Small Ripples Leading to a Maelstrom

Over the next month and a half, things are going to be slow on the release front, but not behind the scenes.  My editor is still plugging away at The Enemy Within, and I'm still working on some ancillary content for the series.

I've talked about those materials before, but I'm willing to go a little more into detail now.

The big project from here on out is the novella I've spoken about.  It's going to focus on one of the gods of Tellest, and give readers some insight on what it means to be one of those immortal beings.

Then, before I get back to the main characters - with a Kaos prequel, in which you see his youth all the way up to his first quest - I'm going to do five short stories as part of an anthology.  The game plan is to complete them entirely, and then begin releasing them on a week by week basis on this blog.  When everything has been revealed, they'll be packaged as the aforementioned anthology.  I know what four of the stories are going to revolve around, but the fifth one is still a little bit elusive.

I'm not going to sit on that information forever, though.  Without any further wait, here are the brief, casual synopses of the short stories I'm confident about.


Adelia

Kaos isn't the only Kreegan, and I'm aiming to show that.  When Tessik and Elly Kreegan were viciously murdered, Adelia only barely managed to escape with her life.  Her survival instincts and magical intuition gain the attention of one of Tellest's most renowned wizards, Gaston Camlann.  Over time, Adelia develops her power while learning to curb the fears that she has been living with since the destruction of her family.  All the while, Gaston is studying her.


Maximus

The Knights of Virtue are a sect of powerful champions, most whom helped to develop the glorious city of Atalatha.  But, as tough as they are to defeat, their story is even harder to infiltrate.  While their most fabled journey is still a ways off (I'm also undecided what medium I want to use to tell it), one man in particular has garnered special interest.  Maximus Xanders somehow has the instinct to create amazing things, such as the clockwork steed, Equinicus.  But how exactly did the Knight of Virtue gain that ability?  And at what cost?


Icarus

The first of the as-yet unpublished characters in the short story collection is a side character from what was originally going to be a Steel Tip prequel from long, long ago.  Icarus is an elf that lives on Arthica in the archipelago of Ippius, from where Steel Tip hails.  He is one of the oldest beings on Tellest, and has a lot of interesting tales to tell.  One thing that sets him aside from most of the other elves of the region is his temperament with humans.  It is typical for most elves to shy from humans, if not openly detest them.  Icarus had aligned with Jason Dactyls, the king of Ippius, and agreed to train his young son to be a protector of the kingdom.  Along the way, though, one of his own famous tales is told.


Bolt

In The Enemy Within, readers will be given some insight to a new character with an interesting power.  Bolt's backstory, perhaps, is even more intriguing, however.  Raised by dwarves, yet not one of them, this hero has dealt with a backlash of the people he grew up with.  Along the way, though, his adopted father never strayed far from his side.

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Those are the big four right now.  I still have to figure out what I want to do with the fifth one, but it's important to know that each of these characters will somehow play a part in the massive pentalogy that I'm developing over the next few years.  Somehow, each of these folks will be part of the growing loom that is the Tellest mythos, and these prequel materials will help to give some insight into what makes each of them tick.  By the time the anthology is ready to be released, they might be joined by other stories, but these ones are mine alone, and now you know the reason.

You may wonder why you haven't seen your favorite character in the above list (a lot of people seem to gravitate toward Dirk).  While I would love to write something for each of the people who help to shape the Tellest series, there just isn't enough time to devote to everyone.  That isn't to say that we won't see their backstories.  I'm always talking about trying to expand the Tellest universe.  Maybe soon I can discuss those plans a little more.

Road to Recovery

Good afternoon everyone!

Though it may seem that the failing Kickstarter was a signifigant nail in my proverbial coffin, I can assure you, that is not the case.  Tellest has dealt with much worse obstacles over the past thirteen years (not the least being my first few years of "writing").  If the only problem the world must endure is a lack of financial resources, we'll be just fine.

In the hands of my able editor, I'm assuming the book will be completed by the end of July.  I cut a massive amount of first draft, and I think it leaves you with a much finer taste of what's going on.  It may be my best work to date.

