Spellbound Sword Passes 100,000 Reads!

This post is a post of appreciation for my fans, friends, family and readers who’ve helped my book get as far as it has already. That’s right, your eyes tell no lies. Spellbound Sword is officially past the 100k reads mark! I’ve had that milestone in my mind for quite some time now, but never did I believe we might actually get here. Every day I thought the popularity might wain. Call it imposter syndrome or anxiety or fear or what have you, but you’ve proven me wrong, and I couldn’t be more delighted. This is a cause to celebrate!

Thank you so much to everyone who’s stuck with this book and read it beginning to end, putting up with my spelling errors, logical fallacies, and other first draft nincompoopery, not to mention my habit of replying to comments I deem ridiculous with further ridiculousness. (Some might call this trolling. I call it ‘interacting with my fanbase.’) You are all very much appreciated, even those of you who leave mind-boggling comments at the bottom of the screen. I could not have achieved this without you, even the people who started the book and said, ‘Nah, not for me.’ Haha, the jokes on you, you impersistent suckers! I’ve used your reads to achieve this monumental goal, so even your hatred fuels the fires of my creativity!

All kidding aside, I feel really great today. My life has not always been wine and roses. Anxiety, frustration, and personal issues have often left me a mess of discombobulation, unsure of which way to push forth. My previous novels have not seen much praise. When I started Spellbound Sword I thought, well, if no one likes this one, I’m going to give up writing forever. I was convinced that I had misled myself all these years, that I just didn’t have it in me to produce anything of actual value. And now here we are! Just a brief year later and you wonderful lot have ballooned my success to untold fortune! (Now if I could somehow get paid at some point, I might be able to abandon my commitment to artistic poverty- but, ya know, baby steps…)

Thank you once more for your help and kind words. I’m going to keep writing and editing, working on this book and its sequels. I hope you enjoy all the twists and turns to come, and I hope we can keep growing this audience until it eclipses the solar system.

Sincerely,

Matt Shore

Grown Men Discuss Children’s Toys!

My friend “Big Trav” and I have started a gaming podcast called “The Entitled Gamer.” Please give it a listen, subscribe on iTunes and leave us a positive review.

We have some fun episodes available already, including an interview with some sexy cosplayers, and an episode featuring the best video game music of all time.

In other news, Spellbound Sword has nearly reached 100,000 reads! Even though it’s only a rough draft, my family-friendly fantasy adventure about a boy and his magic sword has reached a worldwide audience, and new fans discover it every day.

I am currently working on building the second draft of the book, as well as plotting potential sequels. The game plan is to query publishers and lit agents once the book is in professional enough condition. Check out the free version now while you still can!

(UPDATED:) Spellbound Sword’s Popularity Booms!

(UPDATE: As of today, Spellbound Sword has 4k reads!)

Great news! Wattpad has made my story, Spellbound Sword, a featured story in the Adventure category on their website. As a result, Spellbound Sword is gaining a ton of popularity. We’ve gone from about 100 readers a month to 100 readers a day in the course of a single week. Currently the story has about 3500 reads, up from 2300 on Wednesday. It’s also achieved the rank of #54 in terms of popularity within the Adventure category, which includes hundreds of thousands of stories. Crack out the champagne!

I’ve Completed the Draft of Spellbound Sword

I haven’t been posting much lately, and for that I apologize. I’ve been hard at work on the rough draft for my family-friendly fantasy tale, Spellbound Sword. It’s the story of a young boy named Travis who is adopted by a magic-using outlaw named Kane Verdelea. Together they go on a quest to steal a sword with ties to Travis’s family history. In doing so, they uncover a conspiracy within the Kingdom’s monarchy that has existed for decades and seeks to throw the entire country into chaos. Travis and Kane team up with a blade-wielding vagrant, a mysterious man-beast, and a mechanically minded Princess to stop the conspirators from unleashing their plot. Only the power of the sword can save the Kingdom, but unlocking its full potential is more difficult than Travis and his friends could ever imagine.

If you’re interested in reading the story, I’ll be posting it chapter by chapter every Monday, Wednesday and Friday on my wattpad page. If you’re interested in reading my last novel-length piece, a dark sci-fi tale for mature audiences called Scavengers (inspired heavily by the film Alien and the book The Shining). I apologize if this jump between genres and audiences might seem confusing, but I’m trying to stretch myself as a writer and discover where my voice and style best fit, even as they continue to grow.

When I was ten years old (the same age as Travis, my story’s protagonist) I entered a writing competition wherein we were given a prompt and had to make up a story on the spot. The story I wrote ended up winning an award, and it was the starting point for Spellbound Sword. My mother always encouraged me to revisit this story as it was one that captivated her when I wrote it. She has always been a fan of the Harry Potter series as well. I thought it might be time for me to try to write something that anyone could potentially enjoy, rather than forcing myself into a dark spooky niche.

So here we have Spellbound Sword, the first book in what I would like to be a series about Travis’s many adventures. If the series should continue or not is all up to you and whether or not you enjoy the tale. Like Scavengers, the draft you’ll find on wattpad is unedited and unrevised. If there are mistakes or inconsistencies (and I am sure there are some) they will hopefully be corrected in the next draft. I’ve been told to take a break between writing and editing so as to come back fresh, but I wanted to share with you what I had so far as a way of gauging your interest. Thus far, some people have really taken to the story, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart. Their encouragement means the world to me.

That being said, if you have comments, critiques, concerns, thoughts or questions about this or any of my writing feel free to contact me on twitter (at) shorester or leave a comment or message on my wattpad profile. If you have my email address you can reach me there as well, though I don’t like to give it out too freely for fear of a messy inbox. Any words of advice or criticism you might have, even ones about small typos or inconsistencies, will be of great use in the next edit, so I can and will use them all. No comment is too small.

Thank you for reading this and I hope you enjoy my stories.

 

Scavengers Update

I feel like I am about 100-150 “pages” away from being done with a draft of Scavengers. It’s a good feeling! Thanks to anyone/everyone who has taken the time to read it. I promise you, or those curious but uncertain, it shall be finished. The end is in sight, though the end for some characters may come sooner, rather than later… BWA HA HA HA HA!!!