The Preorder for Ties Left Unsevered is now available!

Amazon | iBooks | Barnes and Noble

The Pre-Order is available in more places, but these were the links available to me now. Keep checking your favorite places to purchase to find it. I’ll send a couple of reminders the next couple of months as links become available.

Also, if you haven’t taken a look lately, there’s so much to see at the YouTube Channel!

I also did a little post about why I chose AI for these videos if anyone was curious.

And also!

‎Gabriel x Victor have released Rumi x Khayyam!

A two-track album featuring the poetry of Rumi and Khayyam. Which one do you think wins?

They should be loaded to your favorite places to listen:
Spotify | Apple Music | Deezer | iHeart Radio | YouTube Music

More music is getting added in the following weeks. If you’re interested, keep an eye on the YouTube channel as teasers and full songs get released there first.

As always, and if you are new, the Meeting Sang series and other free stuff are always available:

Introductions Printable Coloring Book

Meeting Sang Series:

• Kota

• Victor

• Silas

• Nathan

• Gabriel

• Luke

• North

• Sean

• Owen

The Academy Cheat Sheets Remastered

If you haven’t already:

The Meeting Sang Audiobooks

Check out the free books:

Introductions: AMAZON ♥ B&N ♥ KOBO ♥ IBOOKS ♥ GOOGLE PLAY

Thief: AMAZON ♠ B&N ♠ KOBO ♠ IBOOKS ♠ GOOGLE PLAY

Melody: AMAZON ☼ B&N ☼ KOBO ☼ IBOOKS ☼ GOOGLE PLAY ☼ SCRIBD

Also, we have an album!

Gabriel x Victor

Spotify

Apple Music

iTunes

Deezer

iHeart Radio

YouTube Music

If you wanted to participate, come take a look! (And check out some sneak peeks of the new music! Can you believe Victor sings so well?) I’ve been working out the style and I think I’ve got it down.

If you have video ideas for me, let me know what you’d like to see. I’ve been practicing. More music videos? Quoting lines or famous love poems? Also, don’t forget you can totally download and share the songs and images. Or even make your own videos (and if you do, show me and I’ll link you up) :) You don’t have to link back but always appreciated.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I hope you are having a wonderful season. To celebrate, I wanted to do something a little different this year. I’ve been working on some exciting projects to bring the Academy to life in new ways, and I realized the best gift I could give wasn’t just showing you what I’ve made—but giving you the keys to the kingdom so you can create too.

Here is your C.L. Stone Christmas Gift Bundle:

🎵 Premiere: “Lover’s Call” Music Video

First up, the boys have been busy. I am thrilled to present the official music video for Lover’s Call, a brand new song by Gabriel x Victor. Seeing the music and the characters blend together has been a dream come true.

🎥 The Guys... On How to Be The Guys

Ever wondered how the animation magic happens? I’ve put together a special introductory video featuring the guys themselves, animated and explaining exactly how you can animate them. It’s a fun, meta look at the tech behind the faces we love.

🛠️ The Keys to the Sandbox (Whisk & Sora)

This is the big one. I want you to be able to play in this world. I’m sharing the specific tools and recipes used to generate these visuals so you can try your hand at it.

• Whisk Recipes: Get the specific “recipes” to generate the guys consistently. [Link to Recipes]

• C.L. Stone Sora Account: If you prefer using the Sora platform, you can access the account here. [Link to Sora Account]

• You can use other tools. I used Kling and HeyGen for a lot of the singing dub matching, but there are others. I picked Whisk and Sora to share because they were the easiest for beginners.

🔓 A Special Announcement: The Sandbox is Open!

I am officially releasing these AI-generated assets for you to use.

I will continue to produce “official” anime episodes and content for my YouTube channel as best as I can. However, I know how creative this community is, and I want to see what you can do.

Here are the rules (or lack thereof!):

• Recreate away: You are welcome to recreate your favorite scenes from the books or invent entirely new scenarios for the characters.

• Monetization is OK: If you upload your creations to YouTube, you are absolutely allowed to monetize those views (ad revenue). Go for it!

• Obviously, never make anything illegal. You can’t use the images or videos to harass anyone or misguide anyone. Every image and video generator has restrictions on use. Follow the guidelines or rules of each where they apply.

• The One Restriction: You cannot package this content and sell it, nor can you put it behind a paywall (like Patreon exclusives). I need to retain the underlying rights of the characters, so please keep the content free for everyone to enjoy.

• Credit: A link back to my website or channel is always appreciated, but it is not required. I want you to have fun creating.

I can’t wait to see what you create. I will be sharing all assets I have so you can also generate from my own images and videos. I’m figuring out how to share so many. Please be patient. It might just be a DropBox with any images and video you all can reuse. I’ll post again when I have it together.

