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

Welcome to Jon's author diary for July 29, 2019.

Last week was the 10th anniversary of my wife and me getting married. So we went to Scotland to spend a week in a log cabin enjoying wine and a hot tub.

We then went to Edinburgh, where I attended the 20books conference, and got to meet some great authors and catch up with some old friends. So my head is still spinning from that. I’m what you’d describe as an outgoing introvert—I can deal with meeting new people, but when it’s over, I just want to curl up in the dark and listen to a good audiobook.

Writing is a weird business, especially when you do it full-time, so having conversations with people who ‘get it’ was amazing. Even my closest family and friends don’t really understand what it is I do. Because write characters that connect on an emotional level with readers is more than just a hobby to me—it’s my calling.

Digit

When I went to Scotland, I decided to leave my guide dog Digit with a boarder for the week. Luckily, it was the person who’d trained Digit as a pup, so it was someone who knew Digit, which put my mind at rest.

I really missed having him to help me as using a white cane feels awkward. It was probably for the best though as I had some great discussions about books and writing at the conference which I’m sure would have all been about dogs if Digit was there.

Reading

I’ve started reading Blood of Elves by Andrzej Sapkowski, which is the first book in The Witcher series. I’m about halfway through and really enjoying the world and characters, though it does feel like a series of connected shorts rather than a fully realised novel.

Getting my son into fiction

My son turns seven in September and is starting to get into reading. He has recently read all of the How to Train Your Dragon books by Cressida Cowell (they are very different to the movies), he's read the first two in her Wizards of Once series, and has moved onto Harry Potter—I couldn't be prouder!

Wheel of Fortune

The tenth book in my Ravenglass Chronicles series comes out on Thursday, August 1. I’m not a fan of the title—it reminds me too much of the game show, but it is a tarot card in the Major Arcana, so my hands are tied.

Wasteland series and Patreon.

As you may be aware if you listen to my Author Diary podcast, I’m in the process of re-writing my Wasteland series.

I’ve just posted the first chapter of the Wizard of the Wasteland onto my Patreon page patreon.com/joncronshawauthor. The first chapter is open to anyone, and I will post a chapter on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for patrons.

I’ve overhauled the entire series, rewriting every line to tighten up the language and story, turn it from present to past tense, and give readers access to Abel’s thoughts. This has added a new subplot, which I hope will make for a deeper story. 

They are still in a draft state, but I thought it would be fun to share what I’ve done and give a bit more insight into my process.

This means as well as posting chapters from ongoing projects as I’m doing them, giving access to story months in advance, I’ll also share things like scrawled outlines and raw audio of dictated chapters if there’s interest.

I hope you’ll come and join me. I’d love to hear your feedback as I go. I want my stories to be as powerful as possible, and the best way I can do that is with your help.

Yours,

Jon

Hello, welcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending July 21, 2019.

I have finished my first draft of Blind Reset! It’s taken me over a year, but I've done it. It's a good feeling to know that it’s not an abandoned project, just postponed one.

I also got Wheel of Fortune back from a proofread, so I just need to write an author's note and format it, so I’ll probably get that out in the first week of August.

I've also been carrying on my rewrite of Knight of the Wasteland, so am about 20 percent through doing that. It’s going slowly, but this one of those things I’ll keep chipping away when I don't have anything more urgent to do.

It’s really obvious revisiting the story that I’m much better at writing and telling stories than I was, so it’s been great to bring the quality up to a standard that will hopefully make for better reading experience.

There’s part me thinking that I should just leave it as a monument how I was, but I want to provide the best experience for the reader I can. I want it to be something I can be proud of in 10, 20, 30 years.

I'm on the verge of closing my Patreon page as, after six months, I have not seen any traction on the site.

I really appreciate everyone who has supported me, but this was one of those things where I have to decide whether it’s worth me spending the time working on stories and posts for less than $10 a month, and unfortunately, the answer is no. Writing books is my full-time job, so I have to focus on the areas that will pay my bills.

So, unless I suddenly get a surge that makes it worth it, I’ll be closing it over the next month or so.

