I'm not exactly big on the holidays. It's due to coming from a very abusive family, which I try to brush upon in my stories. Most of the personal thoughts, friends, and family stuff that I write are all meaningful to me. Even Julie, who was my in real life abusive ex-girlfriend (albeit her name has been changed). She doesn't just make a great villain, but it shows a different side to the group and Star. 

My wife tries to make the holidays special for me and I take it to heart as a time to give and be with family. Presents are not a thing for me. Just sharing times with those you love is what the holidays mean to me. Before I met my wife, I hosted holidays for my LAN and guildmates who didn't have family, since I didn't have much of any family I wanted to be around besides my aunt who was busy. It was a good way to give to my friends and be around the people who truly were special to me. 

I wish everyone a healthy and safe holiday with those you love. Also, I'm doing my best to get the next book out. The detailed storyline is taking a lot more work than I'd ever imagined, but the story is getting there. Eric was right to give me a hard time about getting book 6 out by December. I wasn't even close and forgot how much the holidays takes away your time to write.

The good news is the storyline is coming along nicely. Mike and Domenic are met up with, along with a bunch of other players like the Aussie's Dangas guild leader and the Russian guild leader Dmitry. It's a complex story with the comradery of friends, which I think has been the hardest part of the writing. Bringing the different characters to life in the story has been hard as hell. I've put more time in those discussion than I have in many fights to get the feeling right. I think the wait will be worth it for everyone :)

There was also my fight with High Blood Pressure, a bunch of doctor visits to make sure I didn't have anything else going on, and of course getting sick with some nasty flue from the Xmas Markets and the freezing weather. Between that and the normal holiday craziness, it has been difficult to do my normal 5k writing a day. I think it's been more like 2.5k to 3k. Partly that is due to the complexity of the story and the personalities, so there is that. I just remind myself that the speed of writing isn't important, it's the quality of the writing that is what is most important.

On a side note, book 5's audiobook is taking even longer than expected to get out. I was informed by audible below:

There was some strangeness I had when I was trying to upload Book 5's cover. Things that had always worked were being denied and I finally came up with an image that worked, but it was blurry. This time around, my normal re-sized image was accepted without issue. I also made sure the title was correct, there was some confusion with that. Jason Hill is also changing the encoding. What is odd is the encoding was never an issue before. Anyway, once he has this corrected, I'll re-apply book 5 for audible's review. Sorry about the wait. 

I just wanted to let you know that your support makes The World series possible. The positive reviews you leave on all the books stops the IAK guild from pushing me out of the genre. You'd think that by now these limp-dicks would have focused on their own writing and given up on griefing the competition, but they don't ever get up. Even now, I still get the same nasty games being played as they try to slip in nasty reviews of hate. Even so, they can't contend with the reviews being left by real fans. For that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart and I promise to keep the books coming.

Lastly, for those of you who are interested, I've added some of my family's holiday pictures. My wife likes to do a traditional Polish dinner on Christmas eve and day. The day after that, I have been asked to do a traditional American dinner with my special turkey recipe, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, and mashed potatoes. It'll be a day of cooking for friends and family.  Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pics. 

Earlier this year, I received a message from a fan asking when book 4 would be out on audible. His name was Krishna and he’d made a comment that the worst thing about being blind was having to listen to the crappy computer voice for his audible books when he didn’t feel like waiting for a new audible book to be released. I’m paraphrasing this a bit, since I can’t find his comment in my email. When I read this, I was just in awe about how he could joke about this vision impairment.

Now, me being who I am, couldn’t just let that sit. I have a huge respect for anyone who’s gone through a horrible time and come through the other side stronger. Whether it’s with being bullied, abusive childhood/marriage, a horrible disability, PTSD or whatever. I’ve been through a number of rough times in my life and I try to bring them out in my writing. So, I ended up contacting Krishna and we talked about his trials of being vision impaired.
Yes, when our conversation started out, I used the term blind. It was a common term when I was growing up and I didn’t know that the use of the word had changed. Krishna kindly made fun of me and asked what rock I’d been living under, before explaining that the correct term was visually impaired. Now don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t nasty about it, but joked back with me like any of my friends naturally would. We spent a few hours or almost five talking about the book series, talking about how it was to grow up blind (cough … cough … visually impaired), and different things about the visually impaired community.

It was quite the eye opener. During our talk though, I could help but forming a guild of visually impaired players and imagining how that would be like for them in a game with good and asshat players alike. What would their Nightmare start entail? How would players act towards them? What would PKers do to them? How would that react to being ganked? Those thoughts all came together to form the story in book 5 & 6. Well, at least the introduction to the Uten Syn Guild. I plan to have them be a continuing part of the story, albeit not like my friends Sarka and Yun.

