Jamison Stone's Blog, page 25

The Sleeping Man, guest post by Stephen Carignan

 

 

"I was immediately hooked by the way the imagination and the way the story unfolds effortlessly in front of you." Kritsy L. Jennings, Inkshares

"The Sleeping Man draws you into its dream world immediately." Louise Lindell, Inkshares

"I can't wait to hold the pulp version of this book." Tal Klein, Inkshares

"You're the best writer in the entire world." Mom, Living Room

"Carignan, I'm not writing a quote for your book. Get back to work." Senior Chief Everett, United States Navy

www.inkshares.com/books/the-sleeping-man

I'm thrilled with the opportunity to have a guest post on this blog. The Sleeping Man is the culmination of an idea I had when I was sixteen, in which I could see The Desert so clearly. I remember thinking of a Twilight Blade, “as black as the space between stars,” and a man with violet eyes. It just wasn't clicking so I just kept it in the back of my mind. I've performed, written, and day-jobbed my way through the world. It wasn't until I joined the Navy so I could better provide for my daughter and ex-wife that I found myself going back to this idea. Perhaps it was the writing classes, life experience, or just timing, but suddenly I knew the violet-eyed stranger was known only as The Sleeping Man. I didn't know his name because he didn't know his name.

He was the one man who is standing up to the Volto Empire, having experienced their ruthless expansion first hand. With no unifying force to stand up for the non-humans who are being rounded up or killed, he has found a clue as to the location of the mysterious Compendium. Will the knowledge contained within give him the tools to stop the Empire? Read and find out!

 

Below are some of the characters and people of The Sleeping Man.

 

 

The Sleeping Man:

"His eyes were piercing and distant, and even before we moved against him, we had lost."

 - Sergent Leah Cho, Voltan City Guard

 

The last surviving Dreamwalker strives to find the long lost Compendium, which is rumored to be the seat of all knowledge. How else can one man take down an empire? Through his powers of traversing the Dreamscape, he has found a set of instructions leading him to the Compendium, but what will he find there and will it be enough?

 

 

The Dreamwalkers:

"Everyone dreams, we just perfected it."

 - Yason Har-Mon, First Eye of Tirmuierese

A nomadic people with violet eyes all but extinct, Dreamwalkers would roam from city to city, telling fortunes and interpreting dreams, while their real power was only whispered. It is rumored there was once many tribes of Dreamwalkers, though any information is scarce due to their disappearance after the Dreamwalker Wars. 

 

 

 

 

The Volto Empire:

"Give your name, and take the Volto."

- Voltan Army Saying

 

The Volto Empire has begun its expansion into the realms of the free people, the collection of the Spice Islands, mountain clans, Bahtak swamps, and forests of the Leshy known as The Continent. After the collapse of the Adeunt Regem, The Volto Empire filled the power vacuum. Through carefully applied economic pressure and decisive military action, they have now become the largest power in the world whose sole purpose is to stamp out any non-human element which does not conform to their banner. As they expand, they erect white towers impervious to all weapons as a symbol of their influence.  

 

The Compendium:

"The Compendium is not simply a collection of books, at least, no more than a book is simply a collection of pages."

- Cassius Von Drake, Biblionaut First Class

Said to be the seat of all knowledge, The Compendium’s actual nature remains a mystery due to the conflicting accounts of the physical attributes of the structure itself. One account describes it as, “Rows of silent monks writing in sunlight, then candlelight, only to write once again in sunlight.” Another, “The forest citadel known as the Compendium gives its knowledge to travelers through coded patterns of light on the forest floor.” Though accounts differ, they agree that access to the knowledge contained within would make the wielder invincible. 

 

The Dreamscape:

"Memory is a dream of the past."

- Dreamwalker Saying

Laid over the physical realm like a shadow, the Dreamscape reflects the desires and fears of the world. Mystics, prophets, empaths, and Dreamwalkers all claim some connection with the Dreamscape. The most well-versed in its properties and use were the Dreamwalkers, and though few of their writings survive, their teachings have been studied by countless scholars trying to unlock the secrets within. 

 

The Cannoi:

"Do not make a sound in The Desert, that's all they need. In fact, don't go at all."

- Captain Alicia Smock

Sole inhabitants of The Desert, the Cannoi are ruthless predators capable of tracking any intruder for miles across completely flat land. They rarely leave their territory, but the times they did left stories to frighten children and most adults. Their faces and bodies are covered with tattoos, and their lupine faces have only jagged teeth and a skeleton nose. With no eyes and holes were a human's ears would be they have survived for centuries in a barren wasteland through superb hunting skills and cannibalism.

 

The Leshy:

"The Silverwood has ears. Claws and teeth, too."

- Jamison Stone, Scout

Elusive creatures which inhabit forests and mountain ranges, they are often found far from towns and cities. Their true origin is unknown, but they are notoriously passive and reclusive. There is no average Leshy, as they come in all shapes and sizes, with the exception of their tricolor eyes.

 

The Bahtak:

“To have life, there must be death before and after.”

 – Bahtak Teaching

Inhabitants of the swamps to the south, the Bahtak are humanoid creatures in a perpetual state of decomposition. This often causes them to be mistaken for undead creatures and many rumors surround their existence. The Volto Empire has eschewed invading their swamps to avoid the costly toll of disease and drowning. 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you so much for checking out my guest blog post and don’t forget to head over to Inkshares and pre-order! Feel free to contact me in regards to the book, another book, or hey, maybe you just wanna talk.

www.inkshares.com/books/the-sleeping-man

@StephenCarignan

smcarignan@gmail.com

Soulblade: Forgotten Souls, guest post by Kirsty L Jennings

The Origin:

There was once a time when God’s sat atop golden thrones and ruled over Vanharlm, but their greed over mankind grew deep and … decided to cease their reign over Vanharlm and this did not go down so well with all the God’s.

They met the Æthurians after retreating back into their golden halls of Zalcamar, a pale skinned race which shone like the brightest star. They were not a violent race until Taurus betrayed Celinia’s trust and forced a war between the Zalcamainians and the Æthurians. But after days of discussion and arguing, a proposal was agreed, that Taurus and his manservant Brolgr would become the Æthurians hostages and their King Bolgrobol and his son, Fengrl would be hostages to the Zalcamainians. It was all agreed and Narskesha became the Æthurians new Queen who had later bore a child named Morgoth and bore her into the care of the Zalcamainians.

Politics:

Elves live in a community where everyone is equal but they still have Kings and Queens to help support their kin and to provide trade to other races if they require it. Humans are very much governed by their respective Kings, Queens or minor noblemen; dwarves are governed by a King but he is ruled by the major traders; and the Askara’s system of government remains unknown as their numbers are few and rarely seen by any.