At this point, though there are some administrative efforts that need to be ironed out with The Enemy Within, I'm essentially done with the Child of the Stars trilogy.  I've never been one to rest once a project is done, however.  This completed task has been no different.

I'm currently working on three different stories going forward. 

One of the projects is a novella, which I'll release here, and on the website in a weekly episodic format.  As the weeks go by, I'll slowly start to remove the chapters from the web, in preparation of a more financially sound release.  In 2014 (or perhaps 2013, if things move quickly enough), I'll release the trilogy in one cost-effective package, with the novella as an added bonus.  Or, if you've already been a supporter of the Tellest books, you'll be able to pick up the novella as a standalone item.

Additionally, two more projects have taken shape.  When they are finished and edited, I'll release them here in a similar format to the novella.  These will be short stories, however.  You haven't met the main focus of one of the stories, but I can reveal that Adelia Kreegan is the focus of the second story.

Kev and I have discussed the concept of expanding the brand, and what we'd like to do is try and make a series of these short stories available for purchase eventually.  If my writing pace is anything to go by, we're likely looking at a 2014 release for a collection of ten of the tales. 

We may acquire other storytellers along the way, in many different formats (writers, comic book artists, musicians) - if you're interested in the world of Tellest, let me know.  I want to turn Tellest into a medieval Marvel eventually, and that means expansion.

For now, sit tight.  I'll let you know definitively in the next few weeks when The Enemy Within will be released.

The Day Will Be Swiftly Upon Us

With only seven days left for The Enemy Within's Kickstarter, I have to be ready for the project to go anywhere.  It could find success, and it might not.  As I've said in the video, in either case, the book will find release. It's just a matter of when.

The point of the Kickstarter was to bring The Enemy Within to people a little sooner, and to offer up some cool rewards that aren't easy to deliver to people in smaller batches.  There's no reason to despair, however, if the Kickstarter doesn't reach $2000.  Barring some unforeseen personal financial crisis, I should be able to pay the editor out of pocket by the middle of July.  Until then, it's locked in his possession   If I were to try and get it early, he'd bite off my ankles like an angry leprechaun.  Whatever the case, I'll keep you apprised of the situation through these updates.

After that, I'll be working simultaneously on the Kaos and Mathias backstories, which will be released in episodic content on the website, and on this blog.  I'm still not 100% sure of the format.  It may be bi-weekly, or it may be monthly.  I'm trying to make sure that the Kaos prequel material is ready by the time I'm ready to publish his prequel novel, but it's hard to gauge that sort of thing.  We'll see what happens, in either case.

On the Horizon

No matter how the Kickstarter campaign goes, I have to look to the future.  Those nearest to the project with me had various talks about Tellest to that effect, yesterday.

Once The Child of the Stars Trilogy is completely released, I'm going to briefly take a moment to focus on one of the most powerful beings in the the Tellest universe.  The king of the gods, Mathias, has a very interesting backstory, as you'll learn if you read The Enemy Within. 

The more I thought about it, however, the less it made sense for his story to be released as a book.  I'm about 15-20% done with his prequel "novella", and I'm learning that most of his tale is told as the more defining moments in his life.  For someone who is practically ageless, writing an actual book about his entire existence would be too tall an order for me to adequately try to tackle.

With that said, I've decided that it may be better for me to release that information in another format.  Once I've got a signifigant amount of that material suitable for release, I'm going to release that in a bi-weekly basis, here on the blog, and on tellest.com - it'll be a serial story that probably lasts an entire year.

Now, that's not to say that I won't turn around once everything is up and running, and put it on Amazon in eBook format.  Once I collect everything into one novella, I'll release it at a fair price, and also include it as bonus material once the first trilogy is bundled.

Some of you may already be aware of that information.  I believe I mentioned that before.  But it directly helped to influence my thought for the next step as well.

My original plan for the future was to get The Enemy Within published, focus on the Mathias prequel, and then pump out a Kaos prequel before going forward.  That plan is going to be amended slightly, for much of the same reason.  Kaos' formulative and early years are important to the overall arc of his story, but for about seventeen years, his story is fairly bare bones, from an objective point of view.