There were be a bunch of interesting aspects of the Uten Syn Guild and players’ reactions to the visually impaired players inside and outside the game. While Krishna gave me some great insight into the culture, he unfortunately was in-between jobs and didn’t have time to spend going over a few of the points I didn’t immediately catch. One was what the visually impaired community calls individuals who discriminate against other people due to how they’re told by their non-visually impaired friends how they look. You know, the whole issue where a visually impaired person is told by their friend that their date is homely and not hot, so the visually impaired person breaks up with them because they’re not visually attractive to other people. Yes, this is truly a thing in the community.

Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the term when he told me and he didn’t get back to me when I asked. So, I was at a loss for what the slang term for these people were. I did a bunch of google searches trying to catch the slang term, but to no avail. The only thing I could do was make up a term that fit the type of person which, in book 5, was “seers.” Yep, I made that term up. If someone wants to offer the term their group of friends use for these types of people, I would be grateful, but until then, I’ll be sticking with “seers” as the series slang for these individuals.

I also wanted to thank the visually impaired fans who have so far left reviews about the Uten Syn Guild. I hope to do your community proud and look forward to any tips you’re willing to offer to make the in-game players more real. So far, it seems like I’m mostly doing a good job.

In my school, there was a lot of support for the physically handicapped students. You didn’t mess with those students, or the whole student class would have risen up to beat their ass if you messed with any of them. Well, mostly. There was a young guy named John who was not so nice to people and he sometimes ran into issues, but other then that, everyone was real supportive.
 
I bring that up because of a review that was left by a visually impaired Australian fan who didn’t have the same support from students when he was in school. He actually had to fight a bunch of asshats who thought it would be funny to pick on the blink kid. The ass whoopings he learned to give the loud mouths were very educational. I might have to add someone like that into the current list of visually impaired players inside the game.

Anyway, I plan to bring other handicapped players into The World as well. The feedback I’ve been getting from the various fans have been super motivating and fits with idea I’ve been using for Star’s group of friends. You know, the whole “island of misfit toys” theme. That theme does actually fit my life and those people I call friends. Well, all of us except for Mike. Mike was always the cool kid who could jump between various types of groups of friends in school and be accepted by everyone.
​
On a final note, I wanted to thank everyone for the support for The World series and hope you enjoyed finding out how the Uten Syn guild came to be.

Here is the back cover description of the story:​

Landing in Darom, Startum Ironwolf is confronted by the devastation being wrought by the Chaos Storm alliance and is forced into a guild war of epic proportions. With the beginnings of a massive invasion from the northern tribes looming on the horizon, Star fights his way across the Kingdom of Kader to reach his friend. Along the way, the face of the true enemy is revealed with the deception of a close friend. Somehow, Star and his allies must survive the betrayal and the overwhelming odds stacked against them.

For those of you who are fans of the series, I ask for your help with positive reviews on Amazon. Well, at least if you like the story ;) This is my first public release of book five and I can use all of your help to fight the IAK guild. From their all out attack on the audible version of book 4, I'll definitely need your help to fight them with book five.

I did a silent release for those fans on Goodreads, Facebook, Patreon, and email that I could reach directly on July thirty-first, when the book first came out. So far the results have been incredible. First place in Fantasy Adventure and Dark Fantasy Horror. That wouldn't have been possible without your support. 

I'm sure the ratings will change dramatically once the IAK guild get's wind of the book being out. Luckily, with your help, it won't too much of a concern as with the rest of the series.

The good news is that book 6 is already in the pipe. I'd planned to have this be just one massive book, but once I hit 700 pages, I decided I had to split the week up into two books. Also, with how the audible books work out with splitting profits, having a book that's too large isn't worth the extra work as far as the voice actors are concerned. If I wanted to be able to get Jason Hill down with doing the new audible book then I had to make sure the book wasn't too big.  

I hope you enjoy the story. The action really ramps up once Star hits Darom and starts making his way towards Dominic's fortress. There was a lot of PVP action at the beginning of this book, but, due to the nature of the situation with the PKers, it was inevitable. Luckily, there is a good PVE story to go with all of the action and a surprised betrayer and villain at the end. Also, make sure you check out the Post Credit Scene at the back of the book. In the future, this will be a cool way for me to sneak in extra cool elements for the series. 

