It's been such a long time since I sent out an update I wouldn't blame you if you're asking yourself, "Robert who?" right now. Fair enough, I've been negligent in my posting to both this blog and sending out newsletters, but I haven't stopped writing (I promise).

I'm here to thank you for your patience and provide a brief update before diving back in to finish this book. So, firstly (and most importantly), those of you who backed my novel on Inkshares are no doubt wanting to know how the book is going and when you'll get your copy? The great news is I haven't been slacking off and am still diligently working away on the manuscript. I've commented on this before, but it turns out writing a book is hard (who knew, right?) and I had a lot to learn if I was to produce a book worthy of your amazing support. Since Inkshares picked up the book, I've been incrementally transforming both my first draft and myself into something I can be proud of. I won't lie, it's been a long, drawn-out process thanks to day jobs and family responsibilities, but we're in the home stretch: the world of Blood Capital is more real than it's ever been, we have a cast of characters who are interesting to explore, and we've honed in on a plot that can take us on a more rewarding journey.

Looking ahead, I still need to finish this final draft. To help speed that up, I'm looking at all the ways I might claw back extra time. I took all of December off from my day job, which made a huge difference. Now, I need to power through the last chapters. After that, we'll polish, copy-edit (fix typos and poor grammar), pull in some beta readers, and then prepare for release. The exact date of release will depend on a bunch of things, many of which are outside of my control, but I'll endeavour to keep everyone informed.

Beyond Blood Capital, there's a bigger world to explore, so you can be sure I'll start work on a sequel. With the experience I've had writing Blood Capital and the lessons I've learned, I expect (hope?) that will be a faster project 🙂

Thank you again for your support—I'm sorry to have gone for so long without providing an update (I'll do better moving forward).

Thanks!

Robert.

As if every day didn't seem to bring fresh news about CRISPR that suggests Blood Capital will become reality before I can get the book on shelves, you can now buy "young" blood using PayPal and have it stuffed in your aging shell of a body.

The New York Post has the story here, but the TL;DR is this — a tech startup called Ambrosia (no relation to the company in Blood Capital) is harvesting the blood of healthy 20-somethings and jamming it into the bodies of anyone who can afford it. Now, there have been some studies — in animals — that suggest transfusing young mouse blood into old mice can reverse some of the effects of aging. However, (my understanding is) these studies are not yet conclusive (though studies on humans are underway).

The lack of conclusive evidence doesn't seem to bother Ambrosia's clients, however, as the company appears to be expanding. To badly misquote Dr. Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park,

"Capitalism, uh, finds a way."

Oh well... one step closer to the blight and my book becoming non-fiction.

** This is a repost of my latest update to backers on Inkshares **

Hello everyone, welcome to 2018!

Work on Blood Capital has been progressing at pace since NYE and we are now close to completing the developmental edits (at last!). Check the progress chart below and you can see I’ve almost completed the rewrite, and that all of Acts One and Two have had my second pass. Once this is complete, it should just be a matter of getting the final development notes from my editors and incorporating them, then we move into copy editing (grammar and spelling).

Everyone has been wonderfully patient with me over the past year, and that has made this process so much easier. Thank you. I’m aware the journey has been long — I had no idea how long it would be when I entered the competition back in 2016. To provide an idea of the work behind the scenes, I’ve been averaging almost 18 hours a week on the novel, which multiplied out over nine months (roughly how long I’ve been working on edits), adds up to more than six hundred hours so far.

We are now on the home straight, and Blood Capital is set for release at the end of July. A marketing plan is coming together to support the launch, and I’ve now seen an early version of the cover art. As soon as the cover art is finalized, I’ll send out a special update, but for now, I can tell you it’s going to stand out on shelves.

Take care and thanks again for all the support!

I have a special announcement. For sometime I've been posting on here about my science-fiction novel and the publishing process it is going through. Up until now, I've been referring to it by the working title Human Resources. Well, I'm finally ready to reveal the publication title — it's going to be released as Blood Capital next year!
Choosing to move away from the working title was a hard decision. I was (and still am) fond of the title Human Resources. It was understated and linked back to the corporate dystopia, as well as the way humans are treated in the novel. However, despite that, there were signs it would make the book harder to sell. Some of the issues were:

• Human Resources is not a unique title. There weren’t any other science-fiction books I could find with that title, but hundreds of business books. That meant searching for the book could be difficult.
• It confused people. Right throughout my campaign I encountered people who thought I’d written a non-fiction business manual. This can be addressed to an extent with a good cover, but I still had people misunderstand after I started including a cover image of a person with a big sword.
• It’s out of genre. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but by switching it to a title that is more recognizably from the genre of the book, it makes it stand out to people who read that genre.

It was for these reasons, in discussion with my publisher, that we decided to search for a new title. We settled on Blood Capital. This title isn’t as subtle, but ties it firmly in the genre. It also links back to the corporate dystopia, the treatment of humans in the world, and (bonus) the city the novel is set in. Work is underway on the final cover image, and I can’t wait to share the outcome of that. In the meantime, Inkshares have posted a (short) video of Matt Harry (Head of Story Development at Inkshares) talking about Blood Capital.

Updated 02/11/2017 to reflect the now announced final title. The previous version of this post named the book by its working title, Human Resources.

The Blight changed everything. Eighty years later, humanity is almost extinct. They survive only by the grace of the Melior, only so long as they are viable food.

Last month I mentioned the focus of the developmental edit had been on expanding the world-building and firming up some of the science behind the novel. I'm pleased to report that is now complete, I have new beat sheets and scene outlines, and am officially writing pages again!
Speaking of science, the MIT Technology Review just published a very interesting article on CRISPR being used to edit the DNA of human embryos. Why is this interesting? Because this application of CRISPR is a key trigger for the creation of the world in my novel. I've uploaded a special new excerpt to the Inkshares site telling the history of the world, from today to when my novel starts. You can read it here.
In other news, I took advantage of receipt trip to Sydney (the setting for the book), to further explore some of the relevant locations for scenes. I use the apple maps 3D city render, along with google street view extensively, but there's nothing better than standing on-site. A couple highlights below.
 

That's all for now — I need to get back to the manuscript and finish writing it so you can all read it.
If you want to know more about the novel, check out the page here on my site, or its page on my publisher's site.
 

I've just sent out the May backer update for my novel Human Resources, you can view it here.
If you aren't receiving those emails directly, it means you aren't following the novel on Inkshares. You can do that (and pre-order, if you're inclined to help an author out) over here.