Thank you so much Robert! And so sorry to hear about your cold! I find spicy food and hot soups really help clear out the system! If you keep reading PRAX let me know what you think! Would love to stay connected and meet many more writers on the platform! Tapas is so great, I'm really impressed!
Love the beginning, and the synopsis sounds great. I really like chosen family, coming of age works, so I look forward to seeing how your story develops.
My novel is a bit different in style to yours, but see what you think as it is also going to be queer coming of age story:
@RobertBMarks hope your cold gets better soon! It is a bad time of year, my whole family have been ill for the last three weeks 
Yes! I know there are a lot worse things going on in the world, but it is frustrating how everyone just keeps reinfecting each other with slightly different and nasty colds!
Hope you are snuggled up warm and being looked after!
Are you able to keep writing, or too tired?
I'm a bit hesitant to answer (not because I mind talking about it, but because I don't want to hijack the thread). But, what I will say is that, probably in part due to my daughter being in her first year of kindergarten, I've been rotating through various colds (and at least one flu) long enough that pretty much every single professional and business commitment is at least three months behind schedule. So, writing has been sporadic.
EDIT: Just for clarity, this will not cause any schedule breaks - the Odyssey of Daiki Yamato was finished months ago. That said, I was hoping to be 20,000 more words into book 3 by now.
Ah young kids mean you are going to be ill for years! Not sure if it worked or was just coincidence, but I gave mine manuka honey when they were little and they kept pretty healthy.
Sorry @matthewfrancisj! Cold talk instead of celebrating how amazing it is that you've found Tapas and are publishing your novel here!
I just started last week, so am new to the journey too, so we can learn together how it works or doesn't work for us!
Right then...in the interests of pulling this thread all the way back on track...
Please introduce your characters to us!
Let's start with the Main Four characters who all end up attending a school together in the series:
Philo Nockby (14, Grounded Origin) is a shy, smart, naive foster kid from our time (2010s) who loves cooking, and no idea what is future will be. Early on he finds out his parents were time-travel agents and is craving to learn how and why his parents were killed. He is brought to the future to attend the same school that lead to their deaths.
Xendo Quaker (14, Skyborne Origin) is confident, thrill-seeking and a huge fan of staffball! (a futuristic sport he loves in the year 3451) Xendo struggles to make friends because his father is a disgraced government agent who was killed on a secretive mission to the past. Rumors follow him and his widowed mother everywhere they go. He is the one who finds out Philo is trapped in the past and wants to rescue him.
Raelyn Arctikon (14, Frozen Origin) is a quiet, duty-bound princess of Future Antartica who has been trained in combat all her childhood. She is on a secret mission of her own when coming to the School for trioka, and will stop at nothing to find answers to her queations.
Alani Adelaide (14, Oceanite Origin) is hilarious, wicked-smart, goofball who comes from a big dioka family from the Oceanite seadomes under the South China Sea. She is so bubbly and charming that everybody wants to be her friend but she struggles with people taking her seriously and truly just wants to defend the people she loves the most.
There are tons of other characters and we actually don't even meet all four of them right away in the first few chapters, but these four will be the main heroes for this first book and the six novels after I hope to publish.
Thanks for Asking! 
Welcome to Tapas! I would like to hop on the train and give your story a look as well as some feedback. The multiple protag is definitely a selling point for me. And supernatural academies are always fun. Based on your descriptions, I'm curious to know what the dynamic will look like between all of these strong personalities. 
Hi again, Matthew! You're welcome!
I really like the setup and the characters that we've met so far up through chapter one. the beginning was pretty intense, but there's a nice contrast between that hard and fast prologue vs the more mundane and easy-going first chapter. you've created lots of interest and mystery around the premise, the school itself, and the role that the major (and even some of the minor) characters might play in the big picture things down the road. and just personally for me as a reader, it's important for me to be able to connect with the characters in some way, and I felt like that was pretty easy overall.
PRAX is also giving me very ATLA vibes (which i freaking love) but still has its own distinct voice.
hope all of that was helpful! good luck going forward. I'll definitely return to the story and try to leave my thoughts where i can!
Amazing Thank you Coco-Ji!
I appreciate all your thoughts and input! and Yes, ATLA was definitely an inspiration when it comes to the world-building and fierce friendship of my own story!
I will continue to release episodes of this story throughout 2023. If you are curious of finishing it sooner, The full book and audiobook is actually already published on amazon:
Part of the reason for sharing the story here on tapas was to explore the medium so I can soon share book 2 with an audience and we're making Book 1 into a comic book soon! So, if you want to read ahead you are welcome to, if not, we have some great bite-sized parts of this world coming your way soon!
-Matthew Francis
I've only read the first part of the prologue so far (intriguing start!), but this + everything else you've said about it so far really piques my interest!
Also, congratulations on publishing it. I'm really curious what the process of getting an audiobook is like. Did you narrate it yourself or hire someone?
Thanks!
Yes it was definitely a journey, but one I am very proud of and I learned so much. I hired a great voice actress named Yu-Li Alice Shen! She did an amazing job voicing all 30+ Characters!
closed Jan 26, '23
