Jon Cronshaw's Author Diary: The Real Life of a Legally Blind Fantasy Author

Welcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending October 6, 2019.

It’s been a mixed bag of a week. It started well enough. I wrote a short story called The Princess and the Tailor for a charity anthology inspired by Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

I took the theme of a person transforming into a monster and ran with it. It tells the story of the way Kat’s parents met in The Ravenglass Chronicles. And if you’ve read the series, you’ll know that things didn’t exactly go well.

I want to thank everyone who helped make The Ravenglass Chronicles episodes 1-11 boxed set an Amazon best-seller. It was only there for a couple of days, but I did get a pretty orange tag on my book!

I went back to work on The Hanged Man, which is book 12 of The Ravenglass Chronicles, and I’m about three-quarters through now. I had hoped to have my draft finished by Friday, but life has a tendency to throw obstacles in the way…

Digit

On Thursday, my guide dog Digit was attacked by a Staffordshire bull terrier while I we were walking my son home from school. It was quite traumatic, but I managed to get the other dog off Digit before he could do any serious damage. Poor guy has three wounds on his front left leg. The vet has stapled and bandaged him and he’s walking around with a cone around his head. The wounds went down to the muscle, but didn’t damage the muscle, so he should be healed in a couple of weeks.

What made it particularly frustrating was that the dog’s owner was completely unapologetic and ran off when I tried to speak to him. Luckily, one of the other parents managed to get a photo of him, so hopefully the police will be able to catch up with him.

I had to deal with the fallout from that for the rest of Thursday and all day Friday. So this has meant going to the vets (twice), talking to the police, Guide Dogs, and the local dog warden to give statements, etc. And, now, I am out of a guide dog for two weeks meaning I have to go back to using my white cane…which sucks.

Podcasting

On the Sci-Fi Roundtable this week, Shane Thomas and I were joined by author Andy Zach to discuss the neuralink, which enables you to link your brain to a computer. But this isn’t science fiction; one of Elon Musk’s companies is working on this. Visit: sfrtpodcast.libsyn.com or find it wherever you download your podcasts.

Patreon

Finally, please do check out my Patreon page. We’re coming to the end of the Wizard of the Wasteland re-write, so, next, I’ll be posting the pre-edited chapters of the new version of The Fool, which is set about six months before The Ravenglass Chronicles and tells the story of how Kat and Hansel became friends.

Visit: patreon.com/joncronshawauthor  and get access today.

Yours,

Jon

Welcome to my author diary. 

Support my work at https://patreon.com/joncronshawauthor

Welcome to Jon’s author diary for the week ending September 22, 2019.

It’s been a busy week. Last Sunday I launched episode 1 to 11 box set of The Ravenglass Chronicles, so I’ve been doing a lot things this week to get new readers interested in that.

I want to thank everyone who has helped make it the number one new release in teen and young adult historical fantasy.

I also want to thank anyone who left a review on the episodes one to four boxset after a one-star review dragged my star average to the gutter and killed my sales. 

The new version of The Fool is now with my beta readers. As soon as I get it back from the editor and proofread, you’ll be the first to get a free copy. It’s set about six months before the events of The Ravenglass Chronicles, and tells the story of how Kat first met Hans.

It was so much fun returning to Kat as a naïve young thing. It’s crazy how much her character has evolved since the first episode…and how much she’s going to change in the future.

Wizard of the Wasteland

My first novel, Wizard of the Wasteland is currently on offer for just 99c. If you’ve never read it before, now’s the perfect time to get stuck in. Click HERE to read now.

Patreon

I'm nearly done posting the rewritten version of Wizard of the Wasteland on Patreon. For just $1 per month, you get exclusive articles, short stories, and early access to all my major releases.

Take care,

Jon

Order The Ravenglass Chronicles books 1-11 boxset HERE.

Welcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending September 8, 2019.

I’ve had a difficult but productive week. I started working on my first draft of The Hanged Man, which is episode 12 of The Ravenglass Chronicles.

I’ve written the first four scenes, but it has been slow going. I think I need to revisit my outline and make it is strong as I can. It’s not there yet.