If you're interested in seeing some of the unique parts of the story that was either pulled and reworded, or the beginning chapter of book 6, you can find that on my Patreon page here: 

​This is just a quick heads up for fans who were interested in knowing when the next audiobook of the series was being released. Book four of The World series is currently out and available on audible.com here https://www.audible.com/pd/Helping-a-Friend-Audiobook/B07VB62BL9?pf_rd_p=d4bd4ee1-b56e-4ffb-8f73-3fbb8d604669&pf_rd_r=31MGNSEA1M8N1ADGYM3Q&ref=a_author_Ja_c19_lProduct_1_5 The release date for the book was on July 18, 2019. You can find the audio sample for the book here:

Yes I know I’m a little late on broadcasting the official release date of the book by nearly a month on my blog and Facebook page, but that’s due to the constant attacks I still receive from the IAK guild, aka The Indie Author Killer guild. By now, you’d think that they’d have given up trying to bash my series and block sales, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. It doesn’t matter if it’s The World series book 1, 2, 3, or 4. The IAK guild watches my blog continuously, they hit me on Goodreads, they smash me on Amazon, they bash me on Audible, they watch my Facebook account, they try to bash me on Facebook groups, and even try to hack my accounts. The IAK guild truly spends and incredible amount of time, effort, and money (especially on the audible book side) to block my series.

The only good thing, I guess, is that it takes away from their ability to write and create good stories. While I’m writing new books, they are bashing me and other Indie Authors as almost a full-time job. Who knows, maybe that’s how they make their money. I’ve gotten so accustomed to it that it’s just par for the course.

The IAK guild has been successful to a point. If not for their constant attacks, my series would be sitting at a solid 4.9 to 5.0 stars rating. If my books are left alone for a week or two, they immediately start rising up through the rating ranks. Still, even with all of the IAK guild love, my books are still “sitting good” in their overall ratings. Yes, they are rift with reviews saying some of the nastiest things about me and the series, but as with most controversy, that just seem to motivate new readers to check out the books even more. So, in some ways, I guess I owe the IAK a big thank you for making The World series stand out that much more in the sea of LitRPG and Gamelit titles.

In the end though, it’s you, the fans of the series, which have stopped these PKers from blocking my books. You have successfully nullified the worst of their attacks and kept the series alive. The initial reviews on the silent release of book four’s audible book built up to the point that the IAK guilds’ attacks fell flat once they realized the new book was out. After that, it was everyone’s reviews that keep the ratings up high enough to encourage new readers to continue seeking out the series. Without your staunch support, The World series would have faded away to obscurity long ago due to the activities of the IAK guild.

Please accept my heartfelt thank you and know that every new book in the series is only possible because of your continued support. This is also why I always encourage everyone to leave reviews for me and all of the authors that you like. Only in this way will you ensure that those authors will continue to write the stories that you love to read and stop the IAK guild from blocking everyone but their members. Otherwise, the genre we love will be full of carbon copy titles that read the same and only vary by different MC names and themes.

Lastly, I want to thank everyone for allowing me, as an author, to experiment with new storylines and ideas. I really went all out in Book four. The good thing is that the novel is nothing like I’ve ever read before. The bad, is that some of the topics can be somewhat uncomfortable at times. It is the nature of my writing to do my best to make the series as realistic, deep and well-written as I possible. My world is not a pretty, cutesy place. It is dark and gritty where the digital AIs that make up The World do their best to live and survive.  

Star finds himself in a lot of unique situations. He is not a hero, nor would I say that he’s an anti-hero. He’s just a guy doing his best to play a game and have fun, while trying to help his friends hit the Pro Gamer status. At the same time, he does his best to treat people right, whether they’re digital people or a fellow players like him. As with anyone, he has baggage from his past. Whether it’s in the form of his abusive childhood or relationships with abusive women, it weighs down his soul and makes him who he is. He’s also a young, horny guy in his early twenties who definitely appreciates the physical beauty of women in the game world. That doesn’t mean he’s an overt lecher, but, as with everyone, he has his own internal dialog and thoughts. It has always been my belief that actions speak louder than words. If you’re going to judge Star, judge him for what he does and how he treats people.
​
While books 1 through 3 were more about Star exploring the world and the people in it, book 4 shows the beginning of his growth on the inside. The level of horror and suffering in The World really hits Star deeply and he begins to change by the end of the story. This change will grow in the proceeding books and I hope does a good job in representing how experiencing trauma and horror can alter a person in real life. I hope you enjoy the journey.
 
Jason Cheek, author of The World series.   
PS: I will be starting a Patreon page soon! 