People/major hierarchies:

Humans are the largest populated race in Vanharlm. They first originated from Delminia and Salmia and then slowly dispersed themselves onto Feln and The Wild Lands and other neighbouring continents. Feln was originally populated by the elves but they welcomed the newcomers with open arms and now most elves had left to wander back to their ancient lands whilst others chose to stay.

The giants and trolls kept to the mountainous regions and dragon kin had all but fled Vanharlm from the time of chaos and ruin.

With the Askara’s numbers unknown, it is hard to tell where they stand as they have grown more reclusive than before and no man or elf or even dwarf has seen an Askara in years. Dwarves are very important for their trade in weapons and minerals.

Races and cultures:

Elves – elves were the first race to be created by the Gods and to be later called the elder race. When Celinia first created them, she gave them incredible intelligence and wisdom and beauty. When the elves were given to Vanharlm and they immediately inhabited the seas, air and the forests.

Humans – humans were the second race to have been created by Celinia. They were given thought, sense and understanding. They began cultivating crops and flowers and began mining for minerals which were later used to invent tools to build villages, towns and cities.

Dwarves – dwarves were the third and last race to be created by Celinia. They were built to be short and strong to inhabit Vanharlm’s mountains, caves and underground passages. They soon began mining for minerals, metals and stones.

Askara (Dark elves) – these beings were created by Taurus who were bred with evil and hatred in their hearts. They began inhabiting caves and dark forests and soon started to learn everything about mankind and so started to transform into them in order to learn, manipulate and procreate evil into mankind.

Ur’laks – twice the size of the average man, Ur’laks are indignant to the Wild Lands and are spread far and wide in many small tribes across the desolated barrens. They completely replied upon the human government to supply them with food, tools and even weapons but the trade had dwindled as pirates had stemmed the flow of goods reaching the Wild Lands.

Magic/technology:

There are two types of magic within my world, one called ‘Phase’ and the other ‘Source’.

Phase – Phase is what magisters are taught and learnt within an academy much like the Veserie. Phase encompasses all types of magic to a certain degree. There is a fine line between the Phase and the Source.

Source – the Source was the source of all magic at the very beginning when an event caused magic to seep into the world. The Source is a more unstable but deadly form and some magisters still perform and learn it to this day.

Geography and nature:

Most of Feln is comprised of forests, fields and mountains but there are also moors and swamps. These are all landscapes that I decided to construct myself.

I’ve incorporated animals such as Firecrests, wolves (later in series), and dogs and of course horses as they play a pivotal role in transportation and farm work. Other creatures or beasts I have created using animals that we see to this day.

Faiths, beliefs and religions:

There are many faiths and beliefs that not all are named in Vanharlm. All races have their own God’s that they worship and all are named differently but all point to the same Gods. Elves perform a ritual known as Faede (meaning life) even with many of the elvish dialects this ritual was kept and named the same through all elvish cultures. Humans worship their Gods in stone temples, statues erected in town and village squares and even small stone altars are erected in homes so they can worship their Gods everyday if they must. Elves respect the Gods of others as they know that all Gods are the same.

Detailed description of my book:

The story follows Tari, an elven princess, born within her woodland home, and with the death of her mother years past, she has grown into the heir she was meant to be. With her sudden visions of a strange man, an equally strange spirit and events of a great battle long ago, that no records or accounts have ever been recorded, except for a book which is found in her father’s possession. But her life is thrown into chaos as sudden events unfold after her abduction. Kidnapped by a group of mercenaries, she learns the wealth and knowledge of human magic and that her fate is tied to an ancient creature, which until recently, she had only known in stories.

And when Tasbi, Tari’s closest friend, follows closely in her footsteps to find her, she is immediately plunged into a city that is rife with murder and betrayal. Histories, myths and legends start to reveal themselves and the fate of the mysterious Soulblade lies within the hands of an unsuspecting assassin.

With Tari’s powers growing, she is soon thrust into the unknown world of human magic and she must learn to control her powers fast in order to protect her friends and loved ones from a malicious God bent on destructive dominance.

Author:

Kirsty L Jennings

Short bio:

I was born in Norwich, and currently live near Dereham, Norfolk UK. My love of writing originally stemmed from my mother who, like me, loved writing books at an early age. Like most of us. I wrote tremendous amounts of short stories, but sadly, most of them were misplaced and lost over the years. But, it was those stories that motivated me to write my first novel (I have written a second and now currently writing the third in the series) and this helped to expand my imagination.

I studied at Easton and Otley College for 7 yrs studying various animal care course including a National Diploma in Animal Management and finally finishing off with a two year course in a Foundation Degree in Ecology and Conservation in 2012.

With my love of animals, I finally took riding lessons, which was a dream of mine, and this provided me with valuable knowledge, information and experience which I have integrated into my books.

I’ve written two books in the fantasy genre and I am currently penning my third in the series.

I decided to create a blog to a) join authors together b) to help make people aware of Inkshares and my book I have crowdfunding through them and c) to bring together a community of readers and authors in one place.

How the story came about:

In my early childhood, I wrote hundreds of short stories (much like everyone else at that age) and they were all focused on the fantasy genre from which I grew up around (alongside science fiction of course, another genre I absolutely love).

Writing fantasy as a child helped me to create and develop my creative and imaginative mind, but it also allowed me to completely immerse myself into a different world, separating me from real life (if only for a moment) but I would often dream of what it would be like to live in such a world. And, to be able to develop a world such as what I dreamed of enabled me to do this. In short, it brought my dreams to life…it made it real for me.

Several times I would flashback to those moments when I wrote those short stories, when the pen rolled along the lined paper. All my ideas, dreams and thoughts suddenly decided to pen itself onto the paper. Places, characters, technology or magic I’ve never been to, met or understood the fundamentals of.

Along those stories, I would also sketch out pictures that accompanied the story, showing a picture view of what was happening within the story. I literally come from an artistic family and background. My grandmother, grandfather, my mother and sister and I all draw with various skills and levels.

But, ever since going through high school and college, those stories seemed to have halted until a few years ago when both my mother and sister decided to collaboratively write their first book together (Dawn of the Awakening: Demon’s Bite, and now they are crowdfunding a prequel ‘Blackthorn’ on Unbound) that I thought, ‘Right, let’s pick off from where I left off,’ and by that point I had typed up 2 unedited books in the Dragon Order Series and ¼ of the third and squeezing in editing and re-writing book 1 Soulblade: Forgotten Souls all in under a year (2015).

I had kept a handful of my short stories (somewhere) but most of them were lost over the years when my grandfather moved out of his bungalow in Wicken Green in which I originally wrote them.