Yet, people who are really big fans of the fan service may not want to miss that opportunity.  It's in those seventeen years that he meets Alicia, David and Zachariah.  It's in those seventeen years that he learns how to fight, and develops an affinity for treasure.  It's even during that period of his life that the name Kaos actually begins to take meaning.

However, it isn't until he turns seventeen that his story is robust enough to tell in its own novel.  The Valley of Mists, where Kaos was when his parents were murdered, will be that story.  It will be around the same length of The Bindings of Fate, and it will essentially be my Hobbit.  The focus will be on Kaos in a different time of his life, when his most popular allies, Steel Tip, David, etc., are not involved.  It will help to shape him as a character, and it will definitely give his life a new direction.

Again, I'm not prepared to ignore those years that precede that huge event in his life.  Instead, I'll be following the same format as the Mathias prequel, and release the younger Kaos years in a serial format on the blog and the website.  Once The Valley of Mists is released, I might package the pre-book material in there as a bonus of some sorts.

The wonderful thing about this decision is that there should always be a steady stream of Tellest related material for fans of the series to become invested in.  In addition to the Mathias and Kaos short stories that are on their way in, my best friend and longtime collaborator, Kevin Gallagher, has also expressed interest in going a step further for the series.  He's going to be taking it in a new direction, developing a new character from the ground up.  With his help, Tellest will have the capacity to grow even more.

As you can see, there are a lot of things happening in and around the world of Tellest.  Today, we only talked about the literary side of things, but the world is growing with every passing day, and I cannot wait to see where the next few months take us!

Kickstarter Wows, Whoas and Woes

One of the things that I wanted to make explicitly clear in my Kickstarter video was that I have been truly blessed by those close to me.  The Tellest series has always done fairly well, and beaten my expectations thanks to friends and family who help to spread the word, and believe in the material.

Even in spite of that knowledge, it still blows me away to have $843 pledged already in less than a week.  At this point, it's almost a sure thing that enough money will be raised to be successful.  At some points over the last few days, the project's projections surged past $6,000!

Still, there are some things I've learned about this campaign.

First and foremost, Tellest is so out of left field that I can't possibly result to mimicry to try and emulate someone else's success.  Do a search for medieval superheroes and you might find some pictures of the Avengers re-imagined in period-piece armor and costumes.  This makes it incredibly hard to promote the Kickstarter project.  It is nice to know that the Tellest books are pretty much one-of-a-kind though.  Seriously, why has nobody ever thought of this before?

Second, it is really hard for a publishing project to find any traction on Kickstarter.  Seriously, I picked the wrong hobby!  While indie gaming projects are raking in high 5-figure numbers (and sometimes low 6-figure), I'm scrounging for what I consider to be on the low end.

Whereas friends, family, and people who are already keen on the Tellest books have graciously given their time and their contributions to the Kickstarter, the real challenge is finding the people out there that don't know they're fans yet.  The Enemy Within was popular on Kickstarter for a day or two before it got buried on the site.  The only hope at this point is some kind of grass-roots campaign to try and pick up the pace.  Maybe, if I'm extremely lucky, the Kickstarter staff will reevaluate my project and feature it at some point over the next week or so.

In the meantime, I'll just keep chugging along.  Every now and then I'll blow up Facebook or Twitter, trying to get that one extra person that might be toeing the line.  There's still a whole lot of time for the pace to go either way.  Who knows?  The project might nosedive at this point and never find its feet again.  In any case, this has been a very interesting learning experience.  It'll be something I'll remember either way.

Kickstarter is Live

Sorry for all the real quick, concise updates over the past week.  Without further adieu, I present to you the Kickstarter for The Enemy Within:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/181624749/the-enemy-within

Tons of people have shown their support over the past (almost) two years.  If you can't pledge any money, don't feel bad.  But, if possible, please pass along this project.  I'm sure there are some people out there who will thoroughly enjoy the Tellest universe, and the stories therein!

On your marks, get set...

Just a quick update today.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't expecting another post before the Kickstarter project went live.  The video production portion of the campaign went a little longer than I expected, thanks to a late winter illness.  Now, all we're waiting for is Kickstarter's approval.

If you want, you can see the video that we put together on the Kickstarter page.  We're still expecting to put a few tweaks on it here and there, but that's the basis for moving forward.