Hello. If you’re looking for the As I Write in-progress content, it is at Wattpad. If you’ve signed up for the As I Write newsletter, it has been discontinued and you will not receive any new content that way, so please follow me at Wattpad for the latest new stories.
Category: As I Write
Updates for November – As I Write Resurgence and …bigger news?
I am still working on/writing the next Academy book/still in progress. (DON’T WORRY, I’M WORKING ON IT. THANK YOU FOR BEING PATIENT WITH ME.)Â
I wanted to get that out of the way before anyone asked about it. 🙂 Okay? Okay.
Updated news, you might notice this page has updated:
A few changes:
I’ve added Facebook/Instagram/Pinterest delivery systems! If you frequent a site, you can follow me and get posts/updates to your favorite stories that I’m loading online.
I have goals (read below for more details). But I’d essentially like to have most, if not all of my books in the future posted for free in this way (yes, including Academy). (Wait, what?) Yes, Academy books posted chapter by chapter instead of waiting eons for the next 100k word monster to get out and be completed. HOWEVER, I have to meet certain goals, okay? And yes, you can help me.
There will be ads. This will be how I can make this work. I’ll try not to get ridiculous about it. These ads only show up in As I Write areas. If you’re in the normal CL Stone newsletter or Facebook page, you’ll get the normal just updates from me and no ads. We’ll keep it separate.
I’m working on my delivery process. I had a few problems with the old delivery system, basically it was umpteen steps every week to get you guys an update. For now, I think what I can do is link you all to chapters using Google Docs, as well as try to post sections directly to Facebook/Instagram, etc. (I don’t know how this will work! You’ll see experiments from me. Hang in there.)
This all may change as we go, okay?
Wait, how are we getting Academy online? And for free??!?!
Essentially, thanks to you all and continued support with people buying books regularly, I make enough now that I have time to try this out.
This has been my goal from the beginning. FROM DAY ONE.
My ultimate goal is to post stories online and never have to let you guys pay for any more stories, but I still make enough of an income that I can live on via ads. (Audiobooks excluded, as…well, they’re expensive to make and Brilliance will continue to create audiobooks for the Ghost Bird/Scarab Beetle books.) Also, if I ever sell a book to a major book publisher, those won’t be free. But! Those might be rare and far between.
That doesn’t mean the books in the future may never go onto Amazon/ Barnes, etc., okay? Some people DO prefer to wait until books are done and uploaded to their favorite retailers. Once a Ghost Bird/Scarab Beetle book is completed, it’ll be collected and posted in the usual spots until the collections are completed.
This is my chance to get books out there online for free, and the edited/revised versions may be found in the future on Amazon for you to buy/download and keep.
I don’t know when I’ll start with uploading Academy things. I’m in an experimental mode now so I’m using other stories to test. However! You’ll for sure see updates from me about it as we go.
If that all sounds good to you, that’s great! 🙂 But here is what I need from you:
- Sign up on As I Write Facebook/Instagram/Pinterest and newsletter. (Use whichever one you’d like.)
- Share with friends who like free stories.
- Comment and like on the stories you actually love.
- Show support for any sponsored posts.
That’s it! 🙂 That’s all I’ve got. As we grow, you know how this works, I’ll be able to charge more on ads. Basically once the income is replaced, I can just continue to write for free this way and the books for sale will just be if you happened to want it that way.
This might take a while. 🙂 It may never happen that I can take Academy books (Ghost Bird and Scarab Beetle) into this free mode completely (make free versions available online). However! I plan on trying my best and to put any future Academy series online this way. I just a few dollars for coffee, okay? Coffee = stories get written.
This is an experiment, okay? Goal is free stories forever, with ads for income. I’ll fix as I go. Anyway, thank you all very much for reading this. If you read all the way down here, YOU are my favorite. Thank you. <3 If I haven’t answered something you’re curious about here, you can email me (clstone@arcatopublishing.com). Just no asking for when the next book is out. 🙂 You know as soon as I do. I’m not good at secrets.
Melody ~ 1 ~ A Rumor About Food
The people of Juniper Island weren’t poor.