But, before I even wrote or typed a single letter, I had penned out who and what characters I was going to have and develop into the story, created each individual backstory for them (granted, some I had made up along the way), and also building the maps by hand before scanning them into Photoshop and defining them. once I had the history of the world, its people, places and races all mapped out, it was at this moment that I typed up my first word…my first chapter.

At this point, I hadn’t posted anything up on social media about it (I hadn’t even created a Twitter account until last year), I had only posted straight onto Inkshares, a crowdfunding site dedicated to helping authors accomplish their dreams and to also create a close network of both authors and readers all in one place. So, I began pitching and gathering followers to my work and before long I had gathered some helpful tips, good reviews and to be a part of a more than friendly community.

 

Links:

Inkshares:

https://www.inkshares.com/books/soulblade-forgotten-souls

Website:

https://kirstyljennings.wordpress.com/

Blog:

www.fantasyscifiwriter.blogspot.co.uk

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/kirstyj78

https://www.facebook.com/TheDragonOrderSeries/timeline

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/kirstyj7811

Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/52740192-kirsty-jennings

Email:

Kirstyj7811@gmail.com

RUNE UPDATE - Cover Sneak Peak!

Despite the long wait between updates, rest assured we have been hard at work on RUNE! To prove it, I wanted to share a sneak peek at the most recent draft of our new cover art! 

Again, this is still a draft, and we are planning on making a few more final tweaks to it, BUT I wanted to open the discussion up so everyone else in the community could chime in and share their thoughts, too! 

If you have any feedback please direct message me here on Inkshares, tweet me@StoneJamison, or zap me an email at StoneJamison@gmail.com. I really look forward to hearing your thoughts! Seriously, let me know what you think, both the good and bad!!!

In other news:

I also wanted to give a heads up to all the other writers out there thinking about publishing with Inkshares about Geek & Sundry’s Hard Science Contest. I’m a HUGE fan of G&S and am super excited to have them officially included into the Inkshares community! 

They have also enlisted the aid of the Science and Entertainment Exchange, the Hollywood-facing arm of the National Academy of Sciences, who has agreed to have scientists consult on all winning books for scientific accuracy. Pretty sweet! So if you’ve written or are writing a book that emphasizes plausible science to tell your story, you might want to take a look at this contest. To quote The Martian’s Mark Watney, everyone is pretty excited to “science the s**t” out of Inkshares.

Lastly: 

As many of you know, I am a HUGE gamer, cosplayer, and convention goer, too. Usually PAX is where these passions converge for me, but I am SUPER excited to officially announce that I will be going to The DOTA 2 INTERNATIONAL 2016 in August with my brother nickystone90!

He and I game a lot together, but in the past we have only been able to watch previous Internationals on Twitch so we are stoked to be able to go in person this year! I’m already hard at work on my cosplay, too! I dropped a huge hint in my last update (OK, not a hint, I totally gave it away) but over on my blog I’m going to be doing a complete costume construction run down as the date approaches, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, feel free to hit me up for a game of DOTA! Friend me on Steam, my Friend ID is 65253934 and here is a direct link to my Steam profile. For those wondering my MMR is 3.5k and I have 3,050 hrs on record. Yeah, I’m addicted...

For those of you who do not know how amazingly awesome DOTA, the International, or Major League Gaming is, last year there was a CROWDFUNDED Prize Pool of $18,429,613. Just let that sink in for a second... Yeah, pretty wild. I will end this update with the below picture to put professional DOTA into perspective for non-gamer folks! 

Happy reading, gaming, and doing all the other awesome stuff that inspires you! Also, for those new followers who have not checked out my book (gasp!) take a look at the Prologue (it’s pretty amazing) and then snag a pre-order. For only $8.99 You will not be disappointed! Enjoy!

The Inhabitants: An Unremembered Life - Guest post by Michael Sebby

The Inhabitants is a series that rolls together a lot of concepts that intrigue me. Perhaps it can be best described as an art project that builds on my ideas of the unexplained. The first (and currently only) book, An Unremembered Life, is what I'm writing and funding on Inkshares right now. 

At the beginning of the second chapter of the book, there is a character that sings, "It's not a small world, just a world full of strange coincidences."

It may seem like a throwaway line, but it's something that will resonate through this book and beyond in the series. I've always been bothered when people use the phrase "it's a small world" to shrug off an odd coincidence. When you actually think about it, it's really not a small world at all. Those connections that have such a slim chance of existing can be against rather extraordinary odds.

I like to entertain the idea of how there could be a supernatural connection between all of us, particularly through our minds. What better platform to use than our dreams? The basic idea of a novel exploring that concept has been gestating in my mind for at least six years.

Humans are inherently afraid of things they don't understand, because it's hard to imagine there is anything that cannot be explained anymore. From a scientific perspective, dreams are just images that flash through our brains in our sleep. When we wake up, it's over. Sometimes they're hilarious. Sometimes they're scary. Sometimes they make us cry. But more often than not, we dismiss them.

The dreams that stick with us are the ones where we interact with loved ones, especially the deceased. It begs the question as to whether the afterlife is just a never-ending dream, and those that are departed can somehow "jump" into our dreams at their own will. There are endless stories of people who say they have seen the afterlife after a near-death experience, most of which involve floating out of their body and seeing bright lights.

There's a book called Heaven is for Real -- which I've never read -- that is allegedly a real-life account of a three-year-old's experience of the afterlife. There are other books like it, one of which was recently debunked. Obviously you read these accounts with a grain of salt, but this particular one was jarring because a lot of what the boy recounted was meeting dead relatives he had never met and would've otherwise had no point of reference in describing.

Someday, this book and all the others like it could easily fall apart as hoaxes, but the part of these stories that really intrigue me are the skeptics that chime in to say that it is not an accurate depiction of the afterlife. It is the hilarious arrogance of humans to say we know a thing or two about something we seriously know nothing about to the point where we'll argue about it. No one could possibly possess any hard facts about what the afterlife is, or if it even exists.
 

Eight years ago, my grandmother passed away from lymphoma. We didn't know she was ill, but the week before she passed away, she was found confused in the middle of the night at her retirement home, complaining of people in her apartment bothering her and trying to throw a party. When the staff checked, no one else was in her apartment. This was odd to my family because she never had shown any signs of dementia or anything that would impair her thinking. So she was hospitalized, and the doctor connected the hallucinations to a UTI. The science made sense.

Unfortunately, blood tests also revealed the lymphoma, and she was kept in the hospital. I visited her the first night and she seemed like the normal, sweet grandmother I'd always known. She was wide awake and alert with no signs of any confusion. I assumed she'd return home in the next day or two after getting pumped full of fluids, despite her talking quite openly about how she was ready to die and had lived a very fulfilling life in raising her children as a single mother after her husband preceded her in death over 50 years ago. In her mind, she'd been living on borrowed time. She wasn't speaking from a place of pessimism, though. She was a very positive person, and I told her she'd probably be out of the hospital soon since she otherwise seemed to be doing well.

