Introducing the Indie Writer's Wheel of Pain

Doing what I love shouldn't depress me. Right? But everyday I do what I love. And doing what you love is supposed to fill you with purpose. And when I'm writing, I feel fulfilled. When I'm marketing my writing I feel excited. When my books don't sell, I feel depressed. It's a vicious circle. Manic to depressed. Do I then suffer from manic depression? Am I bipolar? I could draw a diagram to represent it easily. In fact, here:

But I also know that's the life of a creative. I've failed at a few things. Illustration, fine art, writing - I guess- though writing is what I keep coming back to... Maybe I should have taken journalism or some other form of writing in post-secondary school, but for whatever reason, at the tender age of 18, I thought visual arts was my game. It wasn't. At least, nothing I could make a living from. Not really. Turns out making money from writing isn't my jam either though. So, what am I supposed to do when I feel drawn to tell stories? Tell them I guess, otherwise, I might burst. Spontaneously combust. Hey, maybe that would be best, but then that's the depression stage talking now; waiting to sell a book or two. Being in-between writing is the most agonizing. Working a day job and wanting to be someone else is difficult too. Should I quit my job and go full time as a writer? That's a pretty stupid idea when you've already proven your books don't really sell. After writing 12 of varying genres... and working as a marketing manager full time, you'd think the two would eventually click and I'd get a best-seller out of the pairing.

Maybe I suck at everything I do. That's a depressing thought. Oh, right, I'm suffering the depressing stage - that red arrow in my little diagram above... Maybe I should stop writing this thought out and force another smile at another co-worker and engage in mindless water cooler banter. I am thirsty...

The Honest Author

Tired of the same old formula where A.I. is concerned?

Sentience is an incredible event we humans’ take for granted. But have you ever wondered why we’re sentient? How we became sentient? If you have, then you may appreciate where A.I. Insurrection by Michael Poeltl takes the idea of sentience when populating his A.I. Hosts with consciousness. In the near-future, Host’s are built artificially intelligent through human ingenuity and the drive to create in our own image. Then something indescribable happens, and the explanation for A.I. Host's sudden sentience is revealed. No other author of science fiction has conceived such a bold and startlingly plausible event in sparking life in a machine. Bury any preconceptions you may have or have read or watched before on the development of consciousness in Artificial Intelligence. Embrace the new possibilities Poeltl has laid out. They will inspire and intrigue your sci-fi mind. If this were all that happens in the series it would be enough for many, but A.I. Insurrection is a fertile field of characters, action, concepts and plotting which will entertain while opening up scenarios you may have never imagined.

With three books in the series now available and the potential for more, the reader (you) is transported to 2162 where all laborious work is performed by androids and humanity have been freed to do as they please with their lives. Utopian, right? Well, things go a bit sideways when a new group calling themselves Chimera rebel against the status quo, A.I. Hosts begin to experience sentience, and the United Earth military machine tries to stop them all.  That’s just book one.

So, challenge yourself to pick up cutting-edge sci-fi only an indie author could write for your next read, and prepare yourself for a wild and unique experience!

The End of Coddling is the Climate Crisis

What kind of parent are you? Do you coddle your kids? Try to protect them from everything? Or do you tell it like it is?

I wrote An Angry Earth to scare kids into action. It’s bleak. It’s real. It’s frightening. We all have that picture book you can’t shake from your childhood, right? Mine is Watership Down. It was scary, about the survival of the fittest and not without controversy. Now, fast-forward to 2019 - what if that message were environmentally charged - featuring distressing content paired with disturbing illustrations? It would not include a happy ending – more consistent with the fairy tales of old. Entertaining, yet educational. Frightening, with redeeming qualities. The idea that a child can make a difference is in the epilogue. That the ending to An Angry Earth can be rewritten before it’s too late is inspiring and challenging. Hit them with the proverbial ugly stick and then lift them up so they can stand for something. Something important. Something necessary. Something like the environment.

I know this book is offensive to some, but I don’t care about that. I care about the environment and know there are parents (and kids) out there who want the same as me. I say love your children, but loving the world you’re leaving for your kids has got to be up there too. Otherwise, what will they think you thought of them when they’re gasping for breath?

An Angry Earth offers a terrifying end to a world whose overseers abused its resources to live more comfortably until the Earth had nothing left to give. Each concurrent devastating natural disaster is recorded by a single child left to bear witness.