They had access to some of the best eating establishments; places sought out by elite tourists every summer season. They didn’t need a restaurant that gave away free meals: rosemary biscuits with carnation petal jam to an ailing couple after the funeral for their son; a slice of strawberry and rhubarb pie to a nerdy teenager the night before her first boy-girl dance; a yam and turnip stew to the island’s only real estate agent, rumored to be the richest man on the island.
While the locals had everything they could possibly want, the new restaurant was not there to cater to desires. It served only what a customer needed and nothing more.
It was crazy to open a restaurant in the middle of winter; tourist season didn’t officially begin until after Memorial Day. The other restaurants on the island routinely shut down during the winter. They were sure the new restaurant would be out of business quickly.
The people of Juniper also knew a restaurant that gave away food wouldn’t remain a secret for long, because the restaurant in question wasn’t giving away free meals just to hopeless cases or friends or family members. Anyone hungry on the North Shore of the island ended up there, and they were never asked to pay a dime.
That didn’t mean people left without leaving something behind. The real estate agent wrote a check to the children’s hospital and left it under his napkin. The teenager, a mood-stone ring, strangely permanently affixed to an aqua blue. The grieving couple left a family photograph on the hostess booth.
The items left behind often ended up elsewhere. The children’s hospital got the check. The photo attached itself to the altar of the island’s only church, the place where the boy had been Christened. The ring appeared on the finger of a boy, blushing after his first kiss with a girl he met at a school dance. In any case, the owner never kept any of the items left behind.
There were rumors that the owner of the restaurant was not from Juniper Island. Everyone knew who he was, but no one really knew what he looked like. No one recalled him ever leaving the kitchen, and as far as they could tell, he was the only one who cooked the food. The few who said they caught glimpses of him through the swinging kitchen door said that he was as old as dirt, and others said he was barely out of his twenties.
Whispers of how the owner managed to stay in business ranged from old money inherited from family, to international drug cartel hiding from tax collectors. The theory of his origin changed based on the cuisine served. Some said Chinese, some said old world European, some suggested South American, Russian, African. The rumors of food and looks and even magic passed the lips of the residents like wildfire.
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New Features, New Options – As I Write
As you can see, I’m making a few changes to As I Write.
I heard from readers who were having trouble getting the newsletter delivered.
I heard you, and I’m doing what I can to see if you can get notifications another way. Part of it was moving the content of the newsletter to this website.
I’m going to be doing some updates here. In the next couple of weeks, I’m developing a way to send push notifications to your phones or browsers, so you’ll get updates that way. They are generally more reliable. To make it work, it is just easier to put updates here on the site.
The newsletter will still be in operation, mostly as an optional notification method. It’ll simply remind you to check here in the future. You can stay subscribed if you’re happy with getting the newsletter, and it will link you to this blog. (stops me from doubling up on work :))
I’ll also keep adding previous download links here on this blog as well. If you ever miss a week, you can now just check the latest edition, and you’ll see links below.
That said, as this week is Thanksgiving in America, I’m going to put off the next newsletter for one week. Look for it to restart the week of the 4th in December. If you’re part of this tradition, have a happy Thanksgiving, and for those who are not, much love to you and have a great weekend. 🙂
Questions? Feel free to use the contact form on this website or email me directly at clstone@arcatopublishing.com
NEW STUFF!
Also, there will be more changes in the future, but I’ll release that information as we go and each thing becomes available.
For now, I’d like to invite everyone to check out:
I’ve started loading designs into a Zazzle shop. Zazzle allows anyone to start a shop with custom designs. As you can see, I started with a mug for Favored.
The best part about Zazzle is that even though I’ve uploaded this design, you can still customize this mug!
When you look at the shop, there will be a customize button. You can add your name, your favorite quote from the book, add a pic of your favorite puppy or anything you can imagine.
In the future I hope to add more items, more designs, etc. I’ll feature them here in the updates. Feel free to share with me what you’ve done with the mug, if you’ve added quotes. I’d love to include photos in the future newsletters.
CLICK HERE TO CUSTOMIZE AND ORDER YOUR FAVORED MUG!
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