However, over the course of the next week, her health deteriorated. When asked about her hallucinations (which she still treated as real), each time she'd recount what she saw that night at her apartment, she described it less as an intrusion and more of a celebration. The people that had filled her apartment were throwing a beautiful and elaborate party for her with generous gifts. She used more positive adjectives to describe the brilliance of it all. It's like she was slowly accepting this odd dream in parallel with her accepting death as she approached it. At the beginning of the week, she wasn't willing to participate in this party, but by the end of the week, she was ready to celebrate. She then fell into a deep sleep for a couple days and passed away in the middle of the night.

This "vision" of hers always stuck with me. I don't know if maybe she had seen a glimpse of the afterlife and spent the next week making her peace with it, but it definitely seemed poetic. My sister then had a couple dreams about my grandmother after she passed away. One dream caught my grandmother in a rare moment of sadness where she asked my sister why people weren't coming to visit her more often. For a dream, it was heart-breaking to hear, and hard for me to imagine how sad it would've been for me to wake up from that. In the other dream, my sister slow-danced with my grandmother. I consider that a much happier dream, and a wonderful goodbye.

But is it dangerous to put too much stock in what we're projecting in our minds?

It is that internal conflict between skepticism and faith that I wish to convey in this book. Dreams and the afterlife are in a territory so foreign to humans, because the concepts are not tangible. Science can't put them under a microscope, and religion can only theorize what we'll see when we die. It's impossible to draw a direct connection, but it's fun to think about.

A couple years ago, I got caught in a rabbit hole of reading articles and watching YouTube videos regarding the fourth dimension and tesseracts. It blows my mind that we can even be aware of such things via science. The higher dimensions are almost like the afterlife of the science world, though. Human beings can't physically perceive it. They can only theorize based on what hard numbers and logic reveal. Reading about string theory nearly melts my brain every time I try. The fact that civilization has come this far in understanding the universe is astounding when you think about it.

The obsession to learn more about everything and advance technology is great, but there's a hilarious Louis C.K. bit where he talks about how weird humans are and how there's no way we could originally come from Earth, as we're never happy with how the world simply is. He mimicked a hypothetical conversation between God and a human, dissecting why we do all the weird things we do that end up essentially destroying the planet. The argument between God and the human eventually devolves into the conclusion that we just want to eat bacon.

For my book, I single out the dreams of humans because we always want all that extraneous stuff that other creatures don't want. Other species are content with a life of eating only what they need and rolling around in their own feces, and they don't even need to work a job to earn that right.

Despite all that, the mind is an extraordinary thing, and it intrigues me how it can overcome mental and neurological disorders. The book's main character, Jacob, suffers from narcolepsy with cataplexy. The decision to add this aspect to the novel came fairly late, about a year ago.

I don't remember how I came across some viral video that a young woman posted of her suffering from sleep attacks and bouts of cataplexy, but it struck a chord with me. She originally intended it to be an instructional video on how to do a dance, but it turned into something entirely different when she kept collapsing and dozing off in the middle of it. I then found a Reddit AMA where she discussed every aspect of her disorder at great length.

I started reading up on it more, and I decided it would be an interesting layer to the story if Jacob had this to deal with in addition to the problems with his dreaming. It added a layer of unpredictability and created another obstacle while he's trying to fend off these dreams. Simply avoiding sleep to escape his nightmares is not an option for him.

It's tough to introduce a disorder in a novel, though, and I hope I'm paying the proper respect to it. I want to make sure it's represented fairly and accurately, because it is a life-altering disorder that isn't pleasant to deal with and explain to others. It can be downright embarrassing around people who don't know you, and we're already seeing this between Jacob and Ava.

We often have an "out of sight, out of mind" mentality, and so it's hard for us to accept what's not visible on the surface, especially if it makes us uncomfortable.

This is a perfect segue into what seems like an unrelated tangent. A couple years ago, I got into a hobby called Geocaching. Essentially, it's a worldwide treasure hunt that few people know exists. All you need to do is download the Geocaching app on your phone, set up an account, and you'll be amazed to see on a GPS all the geocaches that are hidden in your area. People basically hide containers in public places for others to find using their GPS. When you find the geocache, it usually contains a log sheet that you can sign and then mark the geocache as found on the app. You can build up stats by how many you find in your area. It's like a massive easter egg hunt for grown-ups.

Anyhow, the Geocaching community is interesting, because it reveals a lot of secrets that were under your nose for years. It opens your mind to things that are hidden in plain sight all over the world. It's this huge subculture that surrounds everyone. And I love that.

I also visited a speakeasy in Chicago called The Violet Hour. The place is very well hidden -- only visible to people looking for it. I was absolutely in love with it, despite their insanely-priced drinks. The place was so strange and seemed like it was out of a dream. I decided to use it as inspiration for a location in my novel. Again, this is another example of something beautiful that couldn't be found without looking for it.

So I guess if you want the short version of what The Inhabitants: An Unremembered Life is about, it's about the unknown bleeding out into the real world, and the conflict that creates. We want the truth neatly-wrapped with glitter and a bow for us, but it turns out it's not that simple in my book.

I really hope what I write resonates with readers and that they'll jump on board with this crazy ride.

I've been dormant on writing for several years and am jumping back into this head-first. I just got married and am expecting my first child in May, so this is an exciting time for me right now. I would love to write full-time, but I realize that requires building a fanbase. My Inkshares project is just the beginning for me.

 

To learn more about Michael Sebby and his book 'The Inhabitants: An Unremembered Life' visit Inkshares at:  https://www.inkshares.com/projects/the-inhabitants-an-unremembered-life

RUNE OF THE APPRENTICE will be published on November 1st, 2016!

Hello Everyone! 

I have some great news! RUNE's schedule and publication date has just been finalized! Although there are many deliverables on RUNE's production timeline (publishing and marketing a book is a MASSIVE undertaking), the one readers will be most interested in is:

RUNE OF THE APPRENTICE will be published on November 1st, 2016!

Additional good news is that YOU will be getting your copies before this date AND we will also be able to have special early release copies for New York Comic-Con, too! We don’t know the exact date books will be shipped to you, but I’ll keep you posted!

Even though you will still be getting you books before November, I know this is still a long way out. Reading this, I’m sure you are feeling the same emotion I initially felt upon hearing the news: disappointment that RUNE will not be published sooner like originally planned. Despite that initial feeling, as I work more closely with both Inkshares and Girl Friday Productions, and see the tremendous amount of work being put into RUNE, that disappointment has been transformed into appreciation and gratitude. While I know you do not see this hard work first hand, I will do my best to keep you updated on our progress so you can see all we are doing to polish RUNE into printed perfection—which will hopefully help curb your disappointment, even if only a little.