I broke away from the story and focused instead on a new non-fiction book for authors called The Stoic Writer, which is about how Roman stoicism can help authors with their mindset.

I managed to write the first and second draft over the week, and have sent it to beta readers. 

It was a fun book to write, and I think it was the palate cleanser I needed.

Next week is my dad’s funeral. I’m not looking forward to that and I wonder whether the looming prospect of that is what is causing the resistance on the fiction.

And in the week following the funeral, we’re having a new kitchen fitted, so the house is going to be noisy and in disarray. I’m going to use this time to focus on editing. Hopefully, I’ll have a first draft of The Hanged Man to re-write. Failing that, I have plenty of other projects to complete.

Justice

Anyone who has pre-ordered Justice, book 11 of The Ravenglass Chronicles, will no doubt have received an email from Amazon saying the release date has been brought forward to September 12.

Click HERE to pre-order.

Check out this selection of novellas

If you can’t get enough serialised fantasy novellas, please check out the following promo featuring a bunch of authors write serials. Visit: http://www.fantasykindlebooks.com/novellas.html

Podcasting

Finally, on the latest episode of the Sci-Fi Roundtable, author Dr Wesley Britton joined us to talk about blind authors and characters.

He has the same condition as me (retinitis pigmentosa), but he’s much further along with the condition as I am.

It was cool to have a conversation about the experience of dealing with visual impairment and how there is no reason why it should stop anyone being an author.

Plus, last week, Shane Thomas read an excerpt from my novel, Blind Gambit.

Please search for Sci-Fi Roundtable wherever you get your podcasts or check out the podcast feed at sfrtpodcast.libsyn.com.

Take care,

Jon

Welcome to Jon’s Author Diary for the week ending September 1, 2019…yes, September.

I’ve had a productive week. If you’ve been receiving my newsletters for a while, you now that I've been telling myself not to start new projects until I clear the backlog of ongoing projects.

Well, I failed that this week.

I’ve been working on a new prequel for The Ravenglass Chronicles. It’s set about nine months before the events of The Magician, and gives some more insight into Kat’s life and how she first met Hans. I have a first draft complete and will be working on a second draft over the next week or so.

Those of you who on my Patreon page will get a first look at this as I post the unedited chapters as soon as the second draft is ready. The rest of you will have to wait! But, fear not, it’s going to be a freebie to say thank you for supporting my work.

The prequel will be called…

*drumroll*

The Fool.

“Wait! Didn’t you already release The Fool?”

Yes. The story I originally released under the title The Fool is now combined with The Magician. Amazon would not let me have a book 0 (The Fool is card 0 in the tarot) linked to a series. This meant readers missing out on the first episode of the series.

So, The Fool as a title was unpublished and there will be a new version.

I’m not going to make this available on Amazon, only to my newsletter subscribers. So, look out for the new version of The Fool coming at some point in the near future. 

Black Death update

I have now compiled the Black Death series into three novels. It is now with my co-author, Lynn, so it's out of my hands for a while. I hope that it will get done in the not-too-distant future.

TOOL has a new album!

I was excited this week to see that one of my favourite bands TOOL released a new album for the first time in 13 years.

And it did not disappoint.

It is a great album. This will probably sound pretentious, but TOOL’s doesn’t write ‘songs’—they are more like musical experiences, hypnotic stories that take you on strange journeys.

The Wasteland series re-write

I continue to post chapters from the new, improved version of Wizard of the Wasteland every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on my Patreon page.

I’m about twenty percent through reworking Knight of the Wasteland—I forgot just how much I loved writing this story. As soon as I’m done posting chapters from Wizard, I’ll go straight onto this. 

And, of course, I’m posting these in addition to short stories, podcasts, and exclusive articles.

You can access all of these for as little as $1 per month. Please visit: patreon.com/joncronshawauthor.

Assassin novels

I’m currently on a bit of grimdark fantasy assassin kick. I’ve recently read Andy Peloquin’s Darkblade Assassin and have moved onto Nevernight by Jay Kristoff.

