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

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Hello and welcome to my Author Diary for the week ending May 12, 2019.

May 12 is my birthday. So happy birthday to me. I received a new guitar amp from my wife, so I’ll be annoying my neighbours/family with clumsy renditions of Queens of the Stone Age songs.

I had a mixed bag of a week. It was a bank holiday on Monday so that meant one less writing day and then on Tuesday and Wednesday I was feeling pretty rough. I’m getting over what was basically a chest infection, so that was fun and exciting.

Writing

I managed to complete the first draft of Wheel of Fortune, which is book ten of The Ravenglass Chronicles. I thought it was high time I named a book after one of my favourite games shows of the 90s—look out for my future books, Catchphrase and Bullseye!

Book eleven is going to be the end of the second main arc. There’s a lot of things coming together, a lot of revelations and a big game-changer at the end. It’s going to be a lot of fun to write.

Book eight, Strength, comes out tomorrow, along with the boxset of episodes five to eight. Click HERE to order.

Pikachuuuuu!

 On Friday, I went to see Detective Pikachu with my son and wife. It was a fun film filled with jokes that will no doubt wash over kids’ heads. It’s  one of those films that is a bit like Toy Story where it works for children of all ages.

Books

I finished reading The Queen's Poisoner by Jeff Wheeler. I very much enjoyed that and look forward to reading more in the series.

I also started re-reading Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea, which is the May read in The Arcane Book Club Facebook group.

More places to consume my fiction

My steampunk story Lord Sidebottom and the Awesome Airship Mystery was reprinted on the Science Fantasy Hub and it will be featured on next week’s Sci-Fi Roundtable podcast as an audio story, so do check that out.

Also, my first novel Wizard of the Wasteland is only 99c/99p at the moment, so grab yourself a copy HERE.

Hello, welcome to my author newsletter for the week ending May 5, 2019.

I’ve had a very productive week. I managed to finish my first draft of The Hermit, episode nine of The Ravenglass Chronicles. I'm really pleased with how that went. I think it answers a few questions and raise more.

I also finished writing the new scenes for the third Black Death novel. This was fast-paced, with a lot of drama and action. I really enjoyed getting to write a redemption story. As with all my first drafts, it’s in no fit state to read, but the story is there, and I can no build on the bones to make it palatable for human consumption.

To get me in the right frame of mind of writing in a thriller style, I read Dan Brown’s novel Angels and Demons. The pacing and action was excellent, but the story was preposterous. There more fantastical things going on than in my Ravenglass Chronicles, and my series features magic blades, talking wyverns, sentient ships, and prescient dreams. That being said, it was a fun, quick read.

I’ve also been reading The Queen’s Poisoner by Jeff Wheeler—now this is more to my taste! I’ve been recommended this book several times by readers who said it reminds them of my fantasy stuff. I can see where the comparisons are in terms of the writing style and the minimal level of description. It’s primarily about the characters and story, and doesn’t get bogged down in too much world-building. 

I watched the latest episode of Game of Thrones this week (I use the word ‘watch’ very loosely as I’m convinced most of this episode was filmed with the lens cap left on).

This was a tense episode with a lot to keep track of—most of all the deaths. Shit is really starting to hit the fan. I was on the edge of my seat throughout. I cannot wait to see where this goes!

If you haven't done so already, please do subscribe to the Sci-Fi Roundtable podcast. Last week we had a interview with Stephanie Barr, who is an author and rocket scientist. We talked about troubleshooting in space as well as cats and dragons, so that was a lot of fun.

Over the next month, we’ve got episodes about steampunk, genetically modified humans, and engineering after the apocalypse. So, please do check those out.

Until next time, cheerio.

Jon

Hello, welcome to my Author Diary for the week ending April 28, 2019.

I had a fun week. I’ve not done much in the way of work. My sister came to stay with her boyfriend and my nephew.

My nephew is eight and my son is six, and they get on really well. I have to say it was a bit noisy, but they had a good time, so that's the main thing.

In terms of actual work, I wrote two scenes for The Hermit (book 9 of The Ravenglass Chronicles), which brings my total up to four scenes! I also wrote an outline for the new scenes I need to write for the third book in Black Death trilogy.

My sister introduced me to a fun comedy called What we do in Shadows. I watched the film of this  a few years ago, but didn't realise there wasa series. It’s a mockumentary about vampires living in the modern day, and it's hilarious.

I also watched the new episode of Game of Thrones, which I enjoyed, though it was definitely another episode of setup—they’ve had seven series of that, let’s just get to the finale!

I won’t give away any spoilers (that would be mean), but I did laugh uproariously at ‘giant’s milk.’