I can go on and on about this and am happy to answer any questions over at @StoneJamison, or down below in the comments, however, I want to keep this update quick so as to not fill up your inbox. Although there are MANY milestones ahead, the next important steps are Cover Design and Developmental Edits!

Cover: I have a call later today where the RUNE team will be solidifying our collective vision for the cover so the designer can begin to move forward with samples for review and selection. There are usually three rounds to this process. The early samples will focus on options of several different directions and the later rounds will polish that vision, bringing it into a finalized physical form. The designer’s previous work is fantastic and I am very excited to see what he produces. I will keep you all updated as we progress!

Developmental Edits: Editing a 500+ page Fantasy/Sci-Fi epic is no small feat. Although RUNE has already had several rounds of professional editing, there is always ways to make a novel of this magnitude more engaging, engrossing, and awe-inspiring! I have been tremendously pleased with the pre- Girl Friday Productions edits, and am now very excited to see their continued polish added to RUNE. The next round of Developmental edits should be done by the end of next month, and then wrapped up by the end of March with copy editing and proofreading to follow in the months to come.

As I said, there are many more milestones after that (I have not even gotten started on marketing!) but for now I’ll end this update. The road to publication is a long one, however, I am so very excited to have you all along for the ride. RUNE OF THE APPRENTICE is going to enliven the hearts and minds of readers across the globe, and it warms MY heart knowing that you all are here to partake in this EPIC journey! 

The Amaranth Chronicles: Deviant Rising - Guest Post

A group of freedom fighters join forces with a cybernetic killer to escape a totalitarian government that wants them dead.

The Helix was created to revolutionize the way we communicate, connect, and share. It brought the entire galaxy to our doorstep. It gave us the ability to collaborate with a single thought, but even the purest of intentions can spawn terrible evil. What was once a vision of greatness has become something much more malevolent. Life, liberty, and love are now forbidden, and even reality is only what they say it is…

Extended Pitch

The story takes place some 600+years from now. Mankind has reached out beyond our solar system in search of resources to help sustain the Earth. Some 200 years prior to our story a colonial ship, head for the remote star of Epsilon Eridani, accidently stumbled upon a sort of gateway to a totally unexplored region of space ripe with fresh, Earth like, worlds ready for us to colonise them. As our story takes place the freedom the worlds beyond the gateway have is in jeopardy. The United Planets of Earth have crafted a technology that slowly takes over the minds of the people they wish to control. Now that Earth is totally dependant on the resources the Frontier worlds deliver to her, one colony world in particular is in the sights of the U.P.E. and their controversial Helix technology.

One man, a cybernetically enhanced agent and a member of an organization that stands to benefit the most from totally control, must oversee a particularly brutal mission to make sure the mind controlling isn’t destroyed by a group of freedom fighters. Along the way this agent, Cade, finds out just how deep the levels of control this technology has and ends up having a change of heart. Now he must work with the freedom fighters to expose the insidious nature of the Helix technology and help bring freedom to all worlds under U.P.E control.

About the Authors - Alexander Barnes

I'm a User Interface and Experience Designer out of San Francisco California. I was born and raised out here in the Frontier of technology and have had the amazing opportunity to have my name on several huge, world changing, technologies.

My first love has always been Science-Fiction. Big surprise, right? Bet you didn’t see that one coming. There's like only a handful of us Software Engineers in the world that love Star Trek and Star Wars, even fewer that write Sci-fi. Sarcasm aside, me and one of my best friends Christopher Preiman have slowly been assembling the world for “The Amaranth Chronicles” for the better part of the last decade.

A lot of the ideas for our story were born in a childhood together spent battling with plastic Lightsabers and taking the Enterprise to new unexplored regions of space that looked remarkably like the park down the street from our houses. Side note, the native people of that strange far off world use to trade in comic books. Over the course of many missions we returned home with countless specimens to study.

About the Authors - Christopher Preiman

I’ve been a lover of Science fiction ever since I was a little kid, and a lover of books ever since I realized it was the best way to get more Star Trek between episodes. I grew up in San Jose California And have been attempting to be an author since I was fifteen. In the meantime, I’ve been a chef, a massage therapist, a semi professional game master (I got payed for it once, it counts.) and for a very short time a film critic on Twitter, (until I got bored). I became involved in this project quite some time ago when Alex came to me looking for some help figuring out the villains for his story and just sort of stayed on because the mix of space opera and Saturday morning cartoon felt like a good fit for me.

How the Story Came to Be - By Alexander

I was in my early 20’s and living in a dark, damp, rotting little studio apartment in Fremont California. I was broke, had just dropped out of college and my girlfriend of five years had just taken off with one of my friends. I remember being so broke I would rummage through the couch every time my friends left for loose change just so I could buy $3.99 Burritos at Taco Bell across the street. To say it was dark times was an understatement but if I was really being honest with myself this was by no means the darkest point in my life. As with most paths worth walking the journey had milestones of both intense happiness and bitter cold darkness.

Since I was a child I had always sought solace in Science Fiction. Something about stories that took place on other worlds or in different times helped put real life into a digestible perspective. The teeth that life would use to gnaw on me somehow were dulled by the fantastic worlds and universes other people had invented and given the rest of us the chance to experience.

I was up one late rainy night unable to sleep. The sound of water droplets hitting the bottom of a couple of pans I had had to leave out to catch the leaks in the roof when I remembered a series of short stories I wrote as a kid. Maybe it was the point I was at in my life but I began dreaming of that little universe I had created in my childhood again. A couple days later I came down with one of the worst colds I had ever had. I was running a fever of 102F and was to poor to afford any type of medication. At the peak of the fever I remember my body feeling freezing cold while my face felt like it was about to melt right off my skull. I ended up curling up in front of an electric floor heater with a fleece blanket wrapped around me while I dunked my head in one of the large pots that by now had filled with cold rain water. It was literally the sickest I had ever been in my life. For the next few days sleep was elusive and when it did happen dreams were more like hallucinations. I had always found it funny that rather than the normal fears or joys a person might dream about mine seemed to be focused on that little universe I had began writing in my childhood. Maybe I was just trying to escape to my fantasy world, trying to focus on anything that would make life just a little more bearable in the moment. Regardless, the feaver passed but the dreams and thoughts didn’t. It was if Pandora’s box had been opened and all of a sudden I had all these ideas for places I had never been, technologies I had never seen and characters I had never met. It was overwhelming at first and obsession soon followed. Before I knew it I was sketching starfighters on napkins, rendering nebula in Photoshop and modeling entire otherworldly environments in 3D Studio Max… But this wasn’t enough. Soon the obsession had gotten so loud that nothing but putting a pen to paper would help silence it. For weeks I pour ideas in terribly worded scripts and treatments into an infantile version of Google Docs.