Do you have a favourite assassin novel or series you think I should read?

Welcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending August 25, 2019.

This week has been a bit of a mixed bag. A virus knocked me back for a couple of days, so this gave me chance to read a big chunk of Anthony Ryan's Blood Songs, book one in his Raven Shadow series.

It’s a grimdark epic fantasy set in military order, so it ticks a lot of boxes for me. I’m about two –thirds through, and it’s a great story so far.

I managed to finish the third draft of Justice, which is book 11 of The Ravenglass Chronicles.

My process usually involves me writing a shitty first draft, which is where I vomit the story from brain to the page. In my second draft, I do a complete re-write, telling the story how I wish I’d told it first time around. And then my third is focused on making the writing on a sentence-level. It’s very important that my words have the right rhythm and flow.  It’s now ready for the editor. So, hopefully, I’ll get that released mid-September.

I did make the mistake of putting all my ongoing and planned future projects onto a spreadsheet to share with my editor.

Eek!

I had three first-draft novels, three novels waiting for a final redraft, two Wasteland novels needing a rewrite, three non-fiction books drafted, and eleven novellas to write. This isn’t to count the series I’ve started planning when I’ve cleared the backlog of projects.

There’s a lesson there about focusing on one thing until the end, I’m sure…

One-hundred episodes!

Next seek marks the one-hundredth episode of my Author Diary podcast. For this episode, I’d like you to email jon (at) joncronshaw.com with a question for me to answer on the podcast. It can be about anything—my work, my life, or anything to do with books, movies, writing, etc.

Patreon

I’ve been continuing to post the re-write of Wizard of the Wasteland chapter-by-chapter on Patreon. Plus, podcasts, short stories, and articles. I post new chapters on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and you can get access for $1 per month. Visit: patreon.com/joncronshawauthor.

Yours,

Jon

Visit subscribepage.com/ravenglass to join the VIP mailing list. You will receive free stories and be first to know about new releases.

Welcome to my author diary for the week ending August 12, 2019. 

Support my work at https://patreon.com/joncronshawauthor

Welcome to Jon's author diary for week ending August 4, 2019.

It’s been a slow week in terms of actual writing. I have been in holiday mode, so I've been doing dad stuff.

My mother came to stay and took a daytrip to Blackpool in scorching sunshine. I spent most of the day nipping between areas of shade and pouring bowls of water for my guide dog, Digit.

It's been difficult to keep any kind of writing routine, so I’ve been snatching moments here and there  to do small tasks, such as gathering quotes for non-fiction books and reading.

When I’m not focused on writing, my mind tends to run away with ideas. This is a blessing and a curse. I had the idea of writing a space fantasy series involving dragons…and a zombie apocalypse series…and a military fantasy series…a grimdark fantasy assassin series. I’m sure for some authors this would be wonderful, but for me they’re distractions.

I’m sitting on several books in various draft states—Cleric of the Wasteland, Blind Reset, the Black Death trilogy, Black Death: London, Justice, and three non-fiction books. Plus, I’m in the process of re-writing the first three Wasteland books! So, the last thing I need is more distractions.

I need to focus on finishing all the open projects before moving onto a new one, but it’s like my mind keeps going, ‘hey, what about this?’ I’m like a magpie drawn to shiny new things.

Patreon

I’ve posted the first four chapters of the re-written Wizard of the Wasteland onto my Patreon page. You can read the first chapter HERE for free, and get full access to exclusive short stories, audio, articles, reviews, and early releases from a dollar a month.

I’ll post a new chapter every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Visit patreon.com/joncronshawauthor to support my work. 

Black Death

I’ve been speaking to my co-author about potential release dates for the Black Death trilogy, and based on our current workloads, it looks like we’re either going to launch the series in November or next February.

The Ravenglass Chronicles

Wheel of Fortune, episode ten of The Ravenglass Chronicles went live this week. You can read the entire series through Kindle Unlimited, or each novella is 99c/99p. Click HERE to read Wheel of Fortune.

Question

Does it annoy you when authors write several genres?

Yours,

Jon