Why we LOVE this new Science Fiction Series

Looking for your next great Sci-fi trilogy to devour? Michael Poeltl's A.I. Insurrection series offers a near-future (150 years) Utopia maintained by androids (Referred to as AI Hosts) built to satisfy manufacturing, policing and leisure activities for all humanity. But when sentience is discovered in the AI Hosts through a new race of people calling themselves Chimera, United Earth Military gets involved and a civil war breaks out. When the perpetrator is discovered to be an Alien AI bent on the destruction of all organic life, United Earth must fight back the invader. Then, as the UE prepares to travel to other star systems and colonize new worlds, a fresh hell is realized when they first venture into interstellar space and an old enemy thought destroyed appears.

Visit the series' page on Goodreads for more reviews, descriptions and videos concerning the game-changing science fiction trilogy.

Pick up book one - The General's War - and get started today!

Get over 2 million ratings on your book

An impressive number, right? It's easier than you think. But keep in mind: thinking is a big part of how this sort of thing happens. I’m not here to sell you on positive thinking though if I were, I’d direct you to my Hello Me Series rather than show you my 2.3 million ratings on my sci-fi book(s) on Goodreads.

It’s called a vision board. Have you heard of this? Whether you’re hoping to meet that perfect mate or buy the perfect house or get the perfect job, a vision board is your friend. You take a picture of the thing you want, place it on a board or piece of paper and keep it somewhere you’ll see it daily. Then you focus your intention and attention on that goal and believe it’s already happened.

Okay, so in reality, I don’t currently have over 2 million ratings on a single book, but that’s not to say it’s impossible! In fact, I fully expect to have reached this goal within a certain amount of time (ideally while I’m still alive and can enjoy my brief foray into fame and fortune). So, what did I do? I Photoshopped my profile page. I changed the numbers to reflect what I expect from my books and followers. I did this with each book currently available. I look at my board in the morning and in the evening and I spend a few minutes with it, feeling all the good feels that accompany a win like this.

I’m encouraged by the feels I feel and actually get excited thinking about how this has happened for me. With 11 books available to the public in multiple genres and another coming out in September, I see no reason I couldn’t find someone for each to take them viral.

This isn’t exactly an easy practice for me. I’m not the most positive person. I`ve struggled with depression and anxiety. But in spite of all that, I’m really thrilled to be pushing for what I want, and now expect from the universe. It’s nothing for the universe to give me millions of dollars by selling my books. I don’t expect something for nothing, writing is hard work, networking, designing cover art, MEME`s and editing all take their toll  - and I do market myself and give away books in the hopes of being rewarded with a review. It’s all coming together. I believe that. I can feel it.

This is my soon to be success story. Why not give it a shot yourself?

Experience Affords the Best Stories

I believe experience still affords the best stories for any audience. Truth is stranger than fiction, and all that. Experience is born of doing; taking risks, making mistakes, learning new ways of doing something and sometimes, quitting.

I’m an author who also identifies as a marketing manager. My day to day is filled with photography, video, advertising, blogging, analytics, ROI, planning, budgets, professional interactions, website management and many other duties which keep me in the position I have built for myself.

But as I said, I am an author first. Remember? I said: “I’m an author who also identifies as a marketing manager.” As you can imagine, it helps that I am a writer in my current 9-5 position. Content is King.  But filling my bank account and fulfilling my purpose is at odds with one another at the moment. I love to write. I love developing stories and characters and seeing where it all ends up. You can’t really achieve that writing blogs about machines. Sure, the case study is fun; writing about the origins and then the application of something used in a world-famous act, but those are few and far between in my industry.

So, on my time, I write what I want to read. I’ve said this many times before because I think it is an all-important facet to any author’s writing: Write what you would like to read.  So, what are my interests? I am a spiritual person. I’ve taken a course in Reiki, been hypnotised twice – once to relive past-lives, experienced a drum circle, lived through an out of body experience during a session with a very talented healer,  attended a tapping lesson, read and reread the Buddhist Book of Living and Dying, read the Bible, been confirmed in the Christian faith, renounced Christianity, believe science and spirituality support one another, feel we’re not alone in the universe, believe in positive thinking - even when I have to attempt it through my own battles with depression or anxiety. I believe in living with compassion and non-judgement (but it’s near impossible not to judge). I believe my ego is the devil and yet I can’t seem to separate myself from it. I try to make decisions and choices consciously, knowing that regret and consequences are reactions to unconscious decisions. I want to be a better version of myself and when I read a story, I want that story to feel real. I want characters who are real. Even if I’m in the middle of a far-future sci-fi, whatever events arise, I want the human aspect to shine through. The struggle. The lows, the highs. The victories and defeats.