 Finally, I have been posting some stories on my website at joncronshaw.com. My latest story is a dark fantasy tale called No Rehab for Wizards, so please do check that out.

Yours,

Jon

Welcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending, July 14, 2019.

I’ve had another productive week. I’ve been working on my first draft of Blind Reset, my follow-up to Blind Gambit. I'm just about to write the final six chapters, so I should have a first draft of this book ready by the middle of next week. Consider I abandoned this book a year ago, it feels great to know I’ve nearly got the story out of my head.

Miracle mornings

I’ve continued to get up at 4.45am every morning to get the writing done. What’s surprised me is that having just a few hours of focused time where I can get into a flow state has almost tripled my production. The numbers don’t make sense, but I’m not going to complain!

I’ll admit that I’m starting to feel tired. It probably didn’t help that my son decided to wake me up at 1.30am on Tuesday morning. A few author friends of mine who have done something similar told me that the next couple of weeks are the hardest, but then getting up becomes a habit.

Because of the school summer holidays, I have three more full writing days left until September. I’m going to continue getting up early, but my writing time will only be those brief windows in the morning. This is why I’ve been so focused on getting first drafts of linger projects finished. My hope is that by the time I’ve finished writing The Ravenglass Chronicles, I’ll have no other projects to do, so I can focus on a new flagship series.

Since June 16, I have complete first drafts for:

- The Ravenglass Chronicles book 11, Justice.

- Cleric of the Wasteland, Wasteland book 4.

- Black Death: Outbreak.

- Black Death: Survival.

- Black Death: Apocalypse.

- Black Death: London.

- Podcasting for Authors.

Next week, I will add Blind Reset to this list!

Of course, I’ll have my work cut out for me in terms of re-drafting, but five of those projects have been hanging over me for a year or more. So, it’s a massive psychological boost to feel like I’m moving forward.

Reading

I read a very cool non-fiction book this week called Creative Thinking by Jonathan Firth. It was an advance copy and I think it’s set for release sometime in the next week or so.

In the book, a cognitive psychologist goes deep into how to be more creative. It was full of great tips and tricks, and I’ve been introduced to the idea of taking a ‘nappuccino’—essentially drinking a strong coffee before taking a power nap. It tried it on Friday and it worked really well.

I’d recommend to anyone who wants to boost their creativity, whether its art, music, coding, business, I think this book will be very beneficial.

Do you have any great productivity tips? Hit reply and let me know.

The Sci-Fi Roundtable.

On this week’s episode of the podcast, we had our biggest roundtable to date, with five authors, recorded over three continents, to discuss artificial intelligence and artificial life.

I think I might have been the most pessimistic about the future of AI and what how it will change what it means to be a productive person, so do check that out.

You can subscribe wherever you download podcasts, or listen at sfrtpodcast.libsyn.com.

Yours,

Jon

Welcome to Jon's Author Diary for the week ending July 7, 2019.

This week has been characterised by getting first drafts done. I complete the first drafts of Cleric of the Wasteland, the Black Death trilogy, and Black Death: London.

Black Death: London

Now, I’m not quite sure what Black Death: London will end up being. It could work as a standalone novella, my co-author could write his own point of view story around it, or I could write another point of view character and turn it into a standalone novel—I’ve got far too many ideas for this one!

Black Death: London is an apocalyptic story about a politician who uses the outbreak of a deadly plague to move up the political ranks. It’s probably the most satirical thing I’ve ever written, and I found myself laughing out loud at some of the insanity of the story…I know what they say about laughing at your own jokes.

 The main character is a scheming egomaniac who will stop at nothing—and I mean nothing—to get just a little bit more power. I used to work as a political reporter and also worked as press coordinator for a shadow minister, so it’s definitely one of those ‘write what you know’ situations. 

The Hermit

On Thursday, I released The Hermit, which is episode nine of The Ravenglass Chronicles. I didn’t think until I set the date for release that July 4 is a holiday in the States. I think it celebrates that time Will Smith punched an alien…I might be wrong. You can check that out HERE.

