Jon Cronshaw's Author Diary - The Real Life of an Indie Author | Writing | Publishing | Disability

Welcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending April 5, 2020.

Hasn't it been a strange couple of weeks? I hope you're keeping safe and you’re doing your part to keep this virus from spreading.

My family and I have been isolating since March 17. We’re using the time to home-school our son. My wife is teaching him in the mornings so I can get on with my writing, and I am teaching in the afternoons.

My son now knows a lot about Medieval England and I’ve introduced to Horrible Histories.

We've been working out ways that our son can interact with his school friends. He got quite upset when the schools closed and he realised it might be several weeks or months before he gets to play with his friends again. This has involved him writing letters and doing video calls. I can't imagine how strange it must be for him.

Instead of treating this period as dead time, I’ve decided I’m going teach my son how to play guitar. I've been playing since I was ten, and it’s something I planned to teach him when he turned ten. Nevertheless, fate has bought us an opportunity to do a few years earlier.

So far, he can strum an E minor and pluck the strings in time. I haven't told him yet how much practice he’ll need to do before he gets good!

Writing progress

Blind Reset is now ready for its final edit. I’ve decided that this is going to be a two-book series. Never say never, but Blind Gambit was a book I wrote in 2018 to explore my feelings about going blind, mixed with a fun sci-fi tale. It's the most personal thing I've written, but unfortunately, it's also the worst performing book I have in terms of sales.

I finished my final draft of The Devil, book 15 of the Ravenglass Chronicles, so that is now with the editor. I'm also five chapters into the first draft of The Tower, which is book 16.

The Tower looks like it's going to be quite a long episode. There's going to be another big game changer (like we saw at the ends of book four and book eleven), before we head into the final episodes of the series.

When you look at The Tower tarot card, it's quite a horrific image. It's a card about chaos—so, expect chaos.

Oxsight Prism

Last month, I asked to send me your ideas for ways to raise money towards a pair of Oxsight Prism glasses, which will improve my lost peripheral vision.

The glasses cost £4,000/$5,000 and I had some great suggestions about how I can raise the cash.

Some people suggested that I write an exclusive story and raise money through Kickstarter. Some suggested in-person events and book signings. A few of you suggested that I make T-shirts and mugs related to the series or fancy in general. The idea with the least amount of friction was to ask readers simply to share a link to my books with friends on social media, etc.

I spoke about it on last week’s Author Diary podcast, but I'm going to put fundraising on hold until the world gets back to normal. Hopefully, that won't be too far away.

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

Visit https://www.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 March 15, 2020.

I finally finished the second draft of Blind Reset…finally.

That took so much more effort than it needed. I ended up adding about 20,000 words to the manuscript. But it’s done and ready for…draft number three!

Fans of The Ravenglass Chronicles will be no doubt glad to hear that I’ve switched b to working on my draft of episode 15, The Devil.

I’ve cleaned up the scenes I’ve already drafted and gone over my outline to make sure this is another fun episode.

I cannot wait to start writing The Tower, which is episode 16, as…well, let’s just say some faeces hits the proverbial fan.

Oxsight Prism update

Last week, I mentioned that I was going to try out some specialised glasses made for people with my eye condition called Oxsight Prism.

They were much better than I thought they would be. They work by using a camera to project a streamed high definition image onto the lens.

You can adjust the zoom, the contrast, the brightness, etc. And it didn’t take 15 minutes to adjust to changes in light like my eyes usually do.

When I spoke to the rep prior to trying the glasses, I could see most of her face, and little else due to my lack of peripheral vision.

With the glasses on, I could see her face, the wall behind her, the sofa, the table between us, her bag in the corner…it was crazy.

I played around with them for about an hour. You can adjust the colours, make it monochrome, highlight the edges of objects, and there was even one option specifically used when looking for signs, which pixelates everything but signs so you can find them easier.

So, I’m definitely going to get some.

The trouble is, they’re £4,000 (about $5,000), so I need to work out some options for raising the funds.

A few people have suggested using Facebook or GoFundMe to raise the cash, but I’m not particularly comfortable asking people to hand over their hard-earned money.

I might run a few sales on my books and get some author friends to share them with their readers.

If you have any ideas for raising the funds that don’t require me to ask for donations or do anything illegal, hit reply and let me know.