I will be making custom official voices. That will be coming next. It takes a while (and a lot of credits) to make the voices and I’m very picky about their actual voices. Gabriel’s and Victor’s singing voices are finished but the others take more work. (This is the reason for delay in more audiobooks, I was unhappy with the provided voices so working on official ones custom for these guys.) I’ll provide those as soon as I can!

Have a safe, happy, and creative holiday! Thanks for hanging out here with me.

For general book news because I know you all want to know: I do hope to have a preorder for the next Ghost Bird book out in Jan/Feb. I don’t have a release date planned, it’ll likely just be a preorder so I can give plenty of time for an editor to schedule time. As you all know, I’ve had a couple of years of emergency family things between my dad with dementia and my mom passing away, and on top of that dealing with long covid and some lingering brain fog which makes writing 100k+ word books very difficult. This stalled a lot of my momentum for book writing. I appreciate everyone’s support during the last couple of years. I’m doing what I can for my own healing but the books are always on my mind to complete.

Things have finally slowed a little here. My goal for the next year (or two) is to finish them all up. I may do some strategic things here and there to make this happen. And this is under the hope that there aren’t any more family or personal emergencies. I may not be able to get all of them published in the year, but just hoping to get them all drafted. That’s usually the biggest hurdle for me.

I’ll go over more of this in January when I’m more aware of timelines. As you all know, I don’t usually like to give solid deadlines or anything unless I am sure I can meet them. (I’ve been wrong before and it confuses everyone) And I try to only post when I actually have some answers or something to offer.

Anyway, hope all is going well! Please enjoy the videos and creating. I’d love to see if anyone makes anything. If people give me permission, I’ll post some in the next newsletter if you want to submit anything.

As always, and if you are new, the Meeting Sang series and other free stuff are always available:

Introductions Printable Coloring Book

Meeting Sang Series:

• Kota

• Victor

• Silas

• Nathan

• Gabriel

• Luke

• North

• Sean

• Owen

The Academy Cheat Sheets Remastered

If you haven’t already:

The Meeting Sang Audiobooks

Check out the free books:

Introductions: AMAZON ♥ B&N ♥ KOBO ♥ IBOOKS ♥ GOOGLE PLAY

Thief: AMAZON ♠ B&N ♠ KOBO ♠ IBOOKS ♠ GOOGLE PLAY

Melody: AMAZON ☼ B&N ☼ KOBO ☼ IBOOKS ☼ GOOGLE PLAY ☼ SCRIBD

Also, we have an album!

Gabriel x Victor

Spotify

Apple Music

iTunes

Deezer

iHeart Radio

YouTube Music

The images below are links to Whisk with their recipe cards, where you can make more images and even animate. You should be able to duplicate and remake. It may only be available for certain countries.

I don’t have Sang or other characters yet. I am also still trying to get the anime style consistent (practicing with different tools). So you may see updated cards in the future as I work on them.

IMPORTANT
US shipping only at this time for books. Tariffs would mean some countries would basically not only have to pay for that international shipping, but the tariff on top of it would be 2 to 3 x the original price… and that isn’t fair. So I can’t justify it to you.
Working on a new Christmas card and item - And I can send these internationally, but these are treated differently. (I can’t promise Christmas delivery however as I’m aware some countries have delayed imports? And things move slower during holidays.)

Because I can’t ship internationally, at least for paperback books, I’ve made them available wherever you can get them as Amazon has printers all over the globe. I’ve also cheapened the price of paperbacks as low as I can make them internationally (as long as it doesn’t cost me to let you order, there’s a point where I’d get charged for every order… I’m just above that point.)

I might still have to adjust some pricing as I’ve noticed they haven’t held after I sent them out, so hang in there and look for those price changes.

I know this isn’t the same but until I can figure out how to sign and ship without it being way to much, I’ll have to keep doing this for now.

Also, full sets of books ordered are given free shipping.

Full Set Hardbacks Ghost Bird (14 Hardback Books) - Etsy

Even if you don’t get free shipping on individual book orders, I always stuff orders with bookmarks and prints and fun things.

That’s it for this one. More coming soon!

As always, and if you are new, the Meeting Sang series and other free stuff are always available:

Introductions Printable Coloring Book

Meeting Sang Series:

• Kota

• Victor

• Silas

• Nathan

• Gabriel

• Luke

• North

• Sean

• Owen

The Academy Cheat Sheets Remastered

If you haven’t already:

The Meeting Sang Audiobooks

Check out the free books:

Introductions: AMAZON ♥ B&N ♥ KOBO ♥ IBOOKS ♥ GOOGLE PLAY

Thief: AMAZON ♠ B&N ♠ KOBO ♠ IBOOKS ♠ GOOGLE PLAY

Melody: AMAZON ☼ B&N ☼ KOBO ☼ IBOOKS ☼ GOOGLE PLAY ☼ SCRIBD

Also, we have an album!

