The full version has released on Patreon, an exclusive for patrons until the audio is curated into one collection.  But here, you’ll get this taste of what it sounds like to see if it might interest you.  I hope you enjoy this tease!

Midwinter Requiem
A Tale by Rhianna DeAngelo
-Audio Preview Narrated by Michael DeAngelo-

Flecks of silver snow drifted over the golden glow of the bonfire built between the three hunting brothers of the Coldwhistle Clan. The night air blew cold through the low valley, surrounded by snow-capped mountains on all sides.  The smell of ash and pine filled their nostrils as they sat, absently gazing into the flames.  Baldur, the youngest of the dwarven band, gulped greedily at the leather skin of ale his eldest brother handed him.

“Easy, lad,” said Einar with a mischievous smirk, barely visible under the black braids of his grey-streaked beard.  “Yer likely to put the fire out if you canna steady those shakin’ hands of yers.  An’ there’s no tragedy so terrible as wasted ale.”

The middle brother, Gudbrand, leered reproachfully at Einar through the disheveled raven hair that slightly obscured his vision.  “I don’t think it’s the cold that has him shakin’, brother.  The lad’s felled his first beast today.”  His dark green eyes met his youngest brother’s from across the fire.

“That tender heart of yours will harden when the hunger sets in.  You’ve done well, Baldur, for bein’ such a young whelp.”

Baldur wiped the ale from his auburn stubble and looked at the motionless face of the small white fox, bound tightly with ropes and pelts atop the pile of dead creatures stacked neatly in their oak sled.  The elder dwarves laid claim to the mound of stag, boar, and goat carcasses that would feed the clan for at least a fortnight in the Frostveil, while he contributed only one small beast.  The creature’s black eyes glowed red from the fire light, and Baldur looked away, ashamed.

“I’m not bothered, ye old codgers,” he said defensively, giving Einar a light punch in the arm.  “It’s… It’s only the cold.”

Gudbrand looked up from sharpening the stone tips of his arrows and gave Baldur a harsh look.  “Ye don’t know what cold is yet, laddy.”

Einar gave an incomprehensible grunt of agreement and swept away the light dusting of snow on the ground to reveal a few blades of green grass.  “This is as mild weather for hunting beyond the mountain I’ve seen in twenty years or so.  See?  The ponies can still feed themselves, and they’ll be nice and strong to pull our bounty back to the Frostveil.  A fine feast we’ll be havin’ when we bring this lot back. Mmm, I can already smell the mutton!”  His eyes wrinkled into a happy squint beneath his bushy eyebrows.

Gudbrand shook a newly sharpened arrow tip at Einar and sighed deeply.  “You know, you’re the eldest.  You should be tellin’ the lad tales of the clan, not fillin’ his head with thoughts of food and the comforts of home.”

Einar’s eyes grew slightly sad, and he looked up at the soft glow of the moon through the billowing clouds, watching the snow dance lightly against the black night sky.  “Goddess willing ye both live as many winters as I, and you’ll find your thoughts always find a way back home.”

Eager for the distraction and emboldened by the ale, Baldur looked pleadingly at his eldest brother.  “Go on then; tell me a tale of the clan. One mother might have blessed herself at hearing.”

Einar bellowed a hearty laugh.  “Bless her memory, you might not have known the woman long, but she certainly kept you close to her teats while she had ye.”

The wind howled sharply as the three brothers fell silent, each lost in their own remembrance.

“All right, lad, I’ll tell you the tale… the tale of our first queen.”

Baldur arched an eyebrow.  “We had a queen?  I thought all the clans are ruled by kings.”

Einar nodded with an annoyed grunt.  “Aye, they are now, and for a reason.  But if you don’t shut yer mouth, you’ll never hear the truth of why we’re called the Coldwhistle Clan.”