For anyone who's interested in the pictures of the in real life friends that are the basis for the characters in the story and concept pictures I used to develop characters like Helgath, Hollysharp, and others, you can check out my Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100007596607095 

I try to throw up little tidbits as I can on the Facebook page and will continue to do so. There's also pictures of our LAN parties like what was in the beginning of book four. People like Hefe, AJ, Jill, Mike, JellyDonutMan and LittleAsianGirl are all there, including myself. Yeah, my heavy gaming days and my extreme sports pictures after the break-up I had with Julie. Julie isn't my ex-gaming girlfriend's actual name. I split her up into her good side named Krystal and her bad side named Julie, leaving the real name out. I also mixed her strategy in with a few of the other 'bad guy' and 'gal' friends I played in the past, so she's a little bit of a conglomeration of all of these people combined. 

Anyway, I thought I'd do a quick post for those of you who are interested. In so many ways I miss those LAN party days. We used to do a party like that every other weekend. If a new game had just come out, it would be every week for a few months straight, with easily 20 to 30 people at the party. This wasn't laptops and flat screen monitors, but the older CRT monstrosities and full gaming desktops. 

Hope you enjoy the pictures and visuals of how I picture some of the characters.

​The good news is that book five is well on the way. I missed about three weeks dealing with a bunch of corrections for book one through four. By the time I got that settled, I came down with a nasty case of bronchitis that completely took me down for a good three weeks. I was able to get a little bit of writing in, but spent most of the time collapsed in bed. It seemed like I couldn’t stay awake for more than three hours straight. Finally though, I’ve started to feel better and the story is flowing out of me.
 
The good news is that I’m over 40k words into the story, but already I can see this is going to be another immense novel. It will cover the whole ‘rescuing Domenic’ from the PVP Alliance of Chaos Storm. While there is a lot of PVP action in the story, there is also a huge PVE (Player vs Environment) story going on within the world itself. I’m excited because of what that will bring into the series adventure wise, since the world is changing due to the decisions players are making in the training area.
 
Oh yeah, the training area which is called the Norden Region for being a part of Earth’s Nordic region and the entire current map is only the game’s training area. My current plan is for the base leveling range to be up to fifty for this area and basically players shouldn’t even leave the area until they’ve reached near that level. Outside of the training areas will be monsterville. Some monsters will be just that, individual monsters. Others will be tribes. There will even be entire empires of monsters that are living and doing their own thing within the world.
 
There are other training areas in the world. Basically any location that is a peninsula or an area that is off on its own. A good example of this would be Florida. These will be the other game start areas as the game opens up to the entire world to play. There is not set area for Europe, Asia or the Americas. Everyone will join where they happen to join that hasn’t filled up yet. The game’s world is a reflection of the Earth. I haven’t decided yet but I might make it an earth with the same continent structure that is basically 50x as large as our world. That part I haven’t decided yet, but it explains the Norden region and why it’s being used.
 
Story wise I have a good twenty novels if not more waiting to be written without any second thought. Many of the empires and cultures have already been formulated with more that are coming. I already have many of the cultures for Germany, Russia, Italy and Africa. That part of the adventure and exploration will continue while our intrepid heroes deal with old and new enemies. I’m really excited about some of these areas. I’ve been working on creating some awesome civilizations and slowly building the storylines to go with them. Some added fun will be mounts around level 40 or 50. Flying mounts around level 80 to 100 which will lead to a whole new development of flying races and civilizations. So yeah, there is really no end in sight as long as you’ll like the stories. (This isn’t for the trolls that like to keep a close watch on my sight, you can hate and not understand my storyline as much as you like. Thankfully, I have more than enough fans who love the storyline and adventures that I write.)
 
Some people have wondered why the leveling is so slow, but the truth of the matter is that the story is in the adventure and the exploration. Rushing to an imaginary end level to actually start playing the game seems to be all the rage nowadays. Old Dungeons and Dragons, Anarchy Online, EverQuest and World of Warcraft was about exploring the world. You leveled extremely slow which gave you time to go out and have an adventure and see the world. That in itself was the goal of these games. The idea that you’re living in these world. Not just hurrying up to the end content before you run to the next game.
 
You can think of Startum Ironwolf a little bit as the old Captain Kirk of Star Trek or Han Solo of Star Wars. He likes the ladies and he really isn’t put off by fur, green skin, pointy ears, tentacle hair, scales or extra arms and legs if they’re pretty and interested in him and vice versa. There had been some confusion about this to some readers, but I think for most Dungeons and Dragons or MMORPG players, this is nothing new. These games have always been about other races and species. It didn’t matter what male or female people were, everyone loved their orc, troll, tauren, minotaur, goblin, elf, dwarf, gnome and etc etc. There have always been Wolfkin, Foxkin, Batkin, and more that people have relationships with in a fantasy storyline or virtual kind of way. Maybe my choice of a centaur for a love interest was somewhat shocking to non-gamers, but it will definitely be part of the storyline in my world in one way or another.
 