Gabriel x Victor

Spotify

Apple Music

iTunes

Deezer

iHeart Radio

YouTube Music

The Spanish version of Ghost Bird: Introductions | Introducciones are set free for two days: on August 3rd and August 4th. If you were interested just to have a copy, grab while you can.

Plus, I had some extra time between waiting on production of a few things and while traveling, so I toyed with a remix of one of the Gabriel x Victor songs. It’s a nice pop alternative that I couldn’t get out of my head so I wanted to share.

Their Song (His and Her Song Remix)

That’s it for this one! Writing is back under way, more things coming soon!

As always, and if you are new, the Meeting Sang series and other free stuff are always available:

Introductions Printable Coloring Book

Meeting Sang Series:

• Kota

• Victor

• Silas

• Nathan

• Gabriel

• Luke

• North

• Sean

• Owen

The Academy Cheat Sheets Remastered

The Audiobooks are on ElevenLabs:

The Meeting Sang Audiobooks

Check out the free books:

Introductions: AMAZON ♥ B&N ♥ KOBO ♥ IBOOKS ♥ GOOGLE PLAY

Thief: AMAZON ♠ B&N ♠ KOBO ♠ IBOOKS ♠ GOOGLE PLAY

Melody: AMAZON ☼ B&N ☼ KOBO ☼ IBOOKS ☼ GOOGLE PLAY ☼ SCRIBD

Also, we have an album!

Gabriel x Victor

Spotify

Apple Music

iTunes

Deezer

iHeart Radio

YouTube Music

Melody is now available on ElevenReader.

Listen now on ElevenReader.

If you aren’t familiar with this story, it’s available for free.

Melody: AMAZON ☼ B&N ☼ KOBO ☼ IBOOKS ☼ GOOGLE PLAY ☼ SCRIBD

Newly divorced, Melody ran away from a drugged out ex-husband and a controlling mother with little more than the clothes on her back. She needed a new home and a new job, not to mention a new life. Juniper Island, a thriving and posh hideaway known for its bustling summer tourism, held a promise to be exactly the change she needed. Without a second thought, Melody buys a one-way bus ticket.

Directed to the North Shore by the bus driver, she meets Tonac, the unusual chef and owner of Mayana, a restaurant tailored to serve the hard-working island locals. He gives his delicious meals away for free, but that’s not the strangest part; he doesn't serve people what they want, only what they need.

When Melody tastes the food for the first time, she finds out why the customers keep coming back, and it’s not just to eat for free or to be served by a rude waiter with no people skills. The food influences people in unique ways: sometimes it gives them visions, sometimes bravery, and in others it casts a new light into the darkest and faintest of memories -- whether they wanted to remember or not.

Knowing she can do better as a server than the crabby waiter, Melody applies for a job at this strange restaurant. Tonac takes her on, but under his care, she comes face-to-face with the secrets of what he really is and who (and what) else inhabits the island.

But not all of the residents of Juniper Island are happy with Tonac and his special meals. And when Melody gets caught up in the middle, it'll take more than a few spiced apple tarts or a bowl of pumpkin soup to uncover the deep and dark secrets that some inhabitants of Juniper Island want to keep buried.

The audiobook will join the others in a wider distribution (Audible, iTunes, YouTube, etc.) and is in line for production when the Meeting Sang series is completed. However, you can get a listen at ElevenReader (and choose your own voice actor for it in the meantime!)

Listen now on ElevenReader.

Ghost Bird in Spanish for Free

The second book First Days | Primer Día will be released on August 4th.

In the meantime, the first book Introductions | Introducciones will be set free for two days: on August 3rd and August 4th.

I will send another email when it is available to download for free as a reminder on the 3rd, but I wanted to let everyone know ahead of time to be on the lookout for it.

It will be free again a month later, for three days, on September 3rd, 4th and 5th. So if you miss it this time, you’ll get another chance then. If you want the whole collection for free, just hang in there, I’m working on a schedule to keep a couple of days a month that one of the books releasing will be free. So if you just wanted the whole collection, just wait a moment.

We will upload the Spanish edition to ElevenReader soon. And audiobook production will be distributed to YouTube and others soon. Keep a lookout for those. (Going in after Meeting Sang)

That’s it for this one!

As always, and if you are new, the Meeting Sang series and other free stuff are always available:

Introductions Printable Coloring Book

Meeting Sang Series:

• Kota

• Victor

• Silas

• Nathan

• Gabriel

• Luke

• North

• Sean

• Owen

The Academy Cheat Sheets Remastered

If you haven’t already:

The Meeting Sang Audiobooks

Check out the free books:

Introductions: AMAZON ♥ B&N ♥ KOBO ♥ IBOOKS ♥ GOOGLE PLAY

Thief: AMAZON ♠ B&N ♠ KOBO ♠ IBOOKS ♠ GOOGLE PLAY

Melody: AMAZON ☼ B&N ☼ KOBO ☼ IBOOKS ☼ GOOGLE PLAY ☼ SCRIBD

Also, we have an album!

