Most patient and dedicated Supporters,
I am happy to let you all know that the third draft has gone to my beta readers. I’m expecting their feedback to come back in about two weeks(ish?). From there, provided that everything goes well, I want to send the manuscript to Inkshares within a month.
I realize there’s a lot of "if" in this plan, but my goal is to get this book into the production process by early July at the earliest. My dearest hope is that your patience will be well-rewarded and that once you hold your copies of Lucky in your hands you will find that the wait has been worth it.
More news coming soon. As always, a galaxy of thanks for all of you.
Sincerely, Webster
Hello friends,
I apologize for the radio silence, but I’m back now with exciting news!
Despite the fact that I fell off the radar for a few weeks due to an unplanned hospitalization, the bus is pretty much driving itself at this point: Devil’s Call has gone off to the typesetter and has a lovely cover from the amazing David Drummond that includes several positive blurbs. Jerry Smith from Fangoria, James Demonaco (creator of The Purge series), and J-F. DuBeau (author of A God in the Shed) contributed lovely words about the novel. ARCs have gone out, and reviews are starting to trickle in on Goodreads.
Check out this cover!
One of the immediate impediments to my online presence is the lack of Internet at the transitional housing where I’m staying while I wait to hear back about a more permanent supportive apartment. (At risk of getting all TMI over everybody, part of the reason I was hospitalized had to do with a nosedive of a depressive episode that involved a relapse after 10 months of sobriety, so here we are.) While I am able and intend to go online using WiFi hot spots, the majority of my time is now devoted to recovery.
But! Devil’s Call still has a publication date of July 17, and I am very stoked to see where my little novel goes this summer. Will make more of an effort to keep y’all up to date from now on.
xoxo,
J.
Updates, Faoii! Listen up!
I’m sorry for the long silence between updates. These last few weeks have been long, exhausting, and in many ways painful and even heartbreaking. But, we are faoii. We are nothing if not resilient. Thus, I am determined to carry my head high and continue forward, sword and shield at the ready. Luckily, we don’t have to depend on sheer force of will this time-- there has been two bright rays of wonderful news within the darkness, and I am honored to tell you about them here.
First off: The Last Faoii has been given to an editor over at Reedsy! Chersti Nieveen is an amazing woman with over twelve years of editorial experience. She has helped to perfect several books that I’ve read (one that I just picked up two weeks ago) and I am so awed to have her looking at something that I’ve been working on for so long. With her help, I am certain that our army and its campaign will be stronger still. You can learn more about her and her previous work by clicking here.
Second: I am deeply honored and even in tears because of Evan Graham’s newest update. What a wonderful thing to read after what has turned out to be one of the hardest periods of my life. I am so incredibly humbled to be recognized by such an amazing author, and feel blessed beyond words that he would consider me a friend. Evan is a wonderful person, a fantastic writer, and worthy of every kindness the world and gods might offer. If you haven’t yet, please head over to his page and order your copy of Tantalus Depths. It is well worth it.
That is all the news I have for now, faoii. I hope your own battles are going well and that your foes tremble at your strength of heart and steel. Whatever it is that you are facing, I know you can overcome it.
Shields up.
Faoii-Tahani
No particular news for Tantalus Depths itself right now. I’ve not heard anything from Inkshares about the next step in the production process, but it’s still early and I hadn’t expected to yet.
I am currently working on the promised prologue chapter, but I’m toying with the idea of making two smaller ones instead of one larger one, as I have two interesting ideas that can’t be easily combined. We’ll see how that goes.
My main purpose for this update is not for me, or even for Tantalus Depths. I wanted to take an opportunity to show my heartfelt appreciation for a good friend.
I met Tahani Nelson through Inkshares during our mutual pre-order campaigning period. Her book, The Last Faoii, caught my attention quickly. Kaiya, her resolute protagonist, has a knack for overcoming impossible hardships without giving up even in the bleakest of circumstances, and is exactly the sort of character I strove to depict with Mary Ketch. I kind of see the two characters as cross-genre sisters.
As I’ve gotten to know Tahani better as a person, I’ve learned the true extent that the character imitates the author. She’s overcome no small number of impossible obstacles, and though they continue coming her way, she resolutely pushes through them without giving an inch of ground. She’s a real-life Kaiya, and so, in many ways, a real life Mary.
I felt a person like Tahani deserves to be immortalized in writing. The universe of Tantalus Depths is an unforgiving, dark place. Human civilization is a constantly imperiled thing; a child swimming obliviously among sharks. Yet, one of the core tenants of Tantalus Depths and any associated stories, is the notion that, in spite of these dangers, humanity endures. We may always be at the brink of destruction, but through determination and sheer force of will, we survive against the odds.
Tahani represents this to me, in life. To properly show what that means to me, I’ve named a planet for her, which I will include some capacity into the Tantalus Depths universe. If I can sneak it into Tantalus Depths somewhere during the revision phases to come, I will. If I can’t find anywhere to slip it in where it feels natural, it will be referenced at some point in the upcoming sequel. Either way, the presence of this planet in the Colonial Hegemony is now and forever canon.
Shields up, Faoii.
Greetings hexers,
Good morning! I want to thank you all for your support in this campaign. There’s a week left in funding Fury From Hell. If you have not yet shared your support, I would appreciate it now.
I also wanted to let you know that I’ve submitted Fury From Hell to the Inkshares/LaunchPad contest running right now. The reader judges are in the process of selecting the Top 75 manuscripts submitted. These 75 authors will be notified on Sat, July 29th, 2017.
