Through the Portal was my first attempt at writing a book. I began in 2010, when I was around 15 years of age, and self-published the book in 2012. Having experienced poor (aka, zero) sales I tried to read it again in 2013 and to my horror realized that the book was absolutely terrible.

It’s hard to say I’m completely to blame. I was just inexperienced, both in writing and in life. It was hard to see the work objectively and too easy to assume it was going to be fantastic. I hadn’t the money to get it edited properly and though friends were supportive I didn’t properly go about enlisting their help. I also incorrectly interpreted what ‘self-published’ actually meant.

But it was a learning experience. In the years since I’ve finished my higher education and gotten an adult job, and I’m back at it in earnest. I’m going to re-write the story, to create something I can be really proud of. While I plan on self-publishing again, this time I plan on taking advantage of that fact, rather than being limited by it. I’m also going to expand the story, going more depth into the villians’ perspectives: because as we all know, we are all the heroes of our own stories.

The first published work in the reboot anthology, The Asteroid Field, is set to be published in 2021. Following that, I hope to be able to release two more works, Illegal Alien and Indistinguishable from Magic in 2022.

Through the Portal (2012) is still available on Amazon, if you want to buy it. Be warned, it’s objectively bad, at least in my mind. I’m leaving it up mostly out of laziness, but also in case it might someday serve as inspiration for someone.