July or beginning of August most likely.  I’m still undecided on just when to start the campaign.  Originally I was thinking mid-August or early September for a start time, but now I’m thinking it might be better for me to wait until the start of the year.  I plan to go more into my thinking on this in my next newsletter, as well as to have a poll there so I can get some insight into all of your thoughts as well, so to read that and give feedback be sure to sign up for the newsletter here.

Finally, I’ll be doing a takeover of the "Too Many Controllers"  twitter account tomorrow (6/26) starting around 2pm Eastern time.  I plan to give a bit of insight into both my writing processing, gaming interests/habits, and just the general scattered nature of my brain, so be sure that you’re following @Inkvengers on Twitter if you’re interested in getting such a glimpse into my head.

That’s all I’ve got for this update.  Enjoy the rest of your weekends!

Hello Everyone!