There has been some comments about how could someone fall in love so quickly. I just chuckle whenever I hear the story. Many of the times this is being asked by people in their 40s and 50s. Obviously, they forgot how it was when they were in their early 20s. Everyone I know has fallen for someone in a matter of days. Felt that desire to marry this new person in their lives because they believe them to be their soulmate, only to find out a week later that there were personality differences that didn’t mesh as well as they thought they did. For better or worse, it happens to everyone at one time or another and is why Las Vegas has so many White Wedding Chapels. Luckily, most of us don’t fall into this type of trap, albeit a large number of people do every year.   
 
Anyway, now that I’m getting healthy the storyline is flowing and I’ll do my best to get book 5 out as quickly as possible. Figure a few months J

The previous post is below and the newest information about the trolling group we are calling the IAK or Indy Author Killer Guild and their activity is listed in many of the comments below. Several fans have been reporting in the worst of the abuses of new Indy Authors releasing their books only to be slammed with nasty reviews. While many of the names are the same, others are not. After being called out or having their nasty reviews pulled, many of the group now seems to be using secondary accounts.

Honestly, I never knew about this until I started writing. I enjoyed going to the facebook LitRPG & GameLIT groups to look for new and interesting titles to check out and read. I didn't realize that there was a group that was trying to get you to only read their stuff and to block everyone else. Now though, I realize that this, unfortunately, is a thing.

Looking at the profile of the people bashing these new writers usually show you either a history of trolling one or two stars review with only a handful of good reviews for their friends or their secondary accounts with only one to three reviews. Due to my calling out these trolls on my own books and pointing them to this blog posting, many of them have started making their profiles private so no one can see their previous trolling activities. 

On my own novels, the accusations of plagiarize that they initially used to attack me has now been replaced by accusations of the misogyny treatment of women, rape, harem relationships, uninteresting story lines, unrealistic characters/relationships and a douche MC that reflects a douche author. It doesn't matter if the posts are accurate to the story or not, what's important is the reduction of the book's rating and their hope to find something that will stop new readers from enjoying the stories. Yeah, that's the funny thing about trolling. Nothing you say has to be true in any way. 

I'm probably making myself more of a target since I encourage fans to point out the trolling group and their activities whenever they can. I also encourage people to talk about it to their friends in the LitRPG community. I also do my best to inform the authors being slammed that these are not fans, but a group of authors, editors and friends who purposely target Indy Authors. Not to mention, I call out the GameLit and LitRPG facebook groups that defend trolling activities. While Aleron Kong had the cajones to remove the questionable negative videos from his LitRPG channel https://www.reddit.com/r/GameLit/comments/a1zpoo/author_and_reviewer_ramon_mejia_banned_from/ many of the other LitRPG and GameLIT groups have not and openly support the negative activities on their channels.

Also, don't be a fan that supports one of the authors they bash. If you say anything, your jumped on by a group of jackals and your post removed. The funny thing, in these channels you are told that activities such as that are not allowed, but they are if your friends with the right moderators and admins. I tend to tell my own fans to not say anything in the social media groups and just voice their preference by leaving reviews on Amazon for the authors they love. 

When you take the groups activities in total, I honest don't understand how anyone could spend their days trolling to the extent that they do. Maybe it's because I'm not a huge social media person. Except for my minor blog and facebook postings, I don't do much in the way of social media for the most part. It something that I have to actually push myself to do since it takes time away from doing creative things like writing and time from my family.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would think that these guys are being sponsored to do this as a job for some hidden group. Maybe, there isn't some shadowy organization behind them and they just do this, because trolling others makes them feel powerful. Still, I'd argue in favor of a hidden group being behind this. Otherwise, the amount of time it takes to do what they do on a daily basis doesn't make any sense to me on any other level. 

The only way to fight these people are to make sure you leave reviews for your favorite authors. You taking the time to voice your opinion on Amazon reviews combats their trolling activities and keeps the stories you like coming out in new books. I also hope that at some time the community in general will stop these people's nefarious trolling activities and they'll be called out whenever they start. Maybe that is like wishing on a shooting star, but one can hope people will stand up to this kind of crappy behavior.

