I've been gone for three months, and I only gave you two reports on what I was doing, so that means I owe you a final report on what I've been doing!

Spoiler Alert: the answer is "not much."

But before that, just to let you know, Cradle: Path of Gold (the second collection of books, so volumes 4-6) is FREE today! And maybe for a couple of days, I don't know. But if you're halfway through the series and you want to pick up three Kindle books for free,  now's the time!

Of course, these books are always free to listen on Audible Plus, but I know some people are like me and prefer to read with their eyes rather than their ears.

Anyway, on to what I've been doing...

I took a week and stayed in a cabin writing for fun, as I suggested I would last time. I enjoyed it, but I didn't come away with a BIG IDEA or half a book or something, like I was kind of hoping.

Instead, I came out with a bunch of little ideas. Some of them might crawl their way to you at some point, but for the most part they were just a way to stretch my writin' muscles.

I did a lot of reading this last week or two--mostly a week--because I finally started on The Wandering Inn. And there is, uh, there is a LOT of it. I've read two million (ish) words in the last week (ish) and I'm not even at the halfway mark yet. Plus it's ongoing.

I might end up recommending it, but I'm told the best is yet to come, and I want to at least catch up before I offer my humble opinion.

Let's see, what else? I got my sister started on Stardew Valley after years of attempts on my part, and now she's losing sleep to make sure her flowers make perfect rows down to her crops.

It's been weird coming back, because I used to have more work to do. I had a lot to do other than just write, and now most of those non-writing tasks have been taken over by members of The Team, so I'm feeling kind of superfluous right now.

Hey, more time for writing!

​-Will

First off, I'm back!

For those of you who may be new here or might have forgotten, my name is Will. I'm primarily known for my full-time job as a sleep paralysis specter, but some of you may have read my books I guess.

It's funny, because in some ways it feels like I've been gone forever, and in other ways I feel like I was just writing Bloodline like two days ago.

But I wasn't!

I know a lot of you have been wondering if I took a break at all, since it turns out Bloodline is coming out April 6th instead of in June or July. Like maybe I bamboozled you, or wrote a book on my vacation. I assure you, I did not!

I finished Bloodline before going on break. When I wrote the blog post in December, I really had intended to be done with the book by then, and I wasn't quite finished yet. But I finished in the last couple weeks of December, before I went on the break, and I kept it a surprise!

Honestly, I doubt I could have taken a long break like this successfully with an incomplete book over my head. Any of my other tasks or duties I could postpone, but the book would have haunted me. I would have been thinking about it the whole time and would have come back ready to change everything.

By finishing it, I could let it go! Mostly. I still kept thinking of things I could change or add or improve, but that's just kind of how it always is. There's no escaping that trap completely.

I gnawed my foot off to try and escape, but it didn't help.

Then just a few days before I was scheduled to finish my break, the pre-order for Bloodline hits #1 in the Kindle Store, and we're already deep into the book launch process, which is pretty crazy! We're hitting the ground running!

Speaking of which, release stuff:

--Starting tomorrow, there's a sale on the merch store for 15% off all merchandise using the promo code "LITTLE BLUE" (sale lasts for ten days)! This is to celebrate the release of the Bloodline merchandise, I'm pretty sure. But it doesn't matter why, does it? It's a sale.

--Just to remind you: paperback copies of Bloodline will go up for sale a day or two before the official release date, so that those of you who care about paper copies are more likely to get your books on the actual day of release.

--The aerosol and psychic vibration versions of the story are available only in alternate dimensions, and cannot be side-shipped to the material plane at this time. If you believe you may qualify for such copies, please conduct a standard summoning ritual and consult with our dimensional services manager, Brrgmoth.

--And speaking of alternate versions, the audio version of Bloodline will be available on April 6th just like the other two versions! We've said this before, but we do keep getting questions about it. I assure you, the audio version will be out.

However, the rest of the Cradle audiobooks are free to listen with any Audible subscription as part of the Audible Plus program, but Bloodline will not be. At least not at launch. I assume it will be eventually, but I can't guarantee that because I'm not Audible.

--Finally, I've missed you all!

I await your response to the next book with a mixture of excitement and spine-freezing fear, as is tradition. But I do hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for reading!

​-Will

Hello all, beta reader gnome here.

I come to you kicking and screaming voluntarily in my hat and my feet firmly planted in the garden. Thankfully they have left my hands free so that I can pen this missive to you all. First, I’d like to address the question you all are inevitably asking and scheming about. No, you can’t become a beta reader by asking. I became a beta reader due to a blood pact I made with Will after we experienced an incident with a hippo and a hula hoop. I saved his life by sacrificing my hair, and this work was my reward. Yes, being a beta reader is work. While you all are racing to finish the book in 4 minutes, we have to meticulously pore over an unfinished and unpolished draft.
 