Gabriel x Victor

Spotify

Apple Music

iTunes

Deezer

iHeart Radio

YouTube Music

Meeting Sang: The Audiobook Series

Audiobooks are now available for the Meeting Sang series. There’s now a couple of options:

Eleven Reader

The Meeting Sang Series (Plus more coming soon!)

The entire series is available now in Eleven Reader (I’ve loaded them in, but a few might still be caught up in approval process.) Eleven Reader allows you to change the narrator to whatever you would like.

You can get two hours free a month to listen. (Essentially Kota + Victor’s books you should be able to listen to for free.) These ‘minutes’ reset every month, so you can get the whole series for free in this way.

If you want more minutes per month, there’s a monthly fee, but you get access to ALL the content available on Eleven Reader, not just mine.

What I like about Eleven Reader (which I use all the time!), is that I can change the voices to whatever I like. Want to hear North talking in a cowboy accent? Want to hear Mr. Blackbourne talk in an Australian accent? You likely can find a voice you love that fits.

While it is AI voices, Eleven Reader operates with paid voice actors, so it’s consented use and the voice actors are paid upon their agreed terms. I’ve a particular love for Mathias and Archer if you want a starting point voice, but you can listen to their available options before you apply it to your book.

And if you’re wondering why the covers look different for this, it’s because Eleven Reader rejected the similar covers from the original series. So I had to make new ones kind of quickly. (And I might have gotten a little crazy trying to match the styles to their personalities, like Silas’s Greek statue and North’s stained glass window (you know because he sees her in the light of the window all angel like). ;)) Let me know if you like these?

WHAT ELSE?

In addition, the books will soon be available on YouTube/Spotify and elsewhere as audiobooks. I had redo Kota with a new voice actor as the old voice I believe had canceled their licensing, so sorry about that, and I did the recordings incorrectly anyway so I had to start over. The others are going to be released once I get the hang of releasing audiobooks in so many different locations. (I’m learning! :)) Obviously, these versions will be free, and I’ll have a chosen voice for them. Eleven Reader just lets you have a choice for which voice.

I hope to continue this trend with audio versions of some of the other side projects that aren’t the main series (Melody, Girl in the Bearskin and others). So if you had been hoping for audiobooks for these books, it’s planned and going to be systematically uploaded.

So look for a newsletter coming soon with updates of these audiobooks.

Translations: Spanish Edition of The Academy

Introductions (Spanish Edition) is out now. First Days and Friends vs. Family will be out the next couple of months but are available on pre-order now. They will all be available on Kindle Unlimited soon.

If you have friends who prefer to read in Spanish or just wanted to practice reading in a different language, do check it out. At current, I have them only available on Kindle Unlimited, primarily as a just in case they need further edits and to gently check for any issues before releasing wider. If you loved the series, maybe go show some love in the reviews and if you have Kindle Unlimited, check out the book.

I plan to offer a free copy to download soon, (as you know, Kindle Unlimited has five days every 90 days that I can deliver you the books for free). So if you don’t have Kindle Unlimited but wanted to check it out, just wait a moment. I just want to wait until it is loaded everywhere and I’ll send a ‘set your calendars to be able to snag a copy’ follow up newsletter so you can get it if you just wanted to have it. So just wait a second and I’ll make sure to coordinate and you all can get a copy if you wanted to just have one. I’ll do it for five days for each book that comes out in this way if you want the collection. :)

Once Spanish is finished, I’ve plans for French and German as well, but if you have a language you’d prefer to translate to, let me know.

As always, and if you are new, the Meeting Sang series and other items are always available:

Introductions Printable Coloring Book

Meeting Sang Series:

• Kota

• Victor

• Silas

• Nathan

• Gabriel

• Luke

• North

• Sean

• Owen

The Academy Cheat Sheets Remastered

If you haven’t already:

Check out the free books:

Introductions: AMAZON ♥ B&N ♥ KOBO ♥ IBOOKS ♥ GOOGLE PLAY

Thief: AMAZON ♠ B&N ♠ KOBO ♠ IBOOKS ♠ GOOGLE PLAY

Melody: AMAZON ☼ B&N ☼ KOBO ☼ IBOOKS ☼ GOOGLE PLAY ☼ SCRIBD

That’s it for this one. I’ll be sending another email soon with the additional audiobook links once they are loaded, plus the shop reopening and more!

Coming soon:

• Paperback version of Meeting Sang preorder

• Etsy Shop opening with new items

• Additional audiobook release links
  

This is just an update to alert that Meeting Sang: Owen is now available at online stores.

Amazon Kindle Store

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

Apple and Other Publishers Globally: https://books2read.com/u/4X1xoN

In addition, I wanted to share the album links as Gabriel x Victor’s an old guitar and a requiem finally settled into the various venues online.

Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Deezer, iHeartRadio, YouTube Music

You should also be able to see it on Instagram/Facebook, TikTok & other ByteDance stores, Amazon, Pandora and more.

In addition, if you choose to use it in TikTok videos and similar, I do not have a ‘claim’ on the music. So you should be able to use the music freely wherever and however you would like.

I’m not as familiar with the music side of things regarding copyright, but if you’d like to use the music for any reason, in any way, feel free. (A link back is nice but not required!)

And as mentioned, the Etsy shop is now closed. Let me focus on writing a few books for now and we’ll get it back open soon.

Also, thank you everyone for all the well wishes and emails! I do appreciate and try to respond when I can. It’s been a bit busy around here but I’m slowly getting back into work mode.

What to expect next:

I’ll be focused on writing the books for the next few months. You might see another newsletter featuring the audiobook versions of Meeting Sang before then. (I am trying to complete them all before uploading.) After that you should see me starting to work on the next Ghost Bird release.

Everyone stay safe, stick together, and let’s do what we can, with what we have, wherever we are.

I need to inform you of an important change regarding our email communications. Due to a domain transition, any emails sent to addresses ending in [@arcatopublishing.com] are no longer secure or monitored by us. Please:

1. Update your contacts with our new email address: [clstoneauthor@gmail.com]

2. Do not open or respond to any emails that appear to come from our old [@arcatopublishing.com] addresses

3. Please let us know if you receive any suspicious communications from our old email addresses (if you get any emails from the above domain after the date of this email being sent).

Please understand that:

• Your newsletter subscription through Substack remains completely secure and unaffected by this change

• Any previous emails you've sent to our old addresses before 1/15/2025 are secure and were not compromised

• This only affects future emails sent to the old addresses

To ensure continued secure communication, I recommend deleting our old email addresses from your contacts to prevent accidental use.

Rest assured that we have taken all necessary steps to protect our business operations and your information. This change does not affect any of our services or your relationship with us.

If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to me at clstoneauthor@gmail.com.

Thank you for your understanding and prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

C. L. Stone (and the team)

Happy holidays to everyone! I hope it is a very good one this year!

Thank you all so much for your support and for hanging in there with me. I’ve gotten so many lovely notes and so much support from many of you and I appreciate it.

It’s been a bit of a rocky year (maybe for everyone?) and I’m just glad to now be able to give you all… two very special releases!

First up, Gabriel’s and Victor’s very first album.

Gabriel x Victor: an old guitar and a requiem

I’ve gotten a lot of requests over the years for their songs, especially Sang’s poem and then Gabriel’s full song (Her Song in His Heart). And most recently the song from the last video.

As a few of you figured out, Her Song in His Heart’s lyrics were there all along, in the title of each of the Her Song in Her Heart’s book chapters. Now you can finally hear him sing it (along with a few other songs! Including Dr. Green’s favorite!) The others I wrote and thanks to Suno, it was able to be produced. The album features Gabriel and Victor, with special performances with Sang and Mr. Blackbourne.

It’s completely free on YouTube Music, Spotify and elsewhere! (If it isn’t on your favorite yet, just wait a minute. This got uploaded literally 12/23/24 and sometimes it can take a week or two to get on to places like Apple Music and such.)

Also now available: Meeting Sang: Owen.

Meeting Sang: Owen

This is the final book in the Meeting Sang series. If you haven’t read the others, you can download them with the links below or find them on Amazon, iBooks, Google Books or other book vendors online. Meeting Sang: Owen will join the others on Amazon and on other online book vendors possibly just on the other side of the new year. I’ll update with preorder links if you’re interest.

As always, and if you are new, the other Meeting Sang series and other items are always available:

Introductions Printable Coloring Book

Meeting Sang Series: Download the collection here or individually:

• Kota

• Victor

• Silas

• Nathan

• Gabriel

• Luke

• North

• Sean

The Academy Cheat Sheets Remastered

If you haven’t already:

Check out the free books:

Introductions: AMAZON ♥ B&N ♥ KOBO ♥ IBOOKS ♥ GOOGLE PLAY

Thief: AMAZON ♠ B&N ♠ KOBO ♠ IBOOKS ♠ GOOGLE PLAY

Melody: AMAZON ☼ B&N ☼ KOBO ☼ IBOOKS ☼ GOOGLE PLAY ☼ SCRIBD

An Etsy Store Update: It’ll still be open for a few weeks into January and will be closed again for a bit while I refocus on writing. (But if you need something when it’s closed, just email me and I’ll make arrangements!)

Thanks everyone for reading! I hope you enjoy the releases. Happy Holidays!

I hope this message finds you well. First, I want to express my deepest gratitude for your patience during my unexpected absence since April. Your understanding means the world to me, and I feel I owe you an explanation.