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As many of you may know, I participated in NaNoWriMo this year.  It was a completely new experience for me, since most of the writing I’ve done for Tellest thus far has been pencil to paper in a notebook before it’s transferred to the computer.  In that way, I end up editing my book twice as I write it.  For NaNoWriMo, I knew that I was going to have to leave that kind of writing to the side, or I would never make my target word count in time.

50,000 words in 30 days is something that seemed a little beyond my skills, but as of today—with one day to spare—I’m proud to announce that I was able to meet that lofty goal.  I’m a NaNoWriMo 2015 winner.  Heart of the Forest is well on its way.  At that word count, we’re at about 100 pages written, and I’ve just started the twentieth chapter.  It’s still a long way to go, but I’m committing to a new task going forward, as a result of this first NaNoWriMo experience.

From now on, I’m going to write at least one chapter of a story per week directly on the computer, just like I’ve done throughout this November.  It’ll be my writing in its rawest form, so it won’t necessarily be the best display of my ability, but it’ll fulfill my promise to you that there will always be more content from Tellest that is ready to read.

Now, this will go on to serve two purposes.  First, it’ll mean that there will be more stories to read at a quicker pace.  My guess is that Heart of the Forest will be around a forty chapter story, so I’m about halfway there.  At this rate, I’ll have it done by the end of April.  At that point, it’ll be time to sit down with it and throw in some heavy edits to make sure that it’s a story worthy of your attention.

That brings us to our second purpose.  Writing in that style gives me the golden opportunity to bring my stories to you a lot quicker than the way that I currently do.  The Tellest Patreon page is the place where chapters of Heart of the Forest are currently being uploaded every Wednesday.  You have to be a patron to get early access to those snippets, but I’m announcing today that you only need to spend $1 a month to get that access (it used to be $3).  And here’s some even better news: even if you’re not a patron, there’s a chance you’ll see some of our exclusive early content there.  There’s a 1-in-3 chance you’ll see the art we commission early, and there’s a 1-in-10 chance that you’ll get to read Heart of the Forest early.

And I guess that kind of serves a third purpose then.  The more people that we know we’re working for, the more diligent we are.  If you know anyone who wants to be a part of that, let them know.  Tellest will only grow because of it!

Last but not least, I wanted to let you know about Tales of Tellest.  We started this campaign a long time ago (it’s almost been two years!), but it’s about time that it’s wrapping up.  In the next couple of weeks, all five novellas will have been released, as well as all twelve short stories that we committed to.  At that point, we’re going to be releasing the entire collection on Amazon, followed shortly after by a paperback release.  I wanted to personally thank everyone who has been so patient with all of that, and we’re looking so forward to bringing you that piece of Tellest.

Here’s hoping for more frequent updates in the future.  With NaNoWriMo just about wrapped up, we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled broadcasts!

Cheers,

Mike

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Chances are, you don’t even know what Patreon is.  It’s kind of like an internet tip jar.  If there’s an artist, or a musician, or maybe a novelist that you like, you have the opportunity to follow them on Patreon, and if you really like them, you can pledge to them so that they can grow their particular brand a little bigger.  A lot of times, this gives you access to content especially catered just to you.

For Tellest, what I like to do is treat my Patreon project like a monthly magazine.  Every weekday, I try to get a new piece of art from the world of Tellest up on the internet.  It’s a nice way to go behind the scenes, and it lets people see the art before it is scheduled here on the site – something I can only do once per week. At this point, we’re more than three months ahead of schedule on the Patreon page, and that’s a cool way to give back to the people who are interested in Tellest.

The nice thing is that you get to make the call.  Do you drop in a penny a month?  A quarter?  A dollar?  More?

Each level gives you some more access, whether it’s seeing the art much sooner, reading the margins of the books that I’m writing (which gives you some idea of how my mind works), or even getting the chapters and sections of novellas and short stories much earlier than the rest of the readers.

Best of all, when you pledge to become a patron, you’re helping to expand the world of Tellest (or enhancing any of the other projects on Patreon).  You’re helping us fund more art, or find new writers to push past the borders of the established lands.