One day when helping take my grandmother grocery shopping I bent her ear with a few short stories I had dreamed up and she remembered some stories I had told her when I was a kid of a far off place I called “The Frontier”. She reminded me that her garage was filled with my old school papers and binders and that maybe some of those short stories I scribbled down on old notebook paper might still be around. After a short visit to that dusty, oil soaked, garage that I use to pretend was a fighter bay on a grand spaceship as a child, I found several short stories that were remarkably similar to the ones I had spent weeks writing. Teary eyed I brought them home and realized this little Universe had always been inside of me and had been growing with me.

It would be years before I was able to really start packaging the hurricane of thoughts, characters and ideas, into something digestible to for other people. Some time in 2009 I reached out to one of my oldest and closest friends, Chris Preiman. He and I had known each other since Kindergarten and had written more fantastic sci-fi adventures on the playground at recess than there were episodes of all Star Trek series combined. He and I began working on finding a way to tell a story that took place in this Universe.

For years we passed scripts back and forth. We texted each other Character pitches and we stayed up late many Friday and Saturday nights playing video games and bouncing ideas off of each other.

After spending months drafting centuries worth of back history for this Universe that we now both inhabited we decided to begin writing a novel. I remember thinking that if we only had a story to tell I could sketch, photoshop and 3d model anything I needed too to make it a comic book, an animated series or even a CG movie. So from there we shifted our focus to completing a single story that could be expanded both forward in the Universe’s timeline with sequels or backwards with prequels. The Universe was robust enough to be told in any medium we could imagine, but we needed to start with written words.

I don’t know if we thought we’d ever finish it but even after I had been lucky enough to experience being an uneducated college dropout whose technical art skills had been discovered by a CEO of a world renowned company and offered a six figure income to work directly for him, I still kept dreaming of that far off Universe Chris and I had woven. After my time with the company was completed I locked myself in a small bedroom for eight months of my life while Chris and I finally packaged what we could of our story into a novel entitled “The Amaranth”. A year later we published the book through a company called Xlibris. The edits were terrible, the grammar was dodgey (at best), and the way it was written was muddy and juvenile at times… But even with all the problems this published manuscript had we were shocked at how amazing the feedback was from our early readers. While people sighted the typological issues everyone fell in love with the story and the characters themselves.

One night a woman from across the united states added me on facebook saying she had found a copy of “The Amaranth” in a family owned bookstore and was intrigued by the cover enough to read it and was moved to tears by the story.

As the months rolled on Chris and I watched our GoodReads.com page fill up with posative review after posative review. Our friends and family had been more than supportive but the random reviews, a few by some of GoodReads top reviewers, told us we had crafted something, something with great potential. Shortly thereafter our sales nosed dived and the reviews stopped coming in. We had been relying on word of mouth, press releases and some feeble marketing on the publisher’s end to drive the book into the world but alas it proved to be a herculean task for our amateurly written Sci-Fi tale.

The one take away from this experience was just that we had been a little too eager to put years of dreaming out into the world before it was ready. As of the writing of this first post we are in the midst of taking the first edition of our crusade out of print and to replace it with a significantly more comprehensively written 2nd edition. This second edition is now being called “The Amaranth Chronicles: Deviant Rising”.

“The Amaranth” (1st Edition)

Chris and published what is known as “The Amaranth” about three years ago through a subsidiary of Author Solutions. It was a long battle but we got our manuscript out there and in paperback form. The feedback we got was phenomenal (I lived through the 90’s I can still say that.) Our Goodreads and Amazon.com page was filled with 4 and 5 star reviews. People absolutely loved our story and our character and seemed to be thirsting for a sequel. As we sat down and finished several different drafts for a series, we found that our original manuscript just hadn’t lived up to the potential it could have. We loved the story but hated how amateur the writing was. How could we possibly launch a successful sequel that sounded like it was written by a couple of guys in their early 20’s? That's when we decided to sit down and rewrite the entire book from the ground up in hopes of giving the already fantastic story a writing style that would be worthy of a series of sequels.

If you are a returning fan of the original you’ll be pleased to know that this is the launch pad for that sequel you’ve been bugging us about for the last three years. If you are a new reader we hope you enjoy diving into the world we have created for the very first time.

To learn more, check out the links below:

Book Page: https://www.inkshares.com/projects/the-amaranth-chronicles

Facebook: www.facebook.com/AmaranthNovel/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Amaranth_book

Alex’s development blog: http://deviantrising.tumblr.com

Original Goodreads page: www.goodreads.com/book/show/17558794-the-amaranth

Inkshares Author Tony Valdez - The Journey to Dax Harrison - Guest Post

In November of 1988, my mom took me to the theaters to see the Don Bluth animated classic, The Land Before Time. It was there that three-year-old me watched a ferocious cartoon Tyrannosaurus Rex chase down the hero, a young friendly Brontosaurus. To which I responded as any sensible young lad would: I literally stood up in my seat and yelled "RUN, LITTLEFOOT! RUN!" as loud as I could.

This would mark the beginning of my lifelong love affair with movies.

Correction: My love of storytelling. Granted, film kicked things into motion, creating the most visceral experience for my active young mind. The sights, the sounds, the swelling musical score. All the elements coalescing into a lush narrative symphony that pulled at my heartstrings, tickled my funny bone, and got my blood pumping.

This was also combined with a healthy dose of warped humor. I believe my parents realized this when I recited Chevy Chase's entire curse-filled monologue from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation to my 2nd grade classmates. Needless to say, my teacher didn't appreciate it as much as the rest of the class.

Over the years I found assorted outlets in which to pursue my passion. Acting in my high school theater troupe (I still wake up with Guys And Dolls songs in my head on occasion), playing guitar at local coffee shops, and attempting to plan low-budget internet skits with friends.

As the story goes, full-time jobs and other commitments inevitably took priority, but the storytelling fire only grew stronger. Just ask my wife, who thankfully shares my passions and doesn't mind a wall dedicated to DVDs, another dedicated to books and comics, and an entertainment center overflowing with video games.

But as much as consuming stories continues to warm my nerdy heart, I knew I had to start creating some of my own. Enter Dax.

On March 30th, 2014, I completed the first draft of Dax Harrison, a full-length sci-fi adventure screenplay. I was delighted, and then I was panicked. About a year went by of random edits, submitting to script contests, and letting my story collect virtual dust on my laptop. With no idea how to sell a scipt and no Hollywood contacts to speak of, I feared Dax's story would never see the light of day.

Then a friend suggested the obvious: "Why not turn it into a book?"

"Oh yeah," I said in foolish revelation. "I guess I could do that."

And here we are. Dax is currently funding on Inkshares.com until December 27th. I suppose I should get around to convincing you to order a copy, huh?