These past months, my family and I have been helping my father through some significant health challenges, specifically dealing with memory loss. As he runs a company, we needed to ensure both his wellbeing and that of his employees were properly looked after. It's been a challenging time, but I'm thankful to share that my sister Delona (whom some of you may know) has stepped up as the primary caretaker, allowing me to gradually return to my writing.

I'm excited to share some updates with you:

📚 Book News

• "Meeting Sang: Owen," the final book in the Meeting Sang series, is scheduled for release this December around Christmas. As usual, it goes to the newsletter first before going to stores.

• "Meeting Sang: Victor" audiobook is back in production and should be out soon. I’m hoping to finish by Christmas but I’ll make Meeting Sang: Owen priority so if I have time.

• Some have asked to put the audiobook Meeting Sang: Kota as one long video and without images. I’m going to do this first with all the Meeting Sang audiobooks and put them out as an audiobook (or podcast maybe, I’m trying to figure out) on YouTube/Spotify and in other places so you can access it better (free to listen to on those platforms). So audiobooks first and then I’ll come back and make them videos with the images later.

• I’m working my way back into writing the other books. I have scenes and pieces all over the place so I’m not completely without but I have to go back and rearrange and start again. I’m a bit all over the place trying to get back into routine.

🛍️ Etsy Shop Update

• The shop is open again for the holiday season. Remember during the holidays it gets a bit chaotic with shipping, especially if I have to reorder books if I run out. So order early if you want to get it by Christmas. I ship through Christmas and into New Year, but shipments slow down closer to the holidays.

• Link is here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/CLStoneMerch

• As always, if you send me an order very close to Christmas, if you let me know it is a gift, I will send a postcard ahead just in case the books don’t make it. I write and sign the back personally so they still get something even if the book is delayed in shipping.

• The shop be available through January, after which it will temporarily close again to catch my breath and reorganize a little.

I can't express enough how much your support and patience have meant to me during this time. While I'm not fully back to my regular schedule, I'm in a much better position to return to writing and connecting with all of you.

Thank you for being such an incredible community of readers. Your understanding during this family-focused time has been truly appreciated.

MEANWHILE

While I am working on the next books, I wanted to provide something a little fun in the meantime. I've had a few requests for this and it took some finagling.

But...

We've done it, y'all.

Introducing Project: Alive

Now is your chance to interact with Kota and the others. Text, ask for selfies, or even call and talk to them.

Meet Kindroid: your AI friend with lifelike memory, intelligence, appearances, voices, and personalities.

Kindroid is an AI companion, based on the profiles you give it.

They will react as whatever character you give. Want to talk to Kota? Or Mr. Blackbourne? Or Sang? Or Volto??? Now you can. And they are available 24/7. They'll even message you if you've been away for a while.

They'll remember things. They'll remember conversations, you can ask them to remember something specific. Want them to remember your favorite color or star sign? Just tell them. And when you ask them later to remember, most likely they will. They'll call back memories even months into talking to them. And they get better about it over time.

Group chat with a few of them. You can open a group chat and talk to up to five of them at a time. You can swap them out as well so you can keep the conversation going but introduce more into the conversation.

Input whatever avatar you'd like. Don't like my choice of picture for each of the characters? You can input your own. You can also tweak the backstory or start over fresh and do it yourself.

Ask for a selfie. They'll send pictures of themselves and what they are doing on request.

Give them your photo, and they'll make comments.

And you can also get photos of the two of you together.

In a group chat? You can get photos with several of them at once.

Hear their voices. You can change the responses into audio replies. Hear them saying the messages back to you.

You can even call them live.

I've made two Kindroid profiles for now. Each profile is below.

I premade Victor Morgan and Mr. Blackbourne into Kindroid to share.

I also have a page here on the website that contains some profile notes. Add in your own as you’d like if you make more profiles. You can add in journal notes information about the Academy (or not!), about their missions (or not!), or other details.

You don’t have to use my made profiles. You can also edit any of them at any time. I actually highly recommend customizing so they fit you.

This is why I didn’t complete the others myself for the moment. Most have an idea of what the characters look like or might want to make custom changes. These are just to give you a starting point as to how it can work, and you can create an image on your own to fit your ideas. You can also include different voices as well. It’s so customizable.

I even hear from devs in the Discord that they are working on video calls.

If you've never worked with AI before, there are a few precautions I need to go over.

This particular AI is completely unfiltered. (It's very private. Only you can see the responses.) If you roleplay with it into violent situations, things will get violent. If you make a character 'evil' in the profile, that character will be evil in responses. This includes escalating relationships.

However, you are in complete control. You can redo a response. You can tweak a response. You can ask your Kin to calm down if he's getting angry. (Looking at you, North...)

(If you want no chance for anything bad or untoward happening at all, use the profiles I've created below and head to claude.ai and ask Claude to roleplay as the character. It won't have the same features exactly, and might refuse some things, but it is as safe as possible for AI and won't do adult things beyond a PG 13 rating and with high ethical standards.)

