As you very well know, Military service is hard on families. While I speak more about this topic on my blog, the ongoing struggle is very taxing to both the heart and the mind. Most difficult for me is the sadness and depression of separation during my partner's deployment and training.
Sadly, many Military Families have it far worse off than we do, particularly those with service members actually in harm's way, and especially of course those who make the ultimate sacrifice defending our country. All these women and men who proudly wear the cloth of our nation, and their families, are true heroes.
Female Mil Spouses are very lucky to have a wide network of other military wives to lean on during these difficult times. Sadly, we men, are not as fortunate. Personally, I find it extremely challenging as an Army husband to find a real sense of community. This is particularly emphasized when my wife is away on training or tour.
Additionally, due to my wife's change of stations, the vast majority of my local male friends are actually in my wife's company, but they obviously are also gone when her unit is away on tour. This lack of community during 100+ days out of the year was a profoundly strong factor in me working on, and ultimately finishing, an adventure novel entitled Rune of the Apprentice.
Although there are some good male spouse groups, (with Macho Spouse being an exemplary leader here!) I have found that ultimately, many Army husbands are not involved in these communities. Even worse—and I know this is not the case for many of us—some male military spouses are shy or even embarrassed about being military dependents. Personally, I feel this is a grave tragedy.
It is my hope that this book campaign can bring awareness to this and
many other challenging aspects of Military Family life. Hopefully my novel, and its overarching campaign, can prove to be a catalyst to unite people in their desire to help support military family charities, while also opening up dialogue about the shifting gender roles in the military, our ever growing number of exemplary female service members, and their corresponding male spouses (who deal with the same very real challenges as their female counterparts).
My story is thus: When I was in the throes of sadness regarding my wife's absence, I came back to my love of fiction writing and decided to finish Rune of the Apprentice. I did it not as an escape, but as inspiration. And not just to inspire myself, but also my wife, because as an active-duty service member out performing her duties in the field, I knew that during this time, her day-to-day challenges were far greater than mine at home.
So, in addition to my letters, I would send her chapters and excerpts of my novel to keep her spirits up, brighten her day, and to provide inspiration for her military duties. Time and time again, she said that outside of talking to me directly, reading my book was her favorite way to relax off-duty. And the battle buddies with whom she shared the chapters with said the same thing. During personal time, nothing can compete with speaking with and/or reading letters from loved ones, but a terrific book is most certainly pretty high up there!


Well, now that my book has been completed, I want to share it with other military families, too. From adolescent to adult, my many beta readers have been clear and resounding: they all love this book! Their passion, feedback, and unyielding urge to get it published have been overwhelming. Because of this, it is my utmost hope that I can share this exciting story with as many people as possible
I talk about this at length on my blog, and am happy to answer ANY questions you might have, but I want to say one last important thing before I get into more details. While my wife and I live very humbly, I am not here asking for your community to give us any money, instead we have decided to donate all of the author proceeds on pre-orders to our military community. I did not write this book to become rich, instead, I worked on it for years as a labor of love and passion and now want to leverage it to help our Military community.


As a male spouse, I feel as though our voice is not as prevent as it could be. I feel it is time that we continue to rally together and join the ranks of our female spouse counterparts and let out voices be heard through acts of service to our evolving community.


Because of this: I have pledged to donate ALL of this book's pre-order profits (my share as author is 50% of gross revenue on physical books and 70% on e-books) to:
-Hope for the Warriors
-National Military Family Association
-Our Military Kids
-Military Spouse Advocacy Network
As a writer and male military spouse, I do not use weapons to defend this country, however, I hope that my use of the pen is able to make a significant impact, instead. Yes, it is true. As military dependents, we are unable to do what our uniformed service members—soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, coastguardsmen—do and go overseas to defend our freedom under fire, put an end to terrorism, or liberate persecuted peoples.


BUT it is my hope that through my writing I can inspire the hearts and minds of people across the globe through an action-packed literary adventure filled with heroism, mystery, and adventure. In doing so, I also hope to tangibly bring a positive impact to the lives of our military families and service members.
But I cannot do this alone! Whether deployed or at home, by backing this campaign, it is my hope that together we can brighten the lives of men, women, and youth across the globe while continuing to explore and create meaningful dialogue around families and the gender roles within our military community.
Please support me in this endeavor by pre-ordering Rune of the Apprentice now.
After you have pre-ordered the book, please visit my blog to learn more about why I started this campaign and how to join me in dialoging how we, as Male Mil Spouses, can make a difference!
By pre-ordering, you not only get an EPIC novel filled with action and adventure, but you also are supporting another male military spouse's campaign to help our military community. Please add your voice to mine as we continue the important work of broadening understanding about military families and their spouses—both male and female.
Thank you very much for your support!
Jamison Stone

About the author: Jamison Stone:

A passionate leader, versatile consultant, and creative writer, Jamison fuses a background in not-for-profit management with expertise in a diverse field of literary platforms. As the Director and Lead Writer of Apotheosis Studios, he also leads a small, creative studio providing writing, editorial work and consulting for nonprofits and businesses. 

In addition to his professional career, Jamison is also a Trustee, Committee Chair, and grant writer for the W. Clement & Jessie V. Stone Foundation, an organization which provides program grants in education, youth development, early childhood development, teacher and principal preparedness, and youth voice.
Please support Jamison's book campaign by Pre-ordering Rune of the Apprentice today at: https://www.inkshares.com/projects/rune-of-the-apprentice?referral_code=33f8506e