What's it about?

Commander Dax Harrison is a reluctant hero who is essentially one-part Ash Williams (Evil Dead) and one-part Zapp Brannigan (Futurama). He's known as a legendary soldier who defeated an invading alien force in all-out war which ended a decade ago. But not everyone believes the tales. Furthermore, the legends surrounding Dax have grown in the public eye due to movies, pulp novels and other media embellishing his exploits. Ten years after the war, we catch up with Dax as he coasts toward retirement and lives not-so-humbly off his fame. But a dangerous shadow from the past emerges, and he is finally forced to live up to his name, whether he likes it or not.

What does it read like?

Firefly/Serenity, Guardians of the Galaxy, Galaxy Quest

Why are you listing movies and not books?

As I mentioned before, Dax was originally drafted as a screenplay. While its novel form is more fleshed out, the same cinematic, fast-paced, swashbuckling spirit lives on. This is rebellious high adventure sci-fi fare, full of alien worlds, fist-fights, space battles and more.

But why should I care about this story?

Good question! At the heart of this wild ride, Dax is a small story about an average Joe, owning up to his past and finding purpose in his life. I don't know about you, but bombastic action doesn't mean much to me without characters that I care about. After all, would we have fallen in love with E.T. if little Elliot didn't make us cry our eyes out? Would Iron Man be a memorable superhero without caring about the personal struggles of Tony Stark? (I've got a million of these examples, so you should probably cut me off)

Ok, ok wise guy. Give me the link to your book already.

Watch the ridiculous pitch video, read a few sample chapters, and pre-order at Inkshares HERE. (Before December 27th please!)

Also, a massive thanks to Jamison Stone for the opportunity to spread the word of Dax. If you haven't already, be sure to check out this gentleman and scholar's own terrific project, Rune of the Apprentice, currently in production at Inkshares!

-Tony Valdez

Short bio: Tony Valdez is a huge nerd, a podcaster, occasional actor, musician, writer, and full-time maker of funny faces in the bathroom mirror. He is also a lover of great stories found in books, comics, film, TV, music, videogames, and so on. He was born and raised in San Diego, CA and currently resides a couple hours north in Orange County. It's not as fun, but Disneyland is nice.

Inkshares Author Joseph Asphahani - Discovering The Animal in Man (Guest Post)

Discovering The Animal in ManJoseph Asphahani

I think it’s been ten or more years since I played in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. I used to do it all the time. Nearly every Saturday night throughout high school, my friends and I would pack our dice, doritos, and dew (what a cliche, but in our case it’s true), and we would wile the hours away at the local comic shop, whose owner trusted us enough to lock up. (He also rightly knew the game books and snacks would sell themselves in his absence.) My friends cooked up some really fantastic stories I remember how sometimes - not always, only sometimes - the real world would melt away for an instant, and I really would be lost in the world, in the game, in my character’s body.

It was for those brief moments of pure and true immersion that I loved D&D, yet I hated D&D because we could never see any tale through to its end. Some of us might lose interest. Some of us got girlfriends (traitors!). Some of us just couldn’t make it any more and the party count dipped so what was the point, right? I really hated that. The real life part that always found just the right angles at which to sink its +4 poisoned dagger into our games, leaving them to wither and perish over the ensuing rounds. So one day, I decided I would tell my own story, and I swore I would see it through to the end no matter what.

“The Animal in Man” was born from that ambition. I meticulously crafted the unique world of Herbridia, mapping all its mountains, charting all its seas, drawing all its boundaries, and inventing all its politics and cultures. I established all five of its kingdoms and their unique races of animal-human hybrid creatures: Mammals, Reptiles, Birds, Fish, and Insects. My friends selected which species they wanted to play and I thought of creative gameplay rules to coincide with their characters. The fox could sneak. The rhino could ram. What the old turtle lacked in speed he more than made up for in wisdom. And the hyena could go berserk at a moment’s notice, but suffered a -2 penalty to stealth because, you know, he was always chuckling a little. My players wrote elaborate stories which I then wove into the immense and intricate tapestry of the plot.

 

I remember especially being overly proud of the villain my friends would face. Since I wouldn’t technically be playing in my own game, I planned on making Salastragore, a lizard alchemist and artificer, the ultimate antagonist, a character with a vast network of spies and unlimited resources, who would always be seemingly one step ahead of the players. Someone they could hate. After all, who do you hate more than the villain who constantly robs you of control over your own life, who makes the choices for you that you didn’t even know you had.

Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” (Republic, Book VII) had changed the way I thought about life, so the story of “The Animal in Man” was to center on the theme of manipulation and deceit, and Salastragore was its ultimate architect. There was to be a grand reveal at the end when players ultimately discovered this lizard man’s intentions were not so misguided, that he had in fact been enslaving whole Herbridian populations because - locked as they were in an unknown war with a powerful unseen entity - he had only been trying set them free. Of course, what he had done throughout the game (so it had been planned) would be so despicable that I was certain the players would never forgive him. In short, this D&D campaign had a damn good story, so everything was set to go.

And I never ran a single session.

What happened? Real life. Jobs. School. Responsibilities. Girlfriends, including mine at the time. So I put “The Animal in Man” on a shelf, in a cabinet, and locked it all within my brain. And I thought about it for years. But just like playing in a D&D game, I would experience brief and bright flashes of being in Herbridia, living as a character who would have struggled to fight against the villain, who would have traveled to all the settings, spoken with all the kings and councils, and battled all the hordes of Thraxian monsters I’d designed. (Thraxians are the insect race, so they made pretty good fodder it turns out.) And of course, when I came face to face with Salastragore in my daydreams, I knew exactly what he’d say and what I’d say back. Like him, I too wanted to know if it was possible for us to overcome our seemingly unquenchable thirst for violence. He alone knew that Herbridia was just a grand experiment, that their world had been created to determine the answer to that very question, locked in a neverending violent nightmare. But he had lost himself in that violence, until he had become what he had tried to end. These daydreams continued for a while, until I decided to unlock the brain cabinet and add to the sheaf of papers on that shelf inside. I started to write.

A little here and there. Over the course of years. I got married. And I wrote a little. We had our first daughter and I wrote a little more. We had our second and I slowed down. Then I got busy and I wrote nearly nothing.

I remember one night, after a particularly long period of time in which nothing more had been put on paper - when my memories of Herbridia had started to slightly fade - I was on the roof of my apartment building, looking up at the moon, thinking of the similarities between that distant, incomplete world and the one I’d made, and I promised myself that before I turn 35, and unlike every D&D campaign I’d ever played, I would finish what I’d started. I would write “The Animal in Man.”