Blind Reset

I’ve just finished doing an edit of the first quarter of my follow-up to my gamelit novel/story about coming to terms with going blind, Blind Gambit, titled Blind Reset. If you have been following my work for a while, you’ll know that I abandoned Blind Reset a year ago. I didn’t think the story was working and I made the decision to give it up as a bad job.

I hate abandoning projects, and this has hung over me for the past year. So, a few weeks ago, I dug out what I had written so far and revisited the outline. I made a few tweaks and I’m now excited about the story again.

I think I made the decision to abandon Blind Reset at a time when I was dealing with depression, so it feels good to resurrect this project and throw up a middle finger to depression’s hold on me.

Over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to focus primarily on getting a first draft done. So, wish me luck.

My thinking is that when I come to the end of The Ravenglass Chronicles next year, I want to be in a position where I have no lingering projects. I can start on something new and focus all of my attention on one thing.

If you enjoy reading these newsletters, my Author Diary podcast goes into more detail and is probably a bit more stream-of-consciousness than these posts. Got to joncronshaw.libsyn.com or find Jon Cronshaw’s Author Diary on iTunes, Stitcher, or through your favourite podcast app.

  Yours,

Jon

Welcome to my author diary for the week ending June 30, 2019.

I’ve had another productive week. I’ve continued getting up at 5am in order to get a few extra hours work done before everyone else in the house wakes up

I wrote the first draft of Justice, which is book 11 in The Ravenglass Chronicles. I also got book 9 The Hermit from the editor and has received a final proofread. It’s now formatted and ready to go, so it’ll be available on July 4.

I’ve just finished re-drafting book three of the Black Death series and added ten more scenes to book two. It’s a bit of weird experience having to write a novel’s worth of material over the trilogy, but I’ve managed to inject a lot of darkness and action into the story.

It’s finally starting to feel like it's coming together. We have a solid draft of books one and two, and next week I’m going to add ten more scenes to book three.

Because I am a few weeks ahead with my schedule for The Ravenglass Chronicles, I’m going to focus on finishing my first draft of Cleric of the Wasteland. I’ve got three weeks until the six-weeks summer break, so I’m determined to get this done…finally. I mean, I’ve only been working on it for a year and a half.

I’m in the process of rewriting the first three novels in my Wasteland series into past tense and bringing out the emotional impact of the stories, so I’ll probably re-release the whole series once book 4 is ready.

I’ve also been looking over Blind Reset. This is the follow-up to Blind Gambit I abandoned last year. I’ve decided to give it another go as soon as I’m done overhauling the Wasteland novels. It seems my reservations about the story were unfounded and I’ve concluded that you shouldn’t make important decisions while depressed. 

I want to get done with all the lingering projects, so when I finish The Ravenglass Chronicles next year, I’ll be in a position where I can focus on one project at a time.

Finally, we had a fun discussion on the Sci-Fi Roundtable podcast with post-apocalyptic author Darran Handshaw about engineering after the apocalypse. Visit: sfrtpodcast.libsyn.com to listen, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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

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 Jon's Author Diary for the week ending June 9, 2019.

I am back at the writing desk after last week's half-term holiday and have been experimenting with a new schedule for my work. So instead of just focusing on one project at a time, I now work on a project that needs editing in the mornings and write first drafts and outlines during the afternoon.

I’ll track how much I do over the next six weeks to see if this is working, or whether it is slowing me down.

Writing

During the mornings this week, I worked on redrafting The Hermit, episode nine of The Ravenglass Chronicles.

In the afternoons, I worked on Cleric of the Wasteland, book 4 in the Wasteland series and have just reached the midpoint of the story. As I started work on this 18 months ago, I think it’s about time that I get this book finished!

I'm hoping that with this new way of working, I can have a solid first draft of Cleric of the Wasteland complete by the end of July.

Blind Reset?

When the fourth Wasteland book is complete, there’s a distinct possibility that I will write the follow-up to Blind Gambit. I abandoned the sequel a year ago, and revisiting it I’ve realised I wasn’t in the right headspace to make a judgement. Looking at it with a bit of distance, I can see the scenes I’ve written are solid and the outline is good.