Take care,

Jon

Welcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending March 8, 2020.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working on my second draft of Blind Reset, the follow-up to my gamelit novel/meditation on disability, Blind Gambit.

I thought I would have had it done by now, but I’m 3,000 words away from the end. It’s been a slow process with a lot of re-working to improve the pacing and tighten up the story. I tend to under-write my first drafts, getting the story and dialogue down and ignoring things like description or action.

It’s definitely made me realise that even though I’ve got into a nice groove with The Ravenglass Chronicles, I still have the same struggles with Blind Reset as I did writing the first book. I put this down to the emotional rawness. Even though half the book is a fun adventure set in a virtual world, the other half is about coming to terms with going blind—something I’ve had to come to terms with myself.

All being well, I should have the second draft complete by Tuesday. This means I can put the project aside and dive into writing The Devil, episode 15 of The Ravenglass Chronicles. I cannot wait.

My feelings are that once I’ve got my open projects out of the way (Cleric of the Wasteland, Blind Reset, and the co-authored Black Death trilogy), I want to focus on one thing—a sustained epic fantasy project.

I’ve been writing ideas down for a series in the Ravenglass Universe set a few hundred years after the events of my current series, with a new cast of characters and a bit of a darker feel, with thieves, assassins, and wyverns, of course! Think Scott Lynch meets Brent Weeks, with a bit of Robin Hobb thrown in for good measure.

2020 is about finishing open projects, including The Ravenglass Chronicles and the Wasteland series, so I’ve told myself I won’t start writing anything new until they’re done and dusted…though I have been toying around with an idea for a post-Earth space opera story…ooh, and that steampunk vigilante series…gah! Too many ideas and not enough time to write them.

I think I need to get the James Patterson setup where I write an outline and get someone else to write the stories :D

  Oxsight Prism

I mentioned on last week’s Author Diary podcast that I'd put my name down for an assessment for the Oxsight Prism.

These are glasses made for visually impaired people that use streaming technology to improve visual acuity, peripheral vision, and allow users to adjust the contrast between objects, etc. 

This is quite exciting as my eyesight really does suck—my left eye is shot and my right eye has five percent vision.

I’m not sure how much the glasses will cost, but I’m assuming they’ll be in the region of £1,000 as they are a very specialist tech. 

Hopefully, they’ll be within my budget. If not, I’ll have to think of some fundraising ideas to raise the funds.

Ancient Civilizations

On this week’s episode of the Sci-Fi Roundtable podcast, we dived into the speculative topic of advanced lost civilizations.

We covered the work of Graham Hancock, the show Ancient Aliens, ancient Egypt, and Atlantis.

Visit http://sfrtpodcast.libsyn.com or find the Sci-Fi Roundtable wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Take care,

Jon

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Welcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending February 16, 2020.

This week was a mixed bag in terms of productivity. My voice has been a bit dodgy, so dictating my first draft of The Devil will have to wait.

Instead, I’ve been working on my second draft of Blind Reset, which is the follow-up to my gamelit novel/meditation on disability, Blind Gambit.

I’m halfway through and am happy with the scenes so far (or, at least, what I’ve turned them into). There were a few bits in the first draft where the pacing was all wrong and I needed to up the stakes in terms of conflict and tension.

That’s why I love the re-drafting process. It almost feels like cheating because I get to tell the story I wish I’d told in the first place. Life doesn’t get many do-overs, so that’s very cool to me.

Inconceivable!

I introduced my seven-year-old son to a couple of movies this week that I loved as a kid—The Princess Bride and Willow.

These moves were huge for me. I must have watched them hundreds of times, wearing out the VHS tapes and no doubt annoying my mum. I kept expecting to have to adjust the tracking at any moment.

It was interesting to see how they held up compared to some of the movies he loves, like How to Train Your Dragon and Detective Pikachu, etc.

It took him a while to warm to Willow. The first half was much slower paced than a lot of modern movies, but he stuck it out and enjoyed it by the end.

He absolutely loved The Princess Bride and laughed out loud at many of the classic lines. I was so proud. 

He’s been getting me to pick movies and cartoons I liked as a kid for us to watch together. I’m weighing up whether to show him The Neverending Story or Labyrinth next (though I’m not sure how appropriate David Bowie’s leggings are for young eyes).

Take care,

Jon

Welcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending February 9, 2020.

