Izaryle's Prison
Page 31
It’s you fantastic readers that made my launch a success. But that small feat aside, it was nothing compared to what I discovered upon my return home. My new book (the past rendition of this book) had climbed the charts of Amazon's Top 100 Hot New Releases. For nearly a month, I checked it multiple times, day and night. Each time, I recorded the status. Some days it climbed, other days it fell, but it was on the list and that's what mattered. But there was one small detail that made it better than all the rest. At one point this book had climbed the ranks and taken position above J.K. Rowling's newest book, Fantastic Beasts.
I hate name dropping. I feel it's little different than ride someone's coattail in measure of your own success. But in this case I was ecstatic that my book was not only on the same list, but I had somehow ranked higher. I love with the Harry Potter books. In fact, I've probably read them more times than I have any other title aside from my own work. I have immense amounts of respect for her and her work, and I hope one day my name can reach even half as far. In fact, as an indirect tribute I named one of the chapters in this book, Fantastic Beast in honor of that achievement.
In all the excitement of this, there was one unexpected detail I was forced to take a long, hard look at. Statistically speaking, when a book spikes the way mine did, it puts the author on a time limit to release the next book. Otherwise momentum is lost, and that can result in a massive flop immediately following a massive success. That means I had extremely limited time to get the next book finished and ready to release. In my preliminaries, I had roughly 3 months to finish the next manuscript and be ready to go to print. Which is supposed to cause a secondary spike on the first book, which in theory would carry this one with it. I have yet to authenticate this, but everything I've found suggest the pattern is legit.
But writing a new book so quickly isn't always possible. Especially when the author works a full-time job, is a single parent, and has many other responsibilities to maintain. I had another book I'd been working on, which had to be finished before I could direct my attention toward this one. I went through the entire manuscript and did a near complete rewrite in two weeks. Once I'd finished that I sent it out for what felt like the twentieth time. Though in reality, it was more like the fourth. That’s a down side to working with traditional publishers. Everything works on their time instead of mine.
So, with little time to spare, I went to work writing this book. I had a small part of the story left from the original A.R.C. But it was broken and in need of a complete rewrite. I did the only thing I could do. I set myself a goal. It had to be completed no later than December 31, 2016. I pushed myself every day for two months. And in the end, I made it. I finished the final words of the last chapter on December 30th and sent it to my editor. He did his thing while I went to work writing all the filler materials, such as the words you're reading right now. But enough about what I did to get it written.
As I stated earlier, this book was originally the second half of book 1, a much smaller and condensed version of it, but it was there. If you were one of the few unlucky enough to ended up with a copy of the advance reader, and tried to read it, you have my apologies for the atrocious combination of words within those pages. I was pretty bad back then.
Both books, one and two, were originally planned as one story. When I was working toward publishing book 1, my editor at the time pointed out that I’d made a common rookie mistake. I was seeing the world so vividly in my own head that I'd forgotten the reader couldn't. This left a story with no real feeling to it. I had characters and interactions, but the world had no texture. You couldn't feel the wind upon your face, or see the billowing smoke rolling from the chimney above the inn.
Realizing this, I learned what I needed to do, which the smartest path was to split the book right down the middle and build upon the foundation of each half. I added thousands of details, created new content, and managed to bring the characters a little closer to reality. I took two broken stories, equal parts of roughly 40k words, and shaped them each into a believable world that was just under 200k words total. In the two months I spent rewriting this book, I ended up writing several entirely new chapters, all the while polishing and adding details to the world around the story. I made it so much denser than it was. I gave the characters stronger motives, I made them love, and I made them hate. They became real, making them feel like the people I’d used for their inspiration. And if I did everything right, you, dear reader, should hate me from time to time. But I hope I'm redeemable as everything I've done was for the purpose of moving the story. I created what I believe is my best work yet.
As many of the characters are based on real friends of mine, I encountered moments when I had to call those friends, regardless of the time. On more than one occasion, I heard a tired and sleepy voice answer the phone in a raspy “Hello?”. It wasn't that I enjoyed waking them at all hours of the night. I had to share my excitement and emotions. These characters became real. And like real beings, I had to express the torment and joy they put me through. I would wake my friends and get onto them for their character's actions. I know they had no more control over their character, written by me, than I have over their physical bodies, But I felt obligated the inform them of the shit their character was pulling, which often got a good laugh. Though not all encounters were bad. In fact, many were humorous, or annoying, or some other part of the emotional range. I laughed. I cried, I felt tears of joy. Hell, just the other night (When I originally wrote these notes) I had a scene where some of the characters were bantering back and forth. It had me in tears of humor and ridicule, forcing the emotions of the character based on me to the front of my mind. It pulled me back to a point when such banter was a regular occurrence. I felt as my character did. And I had no choice but to call my friends, laughing about the entire encounter. If no other part of this book is well received, I believe that one will be. There is true emotion within those few words, which tell the story of a brotherly love that only the closest of people have developed. I believe I've done a fair job of tapping into that relationship between my closest friends and I. This is my best work yet. It's dark, gritty, loving, forgiving, merciless, and with any hope, alluring.
In conclusion, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I hope you will too. I've created a world here, one which will be thoroughly explored in future works. The characters may change, but there are many more stories to tales to tale. You'll learn more about the eldar races, the gods, the monsters, the heroes, and many others. I have an entire series of twenty plus books planned, I just need the time to write them. Time that I hope to gain by doing this full time. But the only way I can make that happen is with your support. You've already purchased this book and for that I thank you. But there is more to be done. I urge you to take a moment to leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or any other outlet which you've found this book. And if you’d like exclusive access to a free book set within this world, please subscribe to my newsletter. http://eepurl.com/dxRUvL
Thank you in advance and I look forward to bringing you many more hours of entertainment.
Levi Samuel
December 2016 – Originally Written
September 2018 - Revised