Well . . .

We’re 12 days away from the end of the pre-order period, which means, short of an Oprah miracle, the book won’t be funded.

Don’t worry. I’ll find another way to get this one out there (probably on Amazon self publishing). I’m not giving up on it. I like it. Well, I love it. I wrote it for my daughter and she liked it so much she took it in for Show and Tell., so I’ll be damned if it sits on my shelf for the rest of my life. Even if it’s less than 100 people who ever read it, that’s still 100 people who read something I worked my ass off for.

I put up another blog post at artelliott.com - I’ll keep up with that for a while as well. There’s a couple in the Draft folder that I’ll polish up and post. I have an idea for a new cover image so I’ll put that up soon enough.

Thanks for your support, folks. I truly appreciate it. 

I just put Chapter 3 up on the inkshares page. I’ll probably load it to the blog tomorrow (you’re getting a scoop!). It’s a quick little bit of conversation between Roy and Audrey. Nothing too big - literally less than a page - but I wanted something that really allowed the focus to sit on Marion.

I threw this in because I wanted to make sure Marion stayed the center of the book. A way to clearly make her the point. I didn’t like how The Golden Compass kind of pushed Lyra to the side in it’s second book (I’ll probably blog about that at some point) and wanted to make sure that something like that didn’t happen in A Door in the Woods. It might not be too subtle but, if you know me, you know subtle isn’t always my thing.

Today’s blog post, on artelliott.com, took longer than I thought. I got distracted by everything from Brooklyn Nine Nine (a great show) to the history of the Crimean War to Russian Oblasts. There was a Napoleon III? Was there even a II? Yes, yes there was but he was kind of a lump compared to his Cuz, III. 

I spent so much time in those wiki-holes I donated some $$.

Maybe someone there will buy the book.

A bleak bio this week for The Brue. It kind of has to be. You have to start out in a bad place to turn bad. You can feel bad for him, sure. Even understand where he’s coming from, or why he is like he is, but you can’t be happy for him. Sypmathy and empathy are two very different things.

I was toying with him meeting Audrey and/or Roy when he first came through his thinny but I wasn’t sure. If everything is too connected it gets to be a Gordian knot (wiki it) and just too hard to swallow. There’s only so far disbelief can be suspended for a fantasy.

Very thankful for all of you who have taken a chance on the book. It means a lot to me. 

Two posts when up this week: some info about another character Audrey, and a post about podcasts (I listen to a lot of podcasts).

Hope you ate and napped well!!

Hey all! I put up a new post at artellliott.com I’m going oto do a few character bios: give some of the background detail on the characters that didn’t make it into the novel and some of my thinking behind the character.

First up is Roy, the courageous and loving axe dwarf. I think Audrey might be next. I think they’re good entry points. Hope you enjoy!

Another blog post is up. Going back to the music I listened to while writing. Dropped the whole playlist. 

Updated the look of it too. Hopefully its easier to see everything. 

Did everyone read chapter 2? What’d ya think?

I just put Chapter 2 up.