If you’ve followed Tellest for a while, and you like what we do, consider checking out the Patreon page.  Even if you don’t want to pledge, or don’t have the money to, we try to make some of the content available free of charge, just to help strengthen our community.  We’d love for you to be a part of it!

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Long term, I imagine taking on other writers, and publishing them through Tellest, or perhaps Otherworld if the scope is too distinct or foreign for Tellest to accommodate.  I envision MMOs where the gamers’ decisions ultimately shape each variant of the world you’re playing in.  Consider a scenario where you’re in the city of Versali-Virai, and there is a huge bay separating the western and eastern sides of the urban sprawl.  What if the players proposed different ways to traverse that distance?  One realm (or server, shard, whatever you call it) employs a ferry to carry you from one side to the other.  Another realm builds a massive bridge that lifts high above the water to allow ships beneath it, while serving as an overpass for those walking or on horseback.  These ideas aren’t ones that are floated by the developers.  They’re proposed (and funded with in game money) by the players.

I digress.  Rather than talk about things that are in the distant future, I should talk about what is possible in the months to come.  Last week I talked about how we are now on Patreon (and we already have our first patron!).  One of the cool things about Patreon is that you can set these milestone goals – kind of like stretch goals on Kickstarter – but because Patreon works on a monthly or per item basis, you’re actually able to be a little more tactful in your rewards and goals.  It’s difficult to be a creator and work a full-time job.  Ideally, you’d make enough money through your party to not have to involve yourself in the rat race, but how many people not named Martin, King or Rowling do you know who can get away with that?

Patreon’s set up has led to some cool ideas here at Tellest, and I’d like to highlight one of those now.  These past few months, the serialized form of fiction that we’ve been running on the site has been fairly rewarding.  It’s a constant stream of content that’s available for anyone, and it almost has that comic book feeling that makes sense for a world of medieval superheroes.  It’s getting people involved a little more because they’re coming back week after week.

But what if you could take it a step further?  What if you could really involve your readers?

The $200 a month milestone on Patreon is for something that I’m calling an Interactive Fiction Serial.  Consider the idea of letting your readers determine how a story unfolds?  It’s the ultimate fan service. You’re literally crafting a story with your readers, rather than for them.  You can still surprise your audience – not everything needs to be determined by the council.  But logical stopping points where choices need to be considered can lead you down paths that you wouldn’t expect – creating an even more organic experience for the author too.  I’ve always thought that my stories were at their best when I wasn’t even sure where I was heading.  I don’t outline very often these days unless I’m trying to keep track of storylines that have already been mapped by my brain.  But there are those oft-less traveled roads that are surprising even to me.  In a way, an Interactive Fiction Serial is almost like a Choose-Your-Own adventure on steroids.  It never has to end, and it always leads you to new places.

And the best part is that Tellest is the kind of place that can really express this style in a very cognizant way.  I don’t want to commit to anything or go into any real details about what our story could be about, but if you’ve ever played Dark Souls, you could think about that in terms of communication.

As of now, this is just a dream.  $200 per month on Patreon is a long way off, especially for a creator who doesn’t really do too much on YouTube, which is where 50% of Patreon’s fans are finding their campaigns.  But Tellest was founded on dreams.  If we’re not going to pursue them, what’s the point of having them at all?

Just something to think about.

Cheers!

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One of the things that Tellest is always looking into is finding new ways to connect to people.  A few weeks ago, during our interview with Christian Madera and Zach Glass, we spoke briefly about Patreon.  I was familiar with it to some extent, largely in part because I made an account a few months back.

Though we don’t have a video in place yet, I figured now was as good a time as any to announce that Tellest is on Patreon.  We’re starting with very low ambitions, but if it looks like people are interested in what we’re bringing to the table, we will add some more stretch goals, better rewards, and overall more content.

Think of Patreon as an internet tip jar.  You’re helping us keep a steady stream of entertainment releases in sight, and we’d love to see you there!

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