If you’ve read Blind Gambit, you’ll know that it set half in a virtual world and half in the real world. The real world scenes were challenging to write because they are about a teenage boy coming to terms with going bling—something I have to deal with, so it’s very personal, very raw. I have half of the real-world scenes written for book 2, so it’s just a case of adding a few scenes a week to finish the story.

Book club read

I’ve started reading The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. This is an epic fantasy classic that I have not read before and has been on my TBR pile for years. We’re reading it as our June read in The Arcane Book Club Facebook group, so that force my hand. I’m only a couple of chapters into the audiobook and I’m already hooked.

Ancient Egypt

I’ve been on a bit of an ancient Egypt binge this week and watched a few documentaries and listened to several podcasts on the subject. I’m currently watching one on Netflix called The Pyramid Code. The first episode was great. It showed how many of the pyramids were lined up to the precession of the zodiac and arranged to reflect the solstices.

The second episode unfortunately went to the pseudo-science route, bringing in ‘subtle energies’ and magic. One of the contributors talked about the existence of light ‘orbs’ within the pyramids, suggesting untapped energy that scientists can’t explain. They can. I used to do photography. What they refer to as orbs are simply the camera’s flash bouncing off dust motes, creating the illusion of a light orb. The subject is fascinating enough as it without adding in woo.

Support my work

I continue to add content to my Patreon page—I’ve posted stories, articles, and audio, many of which are free to access, so please do check those out and support me for $1 per month at patreon.com/joncronshawauthor.

Yours,

Jon

Welcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending June 2, 2019.

This week was the half-term holidays, so my wife and son have been at home. We visited my family in the Midlands, so it was great to catch up with my siblings.

On the car journey, we listened to How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell. It was a lot of fun and vastly different to the movies. I think the only things they kept from the films were the setting and the character names. It was narrated by David Tennant, so that was a bonus. 

In terms of actually writing, I made some slight tweaks to Finish Your First Novel after receiving feedback from beta readers. It’s now with the editor, so I’ll have some review copies over the next month or so if anyone is interested.

Next week, I’m going to carry on with my second draft of The Hermit, book 9 of The Ravenglass Chronicles, and hopefully get that to my alpha readers by June 14 for feedback.

I read a fascinating book this week called Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock. I recently heard an interview with him on the Joe Rogan podcast. The book outlines the possibility of an advanced lost civilisation. The only trouble with books like this is that they send my imagine racing, and I know I need to focus on my Ravenglass Chronicles series!

This weekend was the Morecambe Steampunk Festival. This was a great excuse for me to get out the house, check out some awesome cosplay, inventive contraptions, and drink beer.

Welcome to Jon's Author Diary for the week ending May 26, 2019.

I carried on writing my non-fiction books. I sent Finish Your First Novel off to my beta readers to get some feedback and finished the second draft of the main body of Podcasting for Authors.

The next step in that book is to write the appendices because the main section is principles on preparing a podcast and how to source and conduct interviews, etc. The appendices are going to be more technical walk-through guides on how to record, edit, upload, and promote a podcast. So when inevitable does happen and something like a podcast host updates its system, I’ll be able to go into the appendix pages and make those necessary changes without affecting the main body of the text.

Next week is the half term holiday, so I will only be doing about an hour a day as I plan on spending time with my wife and son.

After that, I plan on returning to my Ravenglass Chronicles series to get the second draft of The Hermit finished.

I’ve also started reading  Storm Front by Jim Butcher. This is the first book in his Dresden Files series and it's been recommended to me countless times over the year. I’ve never been a fan of urban fantasy, but I am enjoying this book immensely.

I watched the finale of Game of Thrones this past week and I have a theory.

*HERE BE SPOILERS*

I’m convinced that Bran is a deeply evil character—if it is even Bran at all who inhabits his body. Because of his powers and the fact that he knew where he had to be and why, I’m convinced he must have known what would happen to King’s Landing.

He could have prevented a million deaths and he didn’t.

He was and still is the three-eyed raven. And the creation of the Night King was no accident.

There is no other way around it—Bran is evil.

What do you think?

Support me at patreon.com/joncronshawauthor.