You can also check out the new podcast I host called Sci-fi Roundtable. This is a podcast where science fiction and fantasy authors have discussions about specific topics in the realms of sci-fi and fantasy.

The first five episodes are now live and include discussions about the multiverse and Japanese mythology. Next week, we have an actual rocket scientist talking about space, cats, and dragons, so that’s fun.

Yours,

Jon

Hello, welcome to my Author Diary for the week ending April 21, 2019.

This week has been a bit different to what I expected. My son went to stay with his grandma for a couple of days, so that gave me chance to do some writing.

Because this wasn't scheduled work week, I decided to focus on the Black Death series, so I wrote twenty scenes—ten for book one and ten for book two—to fill in the gaps from losing one the collaborators.

The scenes are very barebones at the moment—they are in a first draft state. I will add more descriptions and bringing out more of the emotional impact in later drafts, but the dialogue and the story are there. I tend to write something similar to a poorly written screenplay for my first draft and then build on that until I get to to third and fourth drafts where I focus on things on the sentence level. Draft one is just me getting the story out of my head as quickly as possible. 

I’ve re-read the first two books, and I have to say I’m very excited about the story. We’ve sat on it for over a year and it’s a relief to see the story works really well, and I especially love the way the suspence ramps up in the second book.

The new scenes are quite dark, so this isn't going to be a book for younger readers. Most of the books I’ve written tend to be suitable for teenagers, but this one is definitely geared towards an adult audience. There are dark themes and bad language.

I made a start on The Hermit, which is book nine of The Ravenglass Chronicles. I’m not sure yet how it's going to work with getting this next book out in June based of how long they usually take to write. I’ve got my sister-in-law staying at the moment and then next week my sister and her boyfriend are coming to stay for the week. The week after that, we're getting a new boiler fitted, so having some quiet time to write will be a challenge. I'll just see how things work out, but I should have a solid first draft by mid-May…hopefully.

Reading

 I'm currently reading a book called Yendi by Stephen Brust. It’s a fast-paced, tightly written fantasy assassin story. It's a six-hour audiobook, so it’s the perfect antidote to the thirty-three hour slog that was The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams. I'm already halfway through, and it's a blast.

Game of Thrones!

I watched the new episode of Game of thrones this week, which is very exciting. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this whole things turns out.

My wife and I made a little bit of a date night of it. So we ordered some takeaway food and put our feet up and watched.

I don't know where I heard it, but I was sure the episodes in this series were supposed to be ninty-minutes long—this one wasn't. It was a standard episode. Without giving away any spoiler, it was basically a lot of setup for the finale.

Podcast

Aside from the writing, I’ve also also been working on getting the episodes ready for the Sci-fi Roundtable podcast.

This is a podcast I've been doing with other science fiction and fantasy authors where we geek out about specific topics in science fiction and fantasy. We’ve recorded episodes about the multiverse, steampunk, Japanese mythology, and troubleshooting (with a real rocket scientist!)

Our aim is to launch this on Thursday, April 24, so look out for next week’s newsletter for the download link.

Question

I had a question this week from Amelia. She asked “What is your favourite fantasy series?”

This is one of those questions where there are probably too many to name but think it has to be Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive…so far, at least

Hello, welcome to my author update the weekend. In April 14, 2019.

 I've had a very busy week. Admittedly, most of it’s been spent playing with my son who is on his Easter holiday.

We’ve been enjoying the sunshine, wrestling on his trampoline, and bingeing on David Attenborough programs. We watched the whole series of Frozen Planet and Galapagos.

We also watched the movie Wreck-it Ralph, which I've never seen before. It's a kid’s movie a bit like e Shrek or Toy Story where there's a lot in there for grown-ups to enjoy. It’s basically a story about the bad guy in a 1980s videogame who wants a better life. I would recommend it.

Writing news

In terms of actual writing. I did manage to get some stuff done. I got feedback for Strenfth (book 8 of The Ravenglass Chronicles) from my alpha readers, so I’ve been go through those. I made a few structural changes to the story, just to get the pacing better.

There were one or two scenes where I'd indulge to be on the world-building and nothing really happened. So I’ve meshed a few scenes together. So, even though you’re getting the cool world-building details, stuff is happening and the story is moving.

Final draft complete, I've now got Strength ready for the editor. I'm hoping it will be out early May.

The Ravenglass update

I’m  in the process of rejigging The Ravenglass Chronicles books. I’ve put The Fool and The Magician together as one title, The Magician, and resubmitted the series to Amazon.

What I’ve realised is I’ve still got a lot to do in terms of actually getting everything right with this, so I need to update my website and social media links

Black Death update

On last week’s Author Diary podcast, I mentioned that the third collaborator on the post-apocalyptic Black Death trilogy lost his contribution to the second novel and had not written his contribution to the third book (the other collaborator and I had written our parts over a year ago), so we are parting ways with the other collaborator.

