It’s August again.
One year ago, The Slave Prince entered the Geek & Sundry Fantasy Contest. Boy oh boy, weren’t those days fun? I remember hustling you for support, checking my book’s status daily, and worrying if I could tough it out till October. It sure doesn’t feel like a year ago with such an experience. But, I’m glad I did it all.
One year later - this very month itself - The Slave Prince begins production. Yes, the ball is rolling! But as much as I’m celebrating, I have my work cut out for me. And I have to say, it’ll take a while before the book will be in print.
A week ago I received developmental notes from Inkshares’ Story Head, and just last Wednesday I responded with my rewrite outline. To make The Slave Prince better, some scenes have to be changed, more world building needs to take place, and a deeper drive must be given to the characters. So, I’ve decided to put writing the sequel of my trilogy on hold to focus on this novel. And I hope, I really hope, that I’ll be able to get the book ready for copyediting by the end of this year.
With all that said, there’ll be silence in the coming months. But the next time I write to you, I should be done with developmental editing. Now, it’s time I put my gameface on - it’s time I finish this race.
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Hey There Tentacle Lovers!
A fresh rewrite of my video-game playing octopus story "Squids In" will be coming to Inkshares soon, so make sure you keep following the project on Inkshares - https://www.inkshares.com/books/squids-in
Matthew
Hello!
Please pre-order a copy of Black Cloud today. If you do, I will give you a free audiobook of my first novel, Monkey Business. For real. I’ll just email you a download link and you can listen to it this weekend. It’s a funny book, a great weekend listen.
You’ve worked hard this week and you deserve some laughs. Monkey Business will deliver those laughs. It’s like an Amazon Prime delivery service for laughs. 1000 copies sold. 82 Amazon reviews with a 4.5 (out of 5) star rating. Have you seen how much audiobooks cost these days? A lot more than free when you pre-order Black Cloud, that’s for sure.
This is a good deal people. Get on it. It’s Friday, what else are you going to do? Work? Accomplish things? I think not.
Thank you, Landon
Hello, greetings, happy Friday! Welcome to the shortest email you will ever receive from an Inkshares author. Here it comes:
Would you like to go pre-order my new novel Black Cloud?
If you do, I’ll give you a free Monkey Business Audiobook. For real. I’ll just email you a download link and you can listen to Monkey Business this weekend. It will be great!
Thank you, Landon
Hello horror fans!
There’s so much I want to talk about today, but for simplicity’s sake, I’ll keep it to two thing and both of them are a plea for help.
Please, if you can, review A God in the Shed on Amazon and Goodreads. There’s a long list of reasons why you should do this. Some are marketing, some have to do with the television option, but mostly, you want to win the leather bound copy I’m raffling off when we reach 100 reviews on Amazon.
Wow... for a second year in a row, one of my books is nominated for a Dragon Award. That’s right, A God in the Shed is nominated in the horror category. You can turn this nomination into an actual victory. Just head over to the voting page and fill out the form and when the voting ballot comes in please vote for A God in the Shed.
NOTE: If you don’t know how to fill out the rest of the ballot, here are some suggestions!
Thank you again for your support. I fail as a writer because I can’t conjure the proper words to tell you how much your help has meant.
JF
Monthly update time for Human Resources!
Last month I mentioned the focus of the developmental edit had been on expanding the world-building and firming up some of the science behind the novel. I’m pleased to report that is now complete, I have new beat sheets and scene outlines, and am officially writing pages again!
Speaking of science, the _MIT Technology Review_ just published a very interesting article on CRISPR being used to edit the DNA of human embryos. Why is this interesting? Because this application of CRISPR is a key trigger for the creation of the world in my novel. I’ve uploaded a special new excerpt to the Inkshares site telling the history of the world, from today to when my novel starts. You can read it here.
In other news, I took advantage of receipt trip to Sydney (the setting for the book), to further explore some of the relevant locations for scenes. I use the apple maps 3D city render, along with google street view extensively, but there’s nothing better than standing on-site. A couple highlights below.
That’s all for now — I need to get back to the manuscript and finish writing it so you can all read it.
Cheers,
Robert.