Too bad Amazon didn't go after these trolls as they do with any friends or family member of an author that wants to leave an Indy Author a good review. Amazon blocks anything like that nearly 100% but the trolling groups are not even looked at even though such activities are supposed to be against Amazon Communities terms of service.

__________________________the previous post____________________
(These previous reviews were either successfully blocked or were pulled and then were put back reworded with the same stars)
____________________________________________________________

Hey, looks like that small group of LitRPG writers and friends are still going after me with the hate. Check these guys out:
Plagiarized on book 1:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1U5GH5Q98U740/ref=cm_cr_othr_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B07NBX4ZBS

Plagiarized, same guy on book 4:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R336L0NXTS18NR/ref=cm_cr_getr_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B07H35XRLZ

​Plagiarized on book 1:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RK7E863LX9HEB/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B07H35XRLZ

Rape, same guy on book 4 but at least he mixed it up somewhat:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1BKR3OQ01ZG92/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B07NBX4ZBS

If you want to make an official complaint to Amazon, you can do that here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/features-and-services.html​  They take readers' reports better than authors' reports.

Oh, or this one https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RJMRKQQ7N4SRR/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B07NBX4ZBS where Startum is now an emasculate soyboy. What's funny, if you read the rest of the review it contradicts itself.

Who would have thought that they'd pull this against book 1 and book 4? There are a few others doing the hate. Book 1 got a few taps of troll luv too. 

I guess an Indy Writer can't be successful without getting trolling attacks by other authors. It would be helpful to report these people in as the haters they are with that click of a button if you have a moment. The 'Report Abuse' is right under the review ;)

Some, like this one for book one 'Doesn't understand mmorpg's' https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R17XN80MZ1QUDE/ref=cm_cr_getr_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B07H35XRLZ are almost funny. At least it would be if it wasn't being used to bash me. 

Anyway, this was their most recent attack has knocked book 1 back down to 4.2 from 4.3 and book 4 from 4.7 to 4.4 I guess people are liking both books just a little too much and they had to try to find a way to stop people from enjoying my series. This is why I'm always asking people to leave a good review whenever you can.

So yes, the outline for book five has been completed. What does that mean, it means I have everything generally laid out that’s going on in the story and can now start writing out the story. I’m not sure how everyone else does it. I’ve been asked what writing method or template I use to sketch out my story line and I’m always like, “What are you talking about?” I don’t use any templates or writing method nor have I ever researched them. Honestly I’m not interested in anything like that.
 
My perspective for the story comes from two places. First, I picture how the scenes would look from the perspective of watching a movie. If the action or scenes aren’t interesting to me if I were watching it as a film, then I need to change it around. Second, I’m playing a video game. No really, I’m mentally playing the best video game I’ve ever played. Sometimes I’m just as surprised about what happens as the reader. While a non-gamer wouldn’t understand that, you gamers do. The whole thing with Fylreh was a complete surprise. How things fell together once Helgath became my soulmate, all a freaking surprise. I was stunned and amazed at how that brought the entire story together. Cough … cough … kissing Fylreh and having a centaur girlfriend … Yeah that was a total surprise. When I wrote it, I just pictured what my friends would say to me the next day if they saw the stream and that’s how the whole chat came out. Would Hefe had really sent a pink shot? Yes, yes he would have and everyone else’s reaction would have been the same. Domenic and I laugh about our friends antics as we discuss the story. I just remembered that’s one I have to share with him since he hasn’t made it to book four yet.
 
Anyway, my outline is what keeps me focused and on track for the story. I had a little bit more of an issue this time getting into my mental ‘outline mode’ and kept trying to write the story. Finally, at midnight last night, I just said to myself. “Stop writing the story and write the god forsaken outline.” I got a good ways through and stopped at 2 AM and then woke up and finished this morning. Yeah, now that I have the outline finished, I’ll be going back to a 5 to 6 AM schedule to start writing and probably stop somewhere in-between midnight and 2 AM. I have no idea how long the story itself will be until the characters and scenes start building. Then, I’ll misjudge everything like usual. I like how the outline looks and think it’s going to be an excellent story. Not as creative in some ways as book four and it will be ugly in a different way than the last story.
 
While it might be somewhat upsetting to people, it’s a part of the story. PKers are not nice to real people which means they are even uglier to people they think of as ‘cardboard cutouts’ for their enjoyment. I’ve noticed and have heard that several writers in our genre have been treating NPCs in the game that have full thought process and feelings as nothing but tools to be used and thrown away. I find that quite unsettling to be honest. It’s not just a reflection of an ugly soul, it’s the same perspective a serial killer when they’re looking at their victims. The good thing, it shows just how ugly people can be and fits into the brutality of my world perfectly.
 
