It's here - the last day of the Action Fantasy Tournament! Tonight at midnight EST, Meeting Beau Black goes into the first round of judging to see if it's worthy of making it through to the semifinals. The judges will look at both story composition and reader interaction metrics to determine the top 50 entries. If all goes well, I'll definitely be asking for your votes in the second round of judging. And if not, I'll still finish posting the story - because I've worked hard on it, and it would be a shame to let it just sit and wither. As of now, I have 55 chapters completed, so plenty of content. And plenty more still to write, as I'm really only about halfway through the synopsis I plotted!
To everyone that's subscribed and read Meeting Beau Black, THANK YOU! It's definitely due to your involvement and enjoyment that I can keep writing. And honestly, the support I've seen through the views, likes, and comments has been awesome. You're marvelous humans, and I'm honored and humbled to have you with me on this adventure. Keep your fingers crossed, and hopefully I'll see you all on the other side of the judging as premium content. <3
Thank you so much for subscribing to my first webnovel "Crossing Dimensions!" I hope you've enjoyed yourself reading about the wonders and dangers of the astral world through Lian Hai's experiences.
Hey, Darklings! I know I've been a little quiet, but that's because I've been working hard. In case you missed it, I just threw my (newly updated) name into the hat for Tapas' Action Fantasy novel contest! "Meeting Beau Black" is an Urban Fantasy series that follows Officer Titus Westman as he investigates a missing teen and meets a very interesting person along the way. The first 10 chapters are up and available to read, and uploads will be every Sunday and Thursday. It would mean the world to me if you could give it a read and help me get into the top 50 during the first round of judging.
This does mean that Tarriq and crew are on a short break while I finish Titus and Beau's story. But don't worry - I could never forget my grumpy hermit and his fellowship! I'll return to writing book 6 soon enough, since I'm already about halfway finished with my contest submission. Thanks for sticking with me, and I hope you enjoy the new story!
With 2 hours left to go, the total donated is sitting at about 120,000 Ink. Which is amazing - thank you! But doesn't quite reach the 250k goal needed for release of book 5. Two drabble prompts came in (Thank you, Spence!) and those are already up over on Extra Verses. If you're not already subscribed over there, it can be found at https://tapas.io/series/Extra-Verses/info and contains a whole bunch of canon short stories.
Who knows - maybe there'll be a last minute surge and 130k Ink will flow in. But if it doesn't, don't fret! I've figured out what to post as a special thank you for all the love and generosity I've been shown. Be on the lookout for that in the next few days over on Extra Verses as well.
Remember, Darklings, you're the ones making this all possible. I write the stories, but without you, Tarriq and the fellowship would still be complete unknowns languishing in the esoteric corners of the interwebs. It's through your hype in the form of likes, comments, subs, and Ink donations that word gets spread to the wider community. From the bottom of my heart - Thank You!
Hello again, Darklings! We're at the halfway point of this year's Inksgiving, and you've already shown me so much love - in the form of about 110,000 Ink! That's just barely under halfway to the goal. Which tells me you're really invested in this little fictional world of mine, and I love all of you for that! Thank you!
The humorous part is that not a single one of you have taken me up on the drabble offer. All this Ink rolling in and not a single prompt! I'm honestly stumped. But it is what it is. <3 I'll just have to figure out what I can do to give *some* kind of thank you reward for the generosity being shown. Because it's true - this is pure generosity at this point, and I appreciate the heck out of every single one of you for that. I know Tapas has made it harder to earn free Ink this year, especially within just the past month, so I'm absolutely humbled at the outpouring already shown and will figure out at least a little something to express my gratitude, even if we don't hit any goals.
We're just about 2 hours into Inksgiving 2023, Darklings, and I'm already feeling incredibly loved and appreciated - we've almost hit the goal for last year's Super Secret Stretch Goal! You've already given 80K Ink - that's incredible! And makes me glad I set the bar so high this year...as we're nearly 2/5 of the way toward getting book 5 released.
Thank you, my awesome readers and supporters. Your donations are speaking volumes already. Especially since not a single donation has come with a drabble request! I'm not sure what to do with all of you! Remember - ALL supporters get to request a drabble this year, not just the top few, so whether you give 25 or 25,000, you're invited to leave a prompt for me. At the end of the day, I'm just happy you enjoy reading my scribbles, honestly.
Just wanted to drop a quick note in about two items. The first is that book 5 - "Fellowship of Shadow" - is complete and book 6 - "Darktouched" - is started! The moving of the extras has kind of stalled, but I'll get that finished up at some point. There's less of a hurry on that now that the important ones are moved. The second item is a big THANK YOU to the readers that have been on a binge the last few days. Your interaction is important for visibility and I love reading (and responding to) the comments! You are the real heroes to me.
There's no timeline yet on when "Darktouched" will be complete, but I'm aiming for the end of this year. Maybe the beginning of next. We'll see. I have to get a little bit of artwork commissioned before anything can be posted anyway - new thumbnails at the very least, and I'm planning to get some lineart for the chapters to identify who is narrating each one. Those cost money, though (pay your artists, everyone!), so I'm saving just a little for that.
Hope you're enjoying your summer (or winter, for those of you in the southern hemisphere)!
Hello again, Darklings! Just a note to say that if you're noticing any changes in the series, it's because the export of shorts and side stories is well underway. I'm trying to get the ones that were posted in the middle of chapters moved first, so that the main books can flow uninterrupted. The only extras that will remain are the art - I just don't want to have to try and move those as they were kind of a pain to get posted the first time around! I'm also peppering in a few more new extras, so that it'll still be interesting to read. The only sad part is that the comments don't get transferred over, so I'm losing all that lovely interaction. But please feel free to leave a spate of new comments on the freshly moved extras!
I also wanted to get a measure of your opinions. I'm almost done with book 5. (Yay!!) So the question here is: Would you all like to see it as soon as it's ready to go up, or would you rather wait until book 6 is ready as well? The benefit of the first is more new material right away, but it would also mean another soft hiatus afterward until the final book is ready. The second option would mean a longer wait now, but more new stuff later that's more complete. Let me know what you think!