FAQS

Thank you for asking!

Any author will tell you they need reviews and ratings on book and store pages. That’s huge! (The most useful for me would be Amazon and Goodreads.)

One thing that gives the story visibility is getting boosted on Top Web Fiction! Votes count for one week on that site, so be sure to vote again. A new review and/or rating on Muse’s Success would be great, too! Other social media shares are also appreciated. Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc…

Next, you can purchase official Eikasia merchandise via TeePublic. Or you can buy the first eBook off of Amazon!

Third, you can send one-time donations of whatever amount you wish. This can be accomplished either through PayPal or Ko-Fi.

Store and donation links are provided at the bottom of every page, or in the sidebar of the story blog!

A serial is a story published in parts. When you look at the title of each post, you can see which part it is you are reading, i.e. “Chapter 2.1, Chapter 2.2”, etc…

Nothing. Not a cent, not a dime, not a dollar. This is a FREE online serial available for you to read. You are free to donate money, however. I’m a mother trying to support her kids under the crushing weight of student loan debt. Keeping this site hosted isn’t free, unfortunately!

I’d been bouncing the idea around for a while before I put pen to paper, but I officially started the story on September 13th, 2008.

Nope!  It’s my pseudonym.

The main page contains the table of contents, grouped by story arc. Click the drop-down menus to access particular chapter updates.

If you’re on the story blog, then look in the sidebar under Get Up To Speed! for the link titled “See the Table of Contents”.  Clicking this will take you to the main page chapter list as referenced above.

Additionally, at the bottom of every post is a link to the previous or next post so that you can continue reading at a part-by-part basis.

The top of every post lists tags just underneath the post title. These tags can also be selected to run a search for all posts with that tag. Chapters and story arcs are grouped this way also. Posts should appear in descending order, from oldest to newest. 

Ah…not quite.  No.  HELL no.  Under Creative Commons, you are free to copy, distribute, and transmit my work–but you have to attribute it to me, Illise Montoya.  To do this properly, you must have my name somewhere clearly on the work, along with an easy to locate link to this website using the url: https://www.eikasianovel.com/  

You aren’t allowed to change my work, do any derivative works based on my story, take credit for my work, or use my story for commercial purposes without my EXPRESSED permission.  

If you see someone else doing this, please let me know.  Use the contact information on the bottom of this website if you have any specific questions.

For more information, you can also go here.

Lastly, the published version of Tributaries is under copyright. Please support humble authors and do not pirate my little eBook. Thank you.

And it probably never will be. “Eikasia” is a mode of reasoning defined by the Greek philosopher Plato. In the basest of terms, one can call it “picture thinking”.

Plato suggested that all thought derives from eikasia. More elaborately, he explained that it was our inability to perceive whether a perception is an image of something else. It is eikasia, then, that prevents us from seeing a reflection in the mirror as anything else but reality.

It’s a concept that scholars have written whole books on, so don’t take my explanation to be the ultimate answer or definition. There are varying theories and debates on the subject, like the role eikasia plays in the thought process and its affect on society.

The Break Time series used to only makes its appearance in Eikasia’s Top Web Fiction incentive page, but there have been many times where I felt the need to take a break. In the first three years since this project began, this usually only happened a few times a year around expected seasons–the holidays and such. But from the summer of 2011 onwards, I’ve been experiencing many new and challenging things, so my creative rhythm has been disrupted.

So to help myself stay in touch with the story during these “writing blocks,” I do these strange shorts. They’re basically just one-shots featuring the Eikasia cast in an abstract living space within my own head. Sometimes, I write a BT purely as an exercise to explore who the characters are; other times, I use it to comment on things or events I witness in real life; most of the time, I take it as an opportunity to write my characters doing something they couldn’t otherwise do within the limits of the Eikasia setting–Like Elmiryn playing video games, or Nyx listening to the Violent Femmes.

The Break Time stories don’t have any bearing on the main storyline, so you can skip these if you’d like.

First, I’m sorry you were hurt by anything I may have written. Please email me using the address at the bottom of this page to let me know precisely what part of the site or story offended you. I will try to address it as best I can.

Second, please, please, please remember that I started writing this series when I was only nineteen-years-old. I had a lot of growing and learning to do. I’m in my thirties now.

I am aware of many problematic areas of the story, and my intention was correcting these in the “final” published versions moving forward. I am, of course, open to civil feedback.

Good question! I don’t really have an answer!

I used to publish on a solid schedule, but after starting a family and working full time, this has become very challenging. I know lots of creators can manage a decent schedule. I can only tell you that for every creator that has their stuff “together”, there are countless more of us who do not.

We are legion! (And we’re doing our best!)

My best answer is to follow me on my Twitter account for any writing updates, and to subscribe to the mailing list via the form at the bottom of the site for email notifications whenever posts go live.

Please follow me on my Twitter account for any writing updates, and also be sure to subscribe to the mailing list via the form at the bottom of the site. This will give you email notifications whenever posts go live.

Many reasons.

Only Chapter 1 is in its third draft.  Part 1 (as of 1/25/11) is in its second draft.  Mostly everything else is in its first draft. If you scroll down the main page, you’ll see there’s a table of contents.  There, I note which chapters I’ve fully edited and which ones I haven’t.

I don’t have an editor or beta readers. I only hire professional editors when I’m preparing to publish. Maybe if I regularly earned enough extra money from the site I could hire someone, but I earn very little (if anything) and I’m not rich.

If you want to see those nasty grammar problems, plot holes, and typos vanish, just politely point it out to me in the comments or email.  You’ll notice some readers have already been kind enough to help me out.  

I try to look over my work before posting, but mistakes are bound to happen and that can include continuity errors.  Try and find delight in seeing the creative process happen before you, there’s no real use in jeering at the inevitable.

Rude people will be banned from commenting. No exceptions.

I’ve already begun the process of getting Eikasia published on eBook format. You can purchase the first book here on Amazon. The second novel, though slow-going, is currently in the works.

I’ve been asked multiple times if I ever plan on publishing physical copies of my books. I do have a desire to do this, but most publishers will not accept second-publishing rights. Because Eikasia is available free online, I will likely always have to find a way to self-publish.

What this means is that I either have to choose to invest a lot of money on getting the books pre-printed and storing them somewhere… Or I risk sacrificing quality (and revenue) to print-on-demand services. This isn’t an easy choice.

Additionally, I’d like to only release what would technically be a “second edition” of the first book to physical copies. In the years since Tributaries was published, I’ve come to see there are many things I can improve on.

I did.  I’m not an art major, but I did a lot of doodling when I was in public school.  This has given me certain limited skills, which I sometimes try to use to illustrate my ideas for Eikasia.  You can find more concept sketches and digital art on the gallery page!

If you’re curious too, you can see my DeviantArt, but I hardly ever update it anymore.

When I win the lottery.

…Geez, I have no idea! But if you actually like reading that stuff, poke me on Twitter or with an email. Maybe I’ll try and get back to it if enough people complain.

You can hit me up on either of my Twitter accounts:

Cajeck (my writer account)

PegaSkeletus (my personal account)

OR send me an email at the address found on the bottom of the page. (It’s an image to prevent spam.)