So much goodness
November was quite the month!
Once a month, I'll update you on my four-ish creative pursuits, give you something excellent to try, and make sure you get exclusive first looks at as many things as I can. Ambitious, right? Let's go!
To Steal the Sun
So the Kickstarter went terrific, and I can’t wait for people to get their hands on the book so we can talk at length about it.
I have some art starting to roll in. Eric Vedder has been pushing hard on the art cards he was doing for the Kickstarter. Seeing Kahli and Amara drawn by him is pretty awesome. These are prints that are coming with the “Grand Heist” reward from the Kickstarter, but hopefully, I can make them available individually in some way in the future.
This is a “work in progress” — not final and subject to change — but the kind of exclusive stuff I want to be able to share in this newsletter :) I cannot wait to see this finished and colored. It will be amazing!
I also wanted to update you on how things are going in terms of putting the book to print.
I've been writing the Glossary and Acknowledgements sections as the final touches. They're going great, but I did (happily) realize that while I have a lot of terms in the book, I explain most of them through the course of the book—just not right away. So, you’ll never need the glossary to understand the story, but I like that it will be there to help people. I’ve been toying with adding a pronunciation guide… but I think it might be too heavy-handed. I think the definitive guide to that will come from Ulka’s performance as the audiobook narrator — she’s adding so much to the book. If you missed hearing her sample during the campaign, I would suggest checking it out.
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AARDEHN: Sea of Exiles
Aardehn is something that Eric (above) and I work on together. It's a webcomic/novel hybrid that we post for free on Instagram. If you love the idea of a mashup between Firefly and Avatar: The Last Airbender, I think you'll like what we're doing.
You can read the whole thing right here.
We put the project on brief hiatus for my book Kickstarter but will be back with new prose and comics on Dec 7th.
I'm very interested in the next section of prose because it will be the first time I've experimented with 2nd person perspective. Of course, if you've read Harrow the Ninth or The Broken Earth series, you'll know that perspective, but if you haven't -- here's a good definition:
Also, since I promised exclusives, here's a sneak peek at one of the first panels of the next comic. So get ready for that on Dec 7th.
What could they be seeing? Uh-oh.
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WAR WITH ART:
I'm back with the guys for the fourth season of War with Art. It’s a podcast that I co-host and talks about the struggles of creating and pursuing artistic goals.
The latest episodes are project updates, and I found it funny to listen to my own, which was recorded a few days BEFORE I launched the Kickstarter. You can hear the tension and (hahaha) desperation in my voice.
The whole process and feeling before I started the Kickstarter can be summed up with this clip:
"Rock n’ Roll is a risk. You risk ridicule."
It's scary. And I was feeling that while recording this episode. In my head, I was thinking, "Get ready to have to fund this Kickstarter yourself. No one is going to be interested in your book."
Glad I was wrong.
This brings me to my recomendation of the month: Watch Sing Street! It’s a wonderful small film with some serious juice, like the above scene, for people looking for creative inspiration.
Anyways, the War with Art continues, and I'm looking forward to doing a podcast deep-dive on the Kickstarter process for anyone interested in that.
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WARFRAME:
The New War quest is (almost) upon us.
This is the most significant cinematic/story quest in the game's history. I'm smitten with the story beats, the scope, and the ambition of our team at Digital Extremes.
Check out the trailer for this update that just dropped on Nov 30th:
If you haven't played Warframe before, this is a great time to start. We have tons of new systems to help guide you through the game, and the questline you take to get ready for this latest update feels tighter than ever.
I love digital photography and fan art, so I wanted to spotlight creators here. This month I want to share my favorite one EVER (haha!). The one where the artist combined To Steal the Sun and Warframe for a contest I was running.
PurpleFlurpWF created this piece, and aside from making this, I love two things about them:
1. The great Warframe shots they make.
2. How they try to help other people learn to use the tools in the game to make their own!
Something weird/exclusive:
You read this far; I also wanted to share a peek at the map art for To Steal the Sun.
Well… not precisely.
Rhys Yorke is still iterating on the good/real version, but I promised on Twitter to see my version:
So, here it is:
And now, once you have the real one in your hands, you’ll see how far something can come with iteration and talent (Rhys’ talent, that is!)
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I hope you enjoyed this first issue.
Next issue before the New Year!
S.M.