As I write this, I’m 33. I’m proud to say that I’ve never failed to meet a deadline, and I don’t intend to fail now. I assure you the story is solid, the chapters are airtight, the adventure moves at an exciting pace from scene to scene. You won’t find any uncolored or unexplored corners of the novel’s world, nor will you fall through any holes in its plot. Everything makes sense, everything is described in incredible detail, and every character has their time in the light. I have reached that point of inspiration every writer seeks where the book quite literally “writes itself.” I think it’s because I know more than anyone else how engaging is its subject matter. The story asks an essential, human question I’ve struggled to answer all my life: Why do we do such horrible things to each other? I don’t have the answer, but writing this book is my way of searching for it.

I sincerely hope you will follow “The Animal in Man” on its inkshares.com page, help me fund its publication, and ultimately enjoy living in its world as much as I have. -Joseph Asphahani, author of The Animal in Man.

Rune of the Apprentice and Inkshares News Update!

Rune of the Apprentice and Inkshares News Update!

Apprentices and Masters, exciting things abound! We are all busy people so I'll keep it short and to the point via bullets:

Most importantly, the preliminary round of edits to the RUNE manuscript are nearly complete! お待たせ致しました! They should be done quite soon and we will then hit the next stage of edits followed by cover art and soon(ish) publication! Yay!

 

Sword and Laser is doing a "Sequel" contest with Inkshares!  Aspiring authors, this is your chance to get your science fiction or fantasy book published! The top 3 books with the most unique pre-orders will be published with special Sword and Laser marketing! Although RUNE did not utilize a contest to get published, had it not been for the Nerdist contest, I most likely would not have had the courage to crowdfund RUNE / bust my ass to get this awesome publishing deal. So, aspiring authors go upload your manuscripts and get promoting, and readers, go pre-order some great books! (I also am available @StoneJamison for any questions on crowd funding and how to have a successful Inkshares campaign!)

 

Inkshares Anniversary Holiday Promotion! For those of you who are tired of "Pre-Ordering" books, head on over HERE to get a special holiday 2 for 1 deal on these AWESOME ready to ship Inkshares books! Offer extends until December 11th so its a great way to not only get a wonderful book for yourself to read, but also pick up a FREE holiday gift, too! (This is a really sweet deal, folks.)

 

Inkshares Review-a-Thon! On December 19th, leave reviews on currently funding Inkshares books using the Inkshares "leave a review" option and win cool prizes. Along with other Inkshares authors, I'll be hanging out on Twitter in the#InksharesReviews tag as we share our favorite book projects, answer author Q&As, debate the merits of astronauts with swords versus cavemen with lasers, and more! Then, from 6 - 8pm ET, JF Dubeau and Paul Inman of the WriteBrain Podcast will be hosting a video livestream filled with author interviews, review readings, and live announcements of prize winners! Prizes?!?! YES! Everyone who leaves a review on December 19th by 6pm ET will be eligible to win fantastic prizes! Go check it out HERE! 

I have a few more exciting updates for you all, however, I will wait a little bit to share them. Until then, enjoy the Sword and Laser Contest, Inkshares Anniversary Holiday Promotion, and the Inkshares Review-a-Thon! とても楽しそう!

And as always, please feel free to hit me up on Twitter,  Facebook, or Twitch for some Epic Gaming Goodness!
 

P.S. Before you ask: no, I was not the model for this drawing of Anti-mage, but I understand why you ask, and YES I am going to grow an epic mohawk and cosplay him! "They who live by the wand shall die by my blade." -The Anti-ist Mage of all Mages 

What is Phantasia? (Guest Post)

A risk. Phantasia is a risk. Not in the sense that it's risqué, not even close, but in the sense that I feel like I willingly jumped into the deepest part of the ocean, and I have a 50/50 chance of either finding a raft to stay afloat, or drowning. That's the type of risk I'm talking about.

Well... That started off dark, sorry about that, but it's kind of true. Anytime you decide to do something outside the norm, or put yourself out there to the world, you are indeed taking some level of risk. And being a 21-year old who recently graduated film school, then trying to get a book published via unconventional means in an attempt to break into the writing industry... Yeah, I'd categorize that as risky. But, if you really must know, Phantasia is a small book of fantasy short stories accompanied by illustrations such as the ones below (cover art courtesy of Pheobe Johnson, and other colored images by Lydia Meixner).

Why take such a risk?

First of all, this isn't the first time I've gone against the tides. I've always been kind of the weird one out, even in my own family, which is saying something considering my family is quite... Unique. For example, I mentioned that I'm a film graduate. It's extremely hard to get into that industry unless you have connections. And even with connections, there's a chance you might not get in. Not to mention, it's a very costly industry if you want to create something of quality.

So, why on Earth did I decide to go into such a field where there was a high probability I wouldn't break in for an undetermined amount of time? Simple. It was because I love film. Or rather because I love the concept of seeing something that started out as an idea become a visually-pleasing medium. It's something I like to call "making the intangible, tangible." That's probably why I love fantasy, science-fiction, adventure, action or any combination of those. It takes you to a world you can never actually be a part of, but somehow still feel like you're there; on the same journey as the protagonists. Little did I know that creating those ideas was what I truly wanted to do. I had my speculations, but it didn't really settle in until this year. Up until then, I wasn't actively trying to make a living out of writing prose or comics (that's another story). In fact, even in film my second favourite part is picture editing. I never really knew why I liked it, or why I was good at it until I remembered what one of my professors once said: "Editing is telling the story a second time" (or something like that). 

Anyway... I don't think I actually answered the question. In all honesty, I took this risk at such a young age because I was faced with two choices: either waiting for my writing career to start or making a move now. So, once I discovered Inkshares... I made a move. I got tired of waiting for my moment to shine, and took the opportunity that was starring me in the face. It took some mental convincing, and talking it over, but I still did it.

Do I regret anything so far?

Heck no! If I did, everything I've learned and done so far would have been pointless. I'll admit that sometimes I have those wavering thoughts on whether I should have chosen a different path, or "boy, I wish I figured things out sooner, or thought things out better," but you know what? I chose this path, and I'm going to stick by it! And if it doesn't work out? Well then, I learned something from it. Do I like making mistakes? No one does, but like I said before, I learn from them. That's how you become a better, wiser person! Besides, I have to thank my mom for saying these very true words in only the way a mother could say them: "You're only 21!" 

Why do I write?

I write because I want to, I love to and to see people enjoy what I've written as much as I do. 

So yeah, that's me in a nutshell, sort of. If you would be so kind as to check out Phantasia by clicking HERE: https://www.inkshares.com/projects/phantasia That't be awesome! Also, huge thank you to Jamison Stone for allowing me to write this for his website! Such a nice fellow, so check out his awesome book, Rune of the Apprentice, too!

Thanks for reading! 

-A.K. Wolf