This is later in the week than I had intended.  The off season at my day job has just recently ended, which has resulted in me having to return to my 4am wake ups to drive an hour to work and the loss of reliability in my update schedule.  I apologize for that.  This has been a busy week in other ways for me as well.

First off, I was on the Vitamin Geek podcast Monday, with the show being made available for your listening pleasure as of today.  So if you've always wanted to know just what an overly nervous, timid voiced, 240 pound, fire-haired/bearded man sounds like as he's flubbing every pitch/synopsis/selling point he had carefully crafted and even written down before hand, then check out the episode on iTunes, Stitcher, or at their site.  Seriously though, while my social awkwardness was heavily on display, I had a lot of fun being on their show and you should definitely check it out.  We talked a bit about my book, literature in general, and ended with a round table on our top 3 fantasy movie picks.  Also be sure to check out some (or all) of their past episodes here.  Between their Vitamin Geek and House or Horrors podcasts they cover all things geek really.

Also, I was happy to see that I received a review on the project page (from Rob Gokee), and especially happy that it let me know that I pulled off with the scene in question exactly what I was going for.  I would love for more of you to post reviews and/or comments, since that is the best indicator to me of where I'm succeeding or failing in my efforts.

Beyond that, with the return to work I've not had much chance to work on anything beyond Book 3 edits and continuing to pitch this first book.  This has also made me realize that I'm most likely not going to be able to continue making 2 updates a week as I had been doing previously.  From now on I will be posting an update on either Thursday, Friday, or Saturday of every week.  Feel free to chime in on which day of the week you would prefer.  Myself, I'm leaning towards Friday around noonish.

I don't really have much more to update you on.  The campaign is continuing on, but isn't making quite the daily progress I would like to have.  After last week's addition of the e-book only purchase option I now have until 1/22 to reach goal, so please help me with that in anyway you can, whether by recommending, sharing, or preordering.

Thanks again for all of the time and support that you've already given me, and enjoy the rest of your week as well as the impending Thanksgiving.

Epic Update Time... 

G'day Rebels and Royals,

Time for an update of epic proportions!

Nano and the crazy month of November.

I'll be going radio dark from here until early December. You won't be hearing from me during November because I'll be shackled down with cramping fingers, a drip feed of coffee in one arm, beer in the other. Nanowrimo is a week away. 

Cue Rocky-like training montage with far more sitting.

I've sworn a blood oath to finish the draft during the month of November, and right now I am embracing the crazy like a teddy bear filled with razor blades. For those of you that don't know anything about Nano, it's a challenge to write a fifty thousand word novel in 30 days. That is 1666 words a day. Mind you I already feel Finn and I are doing Nano.  We smashed out a section of the novel last night and when I calculated the word count...6666 words. I wonder if my muse is trying to tell me something? I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

Laptop story!

It happened. My poor abused laptop pushed me over the edge. Not only did the G and H key decide to go on strike, other keys joined the revolution. The quote tag key went next in an early showing of support followed closely by the left shift key. When the touch pad decided to join the party, there was a brutal police action. It wasn't pretty. I now have a new laptop just in time for Nano and so far, all good. It's performing nicely. I'm keeping a small memento of the previous laptop nearby, just in case. Remember, if you can't rule with love and kindness, abject terror works just as effectively in the short term.

Pre-order!

Hah! Made you look. Nope, I haven't pushed that button yet. I'm only going to push that button when the first draft is done. I'm a man of my word. BUT, I am going to tell you I think I'm right on track for the beginning of December. There will be ceremony...and beer, lots of beer. Of course, Inkshares just changed the funding goal structure. 750 is the goal. 

Right now if I take off my shoes I can count my followers and because I haven't pushed that button yet, or done any kind of social media campaign, I have a grand total of 0 pre-orders. So I have a fair bit of work to do. It's time to get a little bit creative and put on my stunningly handsome hat of temptation +5. I'm thinking about what to offer very deeply and I'd like suggestions. What do you want? I know what I want. I want to go on a plane. "Every author who hits the new pre-order goal will receive a trip to San Francisco to sign copies for their backers, including a round-trip ticket, one-night’s hotel, and lunch with the Inkshares team."

I'm not sure if Jeremy realized the cost of flying me out to America to sign books and enjoy lunch with the Inkshares team. Can't take it back now Jeremy, please don't make me fly long-haul coach. Maybe Finn can go, he's in SoCal. He could probably drive there.

Awesome daughter!

I've said I have an awesome daughter. It was in my description until Finn joined the crazy train. Not sure if you appreciate how awesome she is, like I do. She's very creative and she's done images of the main characters...anime style. Now to see if I can upload an image into this update somehow...

That's all the time my muse is giving me readers, back to the manuscript. Where was I? Oh right, North Pole...

The end is nigh! We’ve almost made it to the finish of the Nerdist Contest. And the level of support this project has received is stunning, and it’s still ongoing. I so appreciate your support and your help bringing more people to this project. Earlier today, we cleared 600 pre-orders and now are sitting at 535 readers. I’m uncertain where that puts us on the leaderboard as, at the time of this post, the page has been stuck on results from earlier today. Regardless, we’ve made good ground today. The goal is to get to 600 readers by Wednesday night at midnight PDT. To do that, we need to average 25 readers a day. We’re almost 2/3 of the way to that today. I think it’s doable, but it depends on you.

Shelf concept image from sketch artist

To those following who haven’t pre-ordered, all 164 of you. I’m not sure if you’re just another author who is not sure you want to help someone else win or a bystander just watching because you weren’t sure the project would have a chance. The math for you is simple. If all 164 of you go pre-order today, not only would that send us almost to 700 readers for the contest, but it would push us to 778 copies ordered. In other words, enough to earn the e-book only contract. You all can make it happen regardless of the contest results; although, let’s not kid ourselves. 164 readers right at the end of this contest would be a massive boost. First place is, at last count 72 in front of me. Finishing first isn’t the goal, but man it would be nice.

As promised, I’ve uploaded new chapters to the PDF copy for you to read. I threw in a bonus: you have all 32 chapters to start the book which gets you to the end of Act 2. I also included an appendix: a portion of a transcript from Logwyn’s interview with Quentin. Enjoy!

Also, a message is in the process of being transmitted from Logwyn right now. I hope to have it ready to send out by Wednesday, but we shall see.