You can’t do anything about the past, can you, so time to drop it forever! I’m sorry too, to my real fans and readers here, I mean, that Kickstarter films have talked far too much about other things and not really the book, Light of The White Bear. So with three weeks to go, to turn that around right now!
We are at 15%, in a week, with 22 kind backers, which with three more weeks to come would take it to 60% but since the voices say most pledges come in the last 10 days there is still hope! Difficult, especially if it doesn’t jump dramatically this week, but never say die. But of course it’s those who have read my stories I need now, not spooks just there for the show, in so many visitors recently to Phoenix Ark Press. There should be 300,000 fans out there somewhere though! Fans and readers like Yasmin, who gave another fantastic Pledge and also wrote this: “There are only two authors that I can say that have had a profound influence on my life and you are one of them.”
That makes me prouder than anything, and kicks Kickstarter into a cocked hat, win or lose, but it has been said by others, perhaps a part of the natural generosity of younger people too, if they like your work, because younger readers are actually more critical than any other. Which made and makes Young Adult Fantasy such a rare privilege. Right now I admit I need a bit of help too and some of that inspiration back again.
So back to the source, how I started out, what animal fantasy is really about, and to that perennial game everyone loves to play, if you (or so and so) were an animal, what animal would you be?! Perhaps what is your favourite animal too. Then some thoughts about what pledges bring, what has happened in this campaign and how to get Light of The White Bear into real print. It’s time to try and tell great stories again, to have fun and to share that with everyone, which you can see by CLICKING HERE
DCD
Below is a list of some of the comments that helped get Phoenix going ‘in the beginning’:
Phoenix Ark's Blog 
As a fan, it’s a JOY to hear you speak about your stories, and better yet, read them. Please do so again!!
I too was inspired to write (as an amateur) by our father of animal fiction, Richard Adams. My motivations were furthered by the brutal world and courage within The Sight, and the gripping narratives of Kenneth Oppel. Of course we had George Orwell decades before, but Adams gave us a particular brand of anthropomorphism which preserved the integrity of animal nature. What an honor it must be to have his review on the jacket of Fire Bringer.
I’m around animals all of the time, thus the one I want to be is subject to fluctuation. But I love orcas the most (didn’t you mention orcas for Light of the White Bear?), and if I wasn’t prone to seasickness, I think I would have stayed a marine ecologist instead of a terrestrial one. How strange it would be thrive where you cannot breathe, sleep always via alternating halves of the brain, and hunt in near darkness with sound.
How lovely to hear all that about your life. I am very jealous. I did mention Orcan, or the Orcan first, in this I’m afraid the baddies, but the glossary was just too long!
DCD
There’s no shame in baddies! And if I know anything of your baddies, it’s that they have a depth which justifies their motives, even if misguided. In fact, Morgra is one of my favorite villains in ALL literature because she was a victim first, and from a goodie at that! How would she have differed had Brassa not persecuted her? It’s questions like this that make a story lush and ripe with realism.