From my abusive childhood, my time in the service in various third world countries and even my trips now, I’ve seen a lot of the horror regular people can do to one another. I’ve also seen a lot of the beauty caring people bring into the world and how simple kindness can change someone’s life. Gaming tends to be a microcosm of the world. You see the good, the bad and the ugly sides of people in the micro-virtual universes we call MMORPGs. The whole Syndicate story is directly taken from my own in-game experiences in the past. Most of my situations are taken directly from our game play. So, to you griefing asshats and writers who uncaringly treat their NPCs like slaves and cardboard cutouts, thanks for making my world that much real and a reflection of reality.
 
Ugh, I meant to put Eric’s plug in before the NPC story. I had no idea how much editing cost and have never looked into purchasing professional editing for my series. I knew I simply didn’t have any money for the cost of paying for a professional editor. While getting attacked by jealous writers was somewhat unsurprising, what did surprise me was how many editors got nasty and basically gave me bad reviews as a way of promoting their services. Eric looked it up and found a good article: https://mirandamarquit.com/how-should-you-charge-for-freelance-editing/ 
 
Basically, just checking for misspelled words is a minimum of $7 per page. If you want grammar correction or straightening out the story you’re talking a starting price of $11 to $20 per page. Seriously, what Indy Writer could possibly afford that? That professional writers charging $16.99 for their books slam Indy Writers for grammar and spelling when they are selling their books for only $2.99 is pretty ridiculous. We all do the best we can and if not for the fans of The World series, the books wouldn’t be in the good shape they are in now. That’s because, no matter how hard I try, I suck at finding spelling errors. Luckily, I get visits from editors who like to point out glaring errors on levels or points which I gladly apply immediately. I’ll take a bad review to make the correction any day of the week. Anyway, Eric is quite affordable and he’s open to helping people if your story is interesting for an affordable price. Here is his email: totenliste@yahoo.com if you’re interested. While he’s not an expert, your get more for your money working with him, trust me on that. It’s the least I can do for all the volunteer work he’s done on my series.
 
Also, I picked up the Discord chat client. I’m suggest emailing me ahead of time if you want to drop me a line at jasonacheek@gmail.com because I’m somewhat careful about my contacts. For those of you who know my job, you also understand the reason. I’m pretty easy to talk with albeit not that I have a lot of time if I want to have any hope to get book five out in a decent time. Anyway, with that said, here is my Discord chat contact information: JasonACheek#7422
 
Lastly, thank you for all of the support. The last few days is the first time I’ve kept my 4.3 star rating on book one without it being pulled back down to 4.1 or 4.2 stars from trolls. I can’t thank everyone enough for the support and know that book four, five and six which are mostly already planned out would have never seen the light of day without your support.

​Finally I got Book Four out. What a great feeling to finally have it available for everyone to read. This was the first time I’d ever made a deadline for my writing and then completely blew it on making the date. Eric, who was beta reading and helping me with corrections, just laughed every time I told him I was nearly finished, since he knew where my story was ending at and didn’t see how I’d possibly make it in just a few weeks and then days. Every few days I’d send him thirty document-sized pages for him to correct and give me feedback on the story. Seriously, it was the first time I’d ever gotten regular feedback like that while writing. Steven, another fan, gave me a lot of help too on the beta reading and kept me cheered up whenever the jealous writers would decide to knock my book down whenever the ratings reached 4.3.
 
It’s almost like clockwork. This time it took a day and a half before it showed up, but whenever my book one reaches 4.3 stars, I get a few writers and/or editors that smack me with two or three one or two star reviews with some outlandish blah of hate. One of the last ones made a comment that was “If Mr. Cheek could stop jerking himself off long enough to learn how to write an interesting character” or my other favorite “Doesn't understand mmorpg's.” You’d think blatant nasty comments would go against Amazon’s guidelines (which it does) but unfortunately they’re not usually enforced? It’s also one of the reasons I usually ask people to leave some love for book one. I think they choose 4.3 as the magic number because that’s when the star’s pictures goes from looking like 4 stars to 4 ½ stars.
 
!!!POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT FOR BOOK 4!!!
 
Some of the feedback I’ve received in reviews from book four have been somewhat different than what I expected for a few of the scenes. It’s almost like people think that Tavon and Star’s companions slept together or that Star and Fylreh slept together in the story but that never happened. The joke with Tavon getting drunk and horny and the women being shocked but in a funny way goes back to some of the old LAN party stuff that has happened to my friends and me. Where someone would pull up some porn and people would be like wtf or we’d be in the country at a farm of one of our friends when one of the farm animals start to go to town on their mate or at a party where someone’s dog start to get horny or hump each and the jokes and slight embarrassment sometimes that come up from such raw nature. I wanted to capture that reaction where people laugh it off as being just normal. I think some people’s imagination took a few of the scenes to the next level and one that wasn’t there by some of the comments.
 