I write this in a lot of pain because on Thursday I went to hospital and had my shoulder scanned and pumped full of steroids. It’s as if someone has come down on it with a brick.

I have a heat pack and some ibuprofen gel, so hopefully it should settle down over the next few days and I can start work on the physio exercises.

Temperance is out!

Temperance, episode 14 of The Ravenglass Chronicles has just gone live and I’ve already started work on book 15, The Devil. Click HERE to order your copy.

I’m really enjoying using the tarot cards as inspiration with this series—it's given me some great story ideas that I never would have considered on my own.

I was revisiting the tower card to start brainstorming ideas for book 16, and it couldn’t be more perfect. I’m over 70 percent through the story and each card brings new excitement, energy, and surprises.

I just need to work out what I should do after The Ravenglass Chronicles is complete…assassin series, anyone?

Twitter update

I finished reading the book Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. It gave me a lot to think about in terms of my relationship with social media.

I decided I was long overdue to close my Twitter account. I started using Twitter in 2009, so it's something I've used for over a decade. It was a great platform when I worked as a reporter, but for the last couple of years it’s become a toxic cesspool of tribalism, anger, and people looking to ruin the lives of others to score political points. I don’t need that crap in my life.

I had to weigh up what I was actually getting from the platform and realised I was only staying on Twitter because I occasionally get messages from readers. I figured that if readers want to get in touch, they would find a way.

Closing it feels like a small weight has been lifted.

Groundhog Day

Last weekend, I appeared on the latest episode of the Now You’ve Seen It podcast to talk about Groundhog Day, the Bill Murray movie from the 90s. I’d never seen it before and I thoroughly enjoyed the film.

The podcast was a lot of fun to record and many laughs were had by all.

You can find Now You’ve Seen It wherever you get your podcasts.

The Good Place

I watched the finale of The Good Place this week. If you’ve not seen it, it’s a Netflix comedy series set in the afterlife. It’s produced by the same people who did things like Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Parks and Recreation.

The writing is tremendous and manages to create the perfect balance between comedy and an exploration of what it means to be a good person. The final episode fully encapsulated that, and I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t bring a tear to my eye.

I can't remember the last time I watched a show with such a perfect ending (maybe Breaking Bad did). I think back to shows I loved like Battlestar Galactica and Lost, which didn’t have satisfying finales, and am thankful the writers of The Good Place delivered an amazing finale.

And Janet might be one of my favourite characters in anything…except Sam Vimes.

Welcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending February 2, 2020—that 02 02 2020!

I finished my third draft of Temperance this week, which is book 14 of The Ravenglass Chronicles. That’s now with a couple of early readers to get some feedback before it goes to the editor. This one was particularly challenging to write as it’s the most mystical/psychedelic thing I’ve ever written. It answers many questions about seers’ dreams…but raises some more about what Kat needs to do next.

I’ve started bringing together my plans for book 15, The Devil. I don’t want to give too much away, because it will spoil Temperance, but let’s just say the stakes get raised another notch…

Next week, I have a hospital appointment about an ongoing shoulder issue. The doctor wants to do some scans and inject me with steroids. I think my posture is causing the issues, probably because of spending most of my adult life working at computers.

I recently invested in a standing desk, so I'm sure that will help in the long-term, but in the meantime I’ve been doing physio exercises.

I hope that they don't need to do surgery, but that has been suggested. My rotator cuff and right shoulder blade are in a bit of a mess. My bad shoulder seems to stick out a weird angle as compared to the left. 

I read Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil DeGrasse Tyson this week, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  What I love about astronomy and taking a cosmic perspective is that kicks you out of your ego and makes you remember how insignificant we all are in the grand scheme of the universe. The petty events of day-to-day life don't really matter in the scale of history and the universe.

That's a liberating thought.

Anything that gets away from worrying about the ins and outs on the latest events in the news cycle can only be a good thing.

Finally, I wanted to announce that I’m closing my Patreon page, effective immediately. I’d like to thank everyone who supported my work on the platform. If you’re a subscriber, I’ve made sure that you won’t be charged for February.

It was a difficult decision, but I want to focus primarily on producing the best stories I can, and creating regular content for Patreon was becoming too much of a time-sap. I hope you understand.

If you want to support my work, the most helpful thing you can do is leave amazing reviews on Amazon.

Take care,

Jon