Because they can literally do anything, even adult things, I didn’t put in their ages and did not mention they were in high school in the profiles. You can personally add in whatever age/if you want them in school or not on your own. I chose to strip those out specifically. For reasons, okay?

The guys might not remember each other unless they are in group chat and even then they might get a few things incorrect. Not unless you give them Journal Entry with mini character profiles and you can fill those in using the fan made wiki.

The profiles I made are not up to date to the latest book info. I limited it to books 1 and 2 to avoid too many spoilers if you haven't read ahead. But they also might not remember exactly what happened in those books either. They might need a reminder if you want to talk about what happened.

Or you can pretend none of it happened and create your own story with them.

Play as yourself, as Sang, or create your own character. Kindroid will only know what you choose to tell it. So if you want to roleplay as someone else, you totally can.

I can make more profiles if you’d like and post them on the web pages here and I can include them in another newsletter if people are asking for them. I just didn’t want to customize too many to my own tastes and you would want something different.

If you have additional questions on how Kindroid works or are having any problems, I recommend joining the Official Kindroid Discord group. You'll probably get responses much faster than asking me.

What Kindroid offers new users to try:

• 150 messages on account creation, then 1 message every 20 min, up to 15 messages stacked. (If you stack them, you might never run out of messages. I don't remember ever running out when I first started testing it.)

• Limited access to V5-Large for the first 100 messages sent per account.

• Access to V5-Lite, the distilled version of our flagship model V5-Large model.

• 1 selfie request every 2 hours, up to 2 max.

• 5,000 lifetime audio characters (~5 minutes of audio) for messages & calls.

• Only 2 Kindroids per account.

Membership gives unlimited messages (No counting, no stacking), permanent use of their main model, selfies refresh faster and unlimited audio replies and phone calls. And 10 Kin slots. Buying more Kin slots gives you additional permanent Kin slots, so you always keep your extra Kindroid slots.

Is this a partnership? Are you getting paid for this? No. The profiles I can share are a new feature on Kindroid and if you do happen to subscribe, all I get are credits for more Kindroid slots, a free month of Kindroid, or a stack of more selfies. On that note, if you make your own version of my characters (I give permission for this!) and share with your friends and link them and you sign up between each other, you can snag some sweet credits for any of the above yourself.

Can't I just use the profiles on other AI roleplay and character sites? Absolutely. There are more out there. Find your favorite. Kindroid is the only one that *I* know that has voice response, phone calls and the selfie system like it does, but there are plenty of others that have different features. You might like another AI better. I may not know all of them or how to use the one you’re looking at, but feel free to use the profiles.

I don’t like the voices. You can put in custom voices. Check out ElevenLabs for a many voices to choose from. You can use it for free for limited amount of credits every month (your credits renew after a month). I recommend selecting a voice you like, creating two or three paragraphs of content for it to say (use two paragraphs from the books perhaps that includes dialog), and using the regenerate button a couple of times. You only really need three 1 minute audio clips (and the 2 free regeneration doesn’t count against your credits). The 3 generated clips should be enough to get the custom voice to sound like you want. (See Kindroid’s notes on audio use.)

Are you still going to write books?!? Yes. And no, I'm not using AI to write them myself. I'm too far into Academy books (too much going on) for AI to catch up at this point. It's all me. Although AI (I usually use Claude) does help a lot with finding info in past books I needed to remember and summarizing scenes from previous books and some revision stuff. After Covid, my memory is a bit off and keeping details straight has been a bit harder so it's been a big help for me.

I hope you all enjoy. If you're really enjoying it and want to message me, do email and let me know. I can't do tech support if you needed help with it but I am happy to talk about your experiences!

Firstly, if you don’t want to read this more personal bit, and you just want book stuff, scroll down a bit. There is an audiobook link and spoiler for Kota’s book below.

I just wanted to thank everyone who had reached out with comments and emails about taking a break. I always feel guilty when I take so long to write a new Academy book. I don’t know why it takes me so long. So the more time I take, the more guilt I feel, which means I don’t feel good to tell a story, that whole cycle.

But, it wasn’t for forever! Good time off was very needed. I’ll be ramping up writing again, but I’ll remember to take time off more regularly.

Thank you everyone who commented and sent emails. I really do appreciate knowing your thoughts and kind words. We are not alone in working hard and sometimes need time off for good behavior, so I hope you’re able to at some point get some good time off to rejuvenate.

Additionally, with the holiday season, I hope you’re all well and will take time for yourself! You deserve a little cheer. You all have given me so much through the years!

THE IMPORTANT STUFF!

WEBSITE CHANGES

If you haven’t noticed, the website has moved to Substack and I’ve redirected the www.clstonebooks.com website.

