Inkshares just released a new blog post where they asked the current top ten authors in the Nerdist video-game contest to single out one (or more) of their competitors, either inside or outside of the current top ten, that has caught their eye.

Greetings everyone!

It’s been a while and I have some news for you guys.

First of all, I’m not dead and are just trying to juggle work and daily life alongside my goal of someday getting this book out there. Yes, I’m still working on making the book better and have officially called the first draft to an end.

Thus far, due to the fact that I no longer have to deal with the stress known as crowdfunding, I had got my stuff together and started the second draft and started to rewrite the story so that it make sense and sound less like it written with the ’visionary’ ideals of an eight-year-old ("Action! Explosion! Globetrotting! Boom!"). 

Though the overall plot and ending remained unchanged, the journey starting from chapter 4 onwards are going to radically different from the first draft as many unneccessary characters and shoddy scenes are going to be cut; and bad puns are no exceptions either. 

I plan to finish draft two within the next two months and decide on whether to submit it to the publishing companies that I had spent hours reasearching or publish it myself. So, with the help of a clear goal in mind and a much more detailed outline this time around, I shall give self-doubt and procrastination the finger. 

Until then,

Yicheng Liu.

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