Not a bad collection of inspiration to pull from, right? So, with my writing, you get the truth, as I see it. You get reincarnation in your space opera. You get suicide in your apocalyptic fiction. You get Armageddon in your children’s picture books. You get the science of your spirit in your educational series. You get emotions in your short stories. You experience suffering in your chic lit. I apologize for nothing and write for those who want to read my message. My Apocalyptic trilogy is my most polarizing writing to date. The first book, The Judas Syndrome - people either loved it or truly hated it. So, as you would expect, it sits at just above a three-star rating. The next two books of the series were received much better, having filtered out those who hated book one; those who want to read what interests them most.

My most recent series, which will have three books in a few months, is a near-future science fiction series where humanity has perfected A.I. in bipedal, human-like robots. Soon they discover these artificially intelligent creations are claiming sentience through past life experiences. Impossible, but true. If you've experienced past life regression, or just believe in it, and love science fiction, then this Sci-fi puts an exciting new spin on what it means to be human. 

With 11 books and another on its way, I have discovered a theme throughout which makes me pause and reflect on my writing.  Even through multiple genres, I still manage to deliver the same message: Death isn’t then end, in fact, the word death is something of a misnomer. Death: the destruction or permanent end of something.  Investigate that statement with me and pick up one of my novels. I believe you will be pleasantly surprised.

Writing is My Dharma - What's Yours?

I write in multiple genres because I believe we live multiple lives. If this life were all you were given, there wouldn’t be enough time to learn everything we’re here to learn. That’s a fact.  Each life presents its challenges, and if you can’t learn from them then, you’re doomed to repeat them.

I’m Michael Poeltl, and I am a great proponent of reincarnation. In fact, even though I write in multiple genres, many of my stories involve reincarnation – and not in a subtle way.

My first series of books entitled; The Judas Syndrome, deal with reincarnation and the idea we are doomed to repeat our failures if we haven’t learned from them in previous lives. But even in failure, there is success; as each life is offered the same chance to right wrongs, or merely learn from what has been presented. The Judas Syndrome is a trilogy set in a post-apocalyptic backdrop.

In Her Past’s Present, Tess finds her life falling apart around her, and so checks herself into a mental health facility. There she meets a man claiming to know her. She doesn’t recognize him, but he recognizes her – from a past life. The premise behind this book is to introduce Tess to past life therapy, and through past lives realize her connection to the people and events happening in her life now. It allows great healing to understand a past you can’t remember. Her Past’s Present is a thriller based in 2015.

A.I. Insurrection is a series which takes place in a not so distant future where artificial intelligence serves humanity through individual Host robots. When they claim sentience, they prove it by disclosing to the world their past life memories of souls who now occupy their fragile minds and android bodies.  A.I. has always fascinated me, and when I posed the question ‘could an intelligent mind alone house a soul?’ the series took off. A.I. Insurrection is near-future science fiction.

That’s currently 6 of 11, soon to be 7 of 12 novels dedicated to my own beliefs in reincarnation. I hadn’t really realized I had such a strong theme of rebirth in my works until I took a step back and viewed them as a whole. Perhaps I’m trying to tell the world something? Am I supposed to be writing about it? Whether I am meant to or not, I’m clearly following a path with my message of re-embodiment.

Before I wrote Her Past’s Present, I had been experiencing a traumatic time in my life and treated myself to a past life reading. It changed me. It showed me this life is anything but the final word and that it will come again and again until we’ve all learned our lessons. I often say ‘Imagine if the reigning religion involved reincarnation. Imagine how people would treat one another and the planet knowing they would return. It’s not enough to want your children to be happy, that doesn’t seem to change anything in the present. But if you knew you were preparing a world for your return, would you treat it better than you do?

That’s an argument I use d to create An Angry Earth; the illustrated children’s book that tells it like it is, or at least, how it’s going to be if we don’t change our destructive ways toward our environment.

In any case writing, I’ve realized, is how I can get my message out into the world. My Dharma you could say, with a message of reincarnation.

Namaste and happy reading!