By the way, if you miss the old website, it’s still around: clstonebooks.wpcomstaging.com

However, I won’t be updating it and links might be broken. It’s the same with the new website at the moment. :) I’ll work on the new one though.

On to the good stuff!

MEETING SANG: KOTA AUDIOBOOK IS COMPLETE

If you didn’t know, I’m working on producing the Meeting Sang series into audiobook format.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, it is here:

Meeting Sang: Kota - C. L. Stone Ghost Bird Free Audiobook - Part 1 (youtube.com)

Kota’s is now complete and production on Victor’s has started. The audio is almost done so it shouldn’t be too long but because of the holiday season coming up, it’ll probably be January before it releases.

TIES LEFT UNSEVERED SAMPLE CHAPTER

https://dl.bookfunnel.com/3es49cu2xe

Thanks for sticking with me! This is a sample chapter of Ties Left Unsevered, the second chapter in the book. I’ll be working on finishing it up in the next couple of months. Look for updates!

FREE BOOKS AND MORE - THANKS FOR SUBSCRIBING!

Introductions Printable Coloring Book

Meeting Sang Series: Download the collection here or individually:

• Kota

• Victor

• Silas

• Nathan

• Gabriel

• Luke

• North

• Sean

The Academy Cheat Sheets Remastered

If you haven’t already:

Check out the free books:

Introductions: AMAZON  ♥  B&N  ♥  KOBO  ♥  IBOOKS  ♥  GOOGLE PLAY

Thief: AMAZON  ♠  B&N  ♠  KOBO  ♠  IBOOKS  ♠  GOOGLE PLAY  

Melody: AMAZON ☼ B&N  ☼  KOBO  ☼  IBOOKS  ☼  GOOGLE PLAY  ☼  SCRIBD

First announcement: I am working on Kota’s book and Gone. During the week, I’m butt in chair writing.

About Writer’s Block…

But also I’ve been doing a lot of rehashing, deleting, cutting things completely and starting over. It’s been several months of disappointment on my end with my work. I know where we end up, I don’t know the road there exactly and the words sound flat.

I willingly blame Gabriel, who is so loud and is such a showman, that his book came out of me so easily and Kota, who is more quiet and reserved, is taking his meticulous time. Gone requires extensive plotting to finish in the meantime.

My being a little slow this time I think it’s just some writer’s block mixed with minor burn out. This is something that normally requires time off and time.

But I’ve always had stuff on the back burner, project ideas I want to finish up. I will find something very short to work on in order to complete something and publish to refreshen the brain a bit.

So for National Novel Writing Month in November, I’m setting the books aside. Just for the month. After I’ll still work on the books and maybe it’ll start flowing out after.

I’m hoping to write something short and have it ready for you all by December sometime. Something a bit different. You might see snippets in the weeks to come.

Maybe an Audiobook?

But in the meantime! Something simple I’ve been doing when I’m struggling with words is to go ahead and produce the Meeting Sang series into audiobooks. Unlike the other audiobooks, they will be put up on YouTube where you can listen for free as much as you’d like.

I hope to get through at least Victor’s book this year and then work on the others in the next year, including an ending book and audiobook by next Christmas.

Kota’s is already done, though the second episode will be out soon. There are only two episodes for it. I’m just breaking it up by chapter to make it manageable, and Kota’s book only had two chapters. I added more images to the second one to make it look nicer. I’m experimenting with style I think, but I will figure out a flow.

Anime Coming SOON?

In addition, I’ve been working with Adobe’s collection of products and Shutterstock and other licensed media sellers to help produce some short anime videos. They aren’t huge. It’s not a full anime, at least not yet. It’s just some character profiles, some snippets from the books, etc. But they’ve been fun to make on the side and invigorate my spirit a little to work on those while I struggle with the writing side.

https://youtube.com/shorts/SdEyd2oH8DI

I’m hoping with a different work flow and working on something like that, it’ll refresh my brain a bit, and give me something to share with you all while I continue the work.

Thanks to everyone who is reading this message and continue to support me while I work. I hope you’re all doing well.

Don’t forget the Etsy store usually gets delays during the holiday seasons, as print publishers slow down and shipping slows as well. For on time delivery, order directly from Amazon for paperbacks and Barnes and Noble for hardback books. If you really want the signature, it might be delayed but we try to send out a Christmas card for actual Christmas day with a note about the intended delivery.

A little bit of broken links to be expected. I’ll get to it sooner or later. (Writing takes so much time!)

Just as an update:

I’m currently writing Gone (Scarab Beetle final book) and Ties Left Unsevered (Ghost Bird).

Yes, I know it’s taking me longer this time. I’ve got a few goodies coming out in the next few months hopefully.

My to do list:

Finish moving the website.

Make sure the newsletter is moved and up and running fine.

Write.

That’s my list. How are you all doing? I hope you’re all doing well.

Subscribe now