That is the actual first thing I’ll tell you all, what we actually do. I know it sounds all cool that I get the book earlier than everyone else, but really it’s only [some arbitrary percent] cool. Will’s a great writer, but sometimes he needs help to work out some rough patches in a draft. And you do that by getting feedback. That’s where I and my fellow readers come in. We read this rougher draft and we give feedback on it. There are no bloopers, sometimes Will just substitutes in a [scene goes here], and there’s even the occasional ape attack. That’s right, we sacrifice our first reads so you all can get a better one. Now don’t get me wrong, I love doing this. But there is some small part of me that wishes I could read that fresh, polished book like the rest of you.
​  
So, let’s get into this feedback. My personal approach is to give both macro and micro feedback. I have chapter wrap-ups and whole book feedback, but I also note sections or moments that stick out to me in either a positive or negative way. Positive feedback is just as important as negative, Will needs to know what I liked as well as what didn’t work for me. I tend to focus on the overarching plot, character, and general story flow. I know you might be thinking “Wait! I don’t care about those things! What about the length of Lindon’s left pantaloons or how many times Lindon punches a clown!?” Don’t worry, there’s someone else for that! Will has multiple readers who cover all his bases, really, I guarantee you it’s all covered. However, that doesn’t mean we have absolute power over what Will ends up putting in the book. That brings me to the next topic.   

In the end, Will is the final arbiter of what changes in the draft. He treats all of our feedback as suggestions and he should. Will shamelessly steals from Neil Gaiman and says, “A reader knows what they don’t like, but they don’t actually know how to fix it.” He’s right. At a certain point we just trust Will to know what’s best, and 99% of the time, he does. There were plenty of times where I suggested something that Will fixed in a wildly different and better fashion. We also don’t know everything behind the scenes either. Will doesn’t give us a “this is what this is alluding to” manual, so we’re as much in the dark about the future as the rest of you. We get these books one at a time. So if there is something in the interest of setting something up in future books, Will keeps it. In the end, Will knows what serves his stories best. 

Finally, let’s get down to the real secrets. Where is Oz- Oh no! They’ve noticed my hands are still free! I can go on no longer. Before they get me, I hope this was an informative look into the beta reading process and I hope you all enjoy the book!



Quick Reminder:
Bloodline out in print, ebook, and audiobook April 6th, merch up now on the Will Wight store! Preorder for ebook and audio live NOW, exclusively on Amazon and Audible! Also, don’t forget you can listen to all 8 currently released Cradle books on Audible Plus for the price of FREE WITH A MEMBERSHIP! 

The next blog post will come from Will himself who’s currently rebuilding his own bodily infrastructure on the slopes of Mount Sinai. His return is imminent. 

Hey everybody! Will’s brother and Emotional Confidant Sam here to highjack his blog and show off my affinity for click-bait titles. Today starts the Audible and ebook preorder for Bloodline, releasing on April 6. We generally get asked a lot of similar questions around book launch time, so here’s a quick FAQ about the release:

• We are asked every launch when the book will be available to read or listen to on your device, especially if you preorder. The honest answer is, “we do not know.” We have absolutely zero control over that and don’t know what factors affect it. During Wintersteel’s release, for example, we had confirmed downloads at 12:01 AM the day of launch in certain regions but other people living in those exact same regions couldn’t access the book for hours. Why is that? We have no idea and no way of finding out. Super-sad-face.
• Bloodline will also be a part of the Amazon Kindle Unlimited program and will be available there on April 6.
• Even though the audiobook will be exclusively available for purchase on Audible, it will NOT launch as part of the Audible Plus Catalog (where you can listen to all the other Cradle books for free with any Audible membership).
• Paperbacks will be up for purchase a day or two before April 6, but no preorder available.
• Will IS doing his launch stream on Twitch like usual. He won’t know he’s doing it until he reads this…but he is. More specific info on this to come.

The main question we’re getting asked right now revolves around Will’s break and the fact that no one can trust what he says since he is the father of lies. But trust me, the brother of lies, when I tell you that he really did go on break. He’s been off the whole time and hasn’t written anything Cradle-related. Was Bloodline actually written by Will? Is it secretly only 13 pages long? Did we intentionally muddy the public timeline and have him complete the book before break so he could feel entirely relaxed and not have a book hanging over his head? THE WORLD IS SO FULL OF MYSTERY! His return is imminent though, dependent on us recovering his body from the Mariana Trench.

That’s all the serious news to be conveyed, but this is the first time I’ve been allowed to touch Will’s blog so I want to put some real-life information out there…

Will gets asked a lot about his personal inspiration for characters, scenes, and lines of dialogue. People often want to know if certain things in his books come from real life experiences/people he knows. For the most part, the genuine answer is that his inspiration doesn’t come from anything personal at all. Some of my earliest memories involve him creating stories from thin air to entertain my six-year-old brain with nothing fuelling him but his own imagination. There is ONE THING in Cradle that is a direct rip off of his actual life though. One specific nuance to everyone’s favorite blond protagonist that comes entirely from Will’s life:

The man is obsessed with scissors. Literally at any given point, Will has several pairs of scissors lying around his room. They’re his favorite thing to fidget with and there have been more than a few times when he’s casually doing some monotonous task, while idly scratching his face with scissors. It’s basically just a matter of time until he stabs himself. But that’s DEFINITELY where Eithan’s preferred weapon comes from. Not sure if it was a subconscious add to the series, but here we are.

The hype around Bloodline is incredible and we genuinely want to thank everyone for being so patient and supportive of Will during his break. The mental refresher was necessary, and it meant a ton to him that the vast majority of the fan base was behind him. You're the real MVPs. Looking forward to those in-depth Reddit reviews,

—Sam

P.S. If you haven’t noticed yet, there may, or may not, be a previously unreleased audio clip floating around somewhere. And it may, or may not, already be up on this site and Will’s other social media pages…