Then, the judges will whittle it down to the Top 25 manuscripts and announce those 25 authors on Sun, August 27th, 2017.
So folks please keep Fury From Hell in your hearts and minds as we wait for the initial results this summer. I will keep you updated!
Have an awesome Thursday!
P.S. - I posted two new chapters bringing the total to 12 chapters available for your reading pleasure.
Find out what has been happening to Detective Holden during her mysterious fugue/blackout periods...
Best,
Rochelle
I got 2 pieces of cool news for you today....
Cool News #1 - The rad fellas over at The Negative One podcast had me on to guest-host their latest episode. We discuss the glittery trash pile that is David Lynch’s 1984 movie adaption of Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel, Dune. Check it out:
http://neozaz.com/category/podcasts/negative-one/
Cool News #2 - The Space Tripping Audio book is available for pre-order at Audible/Amazon now! The release date is June 6th. Because your eyes shouldn’t get to have all the Space Tripping fun. It’s time to share the love with your ears. Here’s the link:
http://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Space-Tripping-Audiobook/B072F52XST?source_code=AUDORWS0505179KAP
That’s all for now!
XOXOXO,
Pat
The finish line is in sight! As of right now, The Walls are Closing In has received 619 PREORDERS, leaving 131 TO GO!
I want to take a breath to express the appreciation that I am feeling for all of you, for rallying behind me and this book. Some of you are family members and close friends who sprang in without hesitation when I asked. Some of you are friends from my past with whom I had lost touch, but you still supported me when I reached out or when you happened to see the book circulating on social media. And, most of you, were complete strangers before this campaign began, but who nevertheless clicked the preorder button to support an unknown author.
I started writing this story over a year ago when our current political reality didn’t yet seem probable. The idea for The Walls are Closing In came to me during the primary election campaign. It began as a short story, and it snowballed from there. The first draft was complete by mid-summer 2016. At the time, I sincerely thought that the story would forever reside in the ‘alternative future’ category, but as events unfolded, the story evolved.
The themes explored in The Walls are Closing In cut a bit deeper with each passing day. In fact, I am currently making notes to rewrite certain backstory sections because, well, they have more or less happened over recent weeks and months.
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 rooting out the joy in unlikely places. It is about digging deep, figuring out how to tap your own truth, regardless of what society throws at you.
On an unrelated-to-storyline note, I have noticed that as the campaign approaches the end, several people have gone back and placed additional orders. Thank you! Also, I received confirmation from Inkshares that if multiple e-books are purchased, that you will have the ability to share the additional files with friends and family. Each person can order a maximum of 10 total books (ebooks or paperback).
This is also the last chance to receive your name in the back of the book by ordering a ’super reader’ package of 3 paperbacks. Once 750 order mark is passed, the window will close on this opportunity. Again, for those just joining, this is that would look like (from another Inkshares book).
Again, thank you for the support. Hopefully, only one or two more campaign updates, before we move on to the fun of "in production" updates.
Until next time,
Jacqui
P.S. - Running a bit behind on the chapter 2 recording, but check the site at the beginning of next week and it should be up.
Dear all,
This is a quick update. It has been 3 months since we started to collect pre-orders for "Everything is Normal" and over a month since we reached the magic number of 750 pre-orders. THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH FOR YOUR PRE-ORDERS AND SUPPORT!!!
The last few weeks were taken by filling different creative and marketing forms with the publisher. I expect that the publisher will assign a developmental editor in May and the production process will start. The next steps will be line and copy editing, cover and style design, marketing and getting pre-orders from book distributors and stores.
It all sounds exciting, but it seems to be taking more time than I originally expected, given that the book is finished. At present the publisher estimates shipment of books to you and to bookstores in early 2018.
With thanks and kind regards,
Sergey
Dear friends and followers,
It’s been a while since my last update. As I’ve said, it’s mostly a waiting game right now. Things are beginning to move, however: Inkshares has me reading up on various works of writing theory and working together with a few other authors to share and learn from each other. This is in preparation for the developmental edit round, perhaps so we’ll understand better how stories work and be better able to handle the developmental edits. It seems like a lot of additional effort, but I guess it’s in the interest of putting out a quality product ... and, perhaps, to groom a stable of talent? Does that mean they want me to write a sequel?
You know you want me to.
I’ve also been busy with another writing project, for Choice of Games: that’s been taking up all my attention for the past several months. I just submitted the completed draft for that project yesterday; it’s very exciting, and I expect there will be a lot of developmental edits on that front as well.
Looking around (because I can now afford to be distracted again) a couple of works here on Inkshares have definitely caught my interest.
First off, there’s "The Rise and Fall of Gods and Housewives", by Zachary Sergi. Apparently the ancient mythological gods are alive and well, incarnated as ... reality show housewives? If that premise doesn’t grab you, I don’t know what will. Sergi is also the author of the highly successful "Heroes Rise" series for Choice of Games, so this should be of additional interest to all those Interactive Fiction buffs among you.
And second, there’s "Lost in the Fog", by Michael Ostrowski. It’s a caper in which a down-on-his-luck journalist is recruited to steal a bunch of sculptures, only to have someone else beat him to it. And no, the people who recruited him don’t believe a word of it. I firmly believe that we need more madcap mystery capers in the world, and this promises to deliver.
For now, though, I’m going to sit back and relax. I see a lot of developmental editing in my near future, so I better grab my binge-marathons of "Masterchef" while I still can.