Lynn Sheridan and I will now focus on getting the book finished over the coming months. There will be a bit of extra work to do in order to bring the wordcount back up to reasonable length.

I’m looking forward to getting this things finished. The new covers have been ordered and I’ve already put together the first book.

Reading

I have been reading the Prince by Machiavelli this week. This is a non-fiction book about the intricacies of ruling and leadership. There’s some stuff in there that I will no doubt inspire things in my fantasy series.

I've also been reading The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams. I’m about halfway through, and to be honest, it's a bit of a slog. It feels a little overwritten. The story is definitely there, but I think it could have been told in a much tighter way. So, I know this is just a style thing. I prefer some of the more recent authors like Brian McClellan, Scott Lynch, and Brandon Sanderson—their writing is much tighter and pacier.

Reviewers wanted

I’m looking for advance reviewers for my Ravenglass Chronicle series. Because I removed The Fool from Amazon, a lot of my initial reviews have gone. At the moment, The Magician has only eight reviews—I want to get that to at least twenty.

If you're interested, email me at [email protected] and I will send you a review copy of The Magician and then if you like it I'd appreciate you leaving a review on Amazon.

Questions

I’ve had no questions this week, but if you have a question, please do email me at [email protected]

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Jon completed his second draft of Strength just in time for four weeks away from writing.

Get the show a day early, plus regular short stories and early access to releases by joining Jon on Patreon. Visit: patreon.com/joncronshawauthor to get instant access for as a little as $1 a month.

Email your questions to Jon (at) joncronshaw (dot) com or to @jlcronshaw on Twitter.

Check out Jon’s other podcasts Stop Booking Around!, where he is mentoring an old school friend through the process of writing his first novel and Otaku on Writing where Jon is joined by two other authors to dissect classic anime to inspire original fiction.

Download The Fool, the first book in The Ravenglass Chronicles for free at geni.us/ravenglass.

Follow Jon online:

Amazon. amazon.com/author/joncronshaw

BookBub. bookbub.com/authors/jon-cronshaw

Facebook. facebook.com/joncronshawauthor

Instagram. @joncronshawauthor

Patreon. patreon.com/joncronshawauthor

Twitter.  @jlcronshaw

Website. joncronshaw.com

If you want to help the show, please consider telling a friend or leaving a review wherever you download your podcasts.                                                         

Jon started work on his second draft of Strength.

Get the show a day early, plus regular short stories and early access to releases by joining Jon on Patreon. Visit: patreon.com/joncronshawauthor to get instant access for as a little as $1 a month.

Email your questions to Jon (at) joncronshaw (dot) com or to @jlcronshaw on Twitter.

Check out Jon’s other podcasts Stop Booking Around!, where he is mentoring an old school friend through the process of writing his first novel and Otaku on Writing where Jon is joined by two other authors to dissect classic anime to inspire original fiction.

Download The Fool, the first book in The Ravenglass Chronicles for free at geni.us/ravenglass.

Follow Jon online:

Amazon. amazon.com/author/joncronshaw

BookBub. bookbub.com/authors/jon-cronshaw

Facebook. facebook.com/joncronshawauthor

Instagram. @joncronshawauthor

Patreon. patreon.com/joncronshawauthor

Twitter.  @jlcronshaw

Website. joncronshaw.com

If you want to help the show, please consider telling a friend or leaving a review wherever you download your podcasts.                                                                                                                                       

Jon completed his first draft of Strength and talks about taking the Margaret Atwood Masterclass.

Get the show a day early, plus regular short stories and early access to releases by joining Jon on Patreon. Visit: patreon.com/joncronshawauthor to get instant access for as a little as $1 a month.

Email your questions to Jon (at) joncronshaw (dot) com or to @jlcronshaw on Twitter.

Check out Jon’s other podcasts Stop Booking Around!, where he is mentoring an old school friend through the process of writing his first novel and Otaku on Writing where Jon is joined by two other authors to dissect classic anime to inspire original fiction.

Download The Fool, the first book in The Ravenglass Chronicles for free at geni.us/ravenglass.

Follow Jon online:

Amazon. amazon.com/author/joncronshaw

BookBub. bookbub.com/authors/jon-cronshaw

Facebook. facebook.com/joncronshawauthor

Instagram. @joncronshawauthor

Patreon. patreon.com/joncronshawauthor

Twitter.  @jlcronshaw

Website. joncronshaw.com

If you want to help the show, please consider telling a friend or leaving a review wherever you download your podcasts.