The situation with Startum and Fylreh is another story altogether. Their drunken make-out session goes back to any party where you and the girl you were interested in were making out hot and heavy and then shocked the next morning when you’re faced with the reality of what you did. Or, in Star’s case, where he was trying to help Fylreh and she was blitzed out of her mind and getting all handsy with Startum. There was no one ‘taken advantage of’, although sometimes it seems like two people can’t make innocent mistakes in today’s day and age without one of them now getting in trouble. If your both young, your both innocent and you both get a little tipsy. Who’s at fault the next morning when you realize you were sucking face with someone you didn’t expect to? Now don’t make this innocent comment into a bigger issue than it was. We’re not discussing some of the bad stuff that can and do happen. This is really about that simple mistake that can sometimes occur between two people that respect and like each other. That was Fylreh’s and Startum’s first kiss.
 
Interesting enough, they both end up deciding to explore a relationship together from mutual respect. At the end of the book, a stupid fight pops up and they’re both left heartbroken. Another common thing that we’ve all been through. Some people think it’s because he’s naked with Helgath, but that is not the case. In the story, everyone was naked for the majority of the end part of the story that the nudity at that point is inconsequential due to the general horror of the situation. Besides, Fylreh doesn’t have an issue with nudity in general, specifically with Helgath or that they’re bathing together. Her issue with Helgath is that she has some Orc blood in her veins. This is because, in my story, the Centaur’s ‘Racial Enemies’ are Orcs. In Dungeons and Dragons, races sometimes simply hate other race that is their designated ‘racial enemy’ to the point where they blindly hate them and will even attack whether the person themselves are good or bad.   
 
For Fylreh and Startum to continue having a relationship, Fylreh is going to have to learn to look at Helgath as an individual and not as an Orc. I brought this up to reflect some of what I see happening in our society today. It seems like more and more people are choosing to hate other people just because of their color, culture, age or race. Instead of using their own mind to judge the individual actions as just or unjust, they are simply hated due to no fault of a person’s birth. For me, this is something that is an atrocious concept and one I wanted to address in the story.
 
Lastly, Startum only actually has sexual relations once in the story and that is with Keela. It doesn’t quite work for either one of them and they part as friends and companions. Companions being a term used for NPCs that have attached themselves to a player in the game. That doesn’t mean Fylreh and he doesn’t get hot and heavy here and there but there is no other sex going on with our intrepid adventures in book four. From some people’s comments, they think the bathing scene where Fylreh and Startum fight over Helgath is about him messing around for easy sex. That was not the scene and is something that he even says that’s not even an option for him at this time. He’d never disrespect Fylreh like that even if Helgath would be more than willing. Even the end of the book where they all fall asleep together isn’t about sex or nudity. It is about commiserating the emotional pain that they’re sharing from Startum due to their soulbound connection and his heartbreak over Fylreh.
 
Another two characters that came out better than I’d initially thought they would were Hollysharp and Helgath. Both immediately took on a life of their own. Hollysharp, I got the motivation for her character when I saw this picture http://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1512248027780.jpg , just is so powerful of a personality that she literally took over parts of the story. Being in the Information Technology field and being a tech’s tech, I fit her character around many people I work with and a touch of my own personality. I’m usually the guy that focuses on getting the mission done and speaks directly about the issue without putting fault on people. Albeit, Hollysharp has no issues laughing at people who don’t know what she knows. Another thing that is common in the tech field and something that I’ve suffered through with my coworkers. Sometimes in the story, I wanted to punch her for being such a hard ass when I put myself into Startum’s shoes as I told the story but after a while you can’t help but love the feisty engineer.
 
Helgath was another surprising character. She really took on a life of her own and I loved the mating rune that I came up with for connecting her with Startum. It made so many parts of the story just work on so many levels. Also, there is this sweet innocence and cold blooded killer about her that is so endearing. Yeah, I know. It's a strange combination but one that really seems to work. I got some motivation for her character from here https://www.pinterest.de/pin/449093394088082015/ There is no sexual relations between them at this time but they have a solid connection after everything they went through together so far. Her painful life and what she finds with Startum also speaks to me from the things I have suffered through, so altogether she really speaks to me. More so then I thought she would when I created her.