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

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Welcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending November 17, 2019.

I was ill this week had what was probably the flu, so I was in bed for about four days. This was all the typical symptoms of cold sweats and waking up in the middle of the night full of snot and all that wonderful stuff.

I felt well enough to get back to work on Thursday. It was a bit slow-going but it was good to get back into writing Death, which is episode 13 of The Ravenglass Chronicles. I managed to finish writing the first draft and now five chapters into the second. Hopefully by this time next week, I have a solid second draft ready.

I’ve had the first few reviews come in for book 12. They have been really positive, with some readers saying is strongest in the series. People who’ve read the author’s notes from that one will know has been difficult for me to view it objectively. I’m just pleased readers are enjoying it.

Thank you to everyone who has left a review so far, and to everyone who has helped The Ravenglass Chronicles episode 1-11 boxed set become a bestseller.

Jekyll and Hyde

I submitted the final draft of a story to a forthcoming anthology of tales inspired by Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The anthology will raise money for Deaf Blind International feature stories from 16 authors, as well as the original tale by Robert Louis Stevenson.

My story is called The Princess and the Tailor and is a prequel to The Ravenglass Chronicles, telling the story of how cats mum and dad met for the first time. Let’s just say, it doesn’t go very well.

Black Death

The post-apocalyptic Black Death series is finally coming together. My co-author Lynn Sheridan’s now working through the final drafts of the trilogy, so that should be with the editor soon.

We are hoping to have everything done and dusted, ready for a release by spring…hopefully.

The Fool

I continue to post more chapters from the new prequel to The Ravenglass Chronicles on my Patreon page. Oppose new chapters every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. There are also dozens of short stories, a preview to the rewrite of Wizard of the Wasteland, early access to my author diary podcast, as well as exclusive articles and audio. You can access all of this for just one dollar per month.

Visit: https://patreon.com/joncronshawauthor

Take care,

Jon

Welcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending November 10, 2019.

It’s been a busy week. Last weekend I went to see my family in Wolverhampton. We celebrated bonfire night a few days early—so there were lots of fireworks, a curry, and gin.

I’m not sure if gin is a traditional bonfire night beverage, but it worked for me.

I was a little bit concerned how my guide dog Digit would react to the fireworks that have been going off all week, but he’s been fine. Explosions don’t seem to faze him…which might not be a good thing if the apocalypse comes.

 I’ve been working on draft of Death, which is episode 13 of The Ravenglass Chronicles. If you’ve followed my work for a while, you might remember I wrote a story about three years ago called Her Name Was Red, which I got some great feedback for and was what inspired me to write The Ravenglass Chronicles. I’m now at that point in the overall story. There are some elements that remain from the original story, but around 95 percent is new.

This one has been a lot of fun to write.

 This reminds me, book 12 is now live! Click HERE to get your copy. It’s 99c or you can read it on Kindle Unlimited. This one was extremely difficult to write, so I hope you enjoy reading it.

Reading

Based on a recommendation from a reader, I’m currently reading The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene. I tend to have a fiction and non-fiction book on the go at any given time.

This book is excellent. It’s a close look at why people act the way they do. It’s a fascinating read. And I’m sure it will help to give my characters more depth.

Podcasting

As well as my usual Author Diary podcast, Dan Willcocks interviewed my on Great Writers Share. This is a podcast aimed mainly at other writers, but if you’re interested in getting an insight into my creative process, my philosophy on writing, and why I find Stoicism useful, do check it out.

Support Jon at https://patreon.com/joncronshawauthor

Welcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending October 27, 2019.

This week has been half-term holidays in the UK, so I have been in dad mode. It’s been great spending quality time with my son—the kid is so imaginative! He could talk for England on the subject of Pokémon and got quite competitive over a few games of Mario Kart.

I did manage to go over notes from beta readers for book 12 of The Ravenglass Chronicles and a short story set in the Ravenglass Universe for an anthology of stories inspired by Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde.

But, the half-term holidays are only a week, so my son goes back to school on Monday and I have to get back to the writing. My plan is start my first draft of book 13 of The Ravenglass Chronicles, which is inspired by the tarot card ‘death.’ I’ve written the outline and am I’m chomping at the bit to start writing—I have a feeling this episode is going to be far too much fun.

It’s interesting the types of things I’ve found myself researching for my books. Over the past year I’ve explored old ships and Anglo Saxon burial grounds, and learned about sword fighting, medieval food, and making poisons. This week I got far too much detail from an expert about how corpses decompose. Yuck! At least it’s inspired a rather disgusting scene in my next book.

My wife and I finished watching the new series of Stranger Things on Netflix. Maybe it’s because I’m the perfect age for the nostalgia to make me feel nice and fuzzy, but I loved this show.

Going in, I was a little bit worried that the quality might dip (I thought the second season paled in comparison to the first—and the less said about Eleven’s tangent episode, the better). But this series was fantastic. And The Neverending Story bit was hilarious.

I grew up on 80s movies where a group of friends go on an adventure (The Goonies, IT, Stand by Me, etc.), so this ticked a lot of boxes for me.

I’m now at loss as to what to watch next.

Now that I’ve finished posting the re-write of Wizard of the Wasteland on Patreon, I have started posting chapters from a new prequel to The Ravenglass Chronicles. The story is called The Fool, and it’s a new novella-length story about how Kat and Hansel first met. Visit: patreon.com/joncronshawauthor and start reading today.

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 October 13, 2019.

I managed to finish the first draft of The Hanged Man and am almost done with my second draft. Hopefully, I’ll have the final draft ready for the editor by the end of next week.

Last week I mentioned that my guide dog Digit got attacked walking my son home from school, so I’ve had the fallout from that to deal with.

The police tried to fob me off to the dog warden. But because Digit is an assistance dog, it is treated as an assault against a person in the UK, so it is a police issue.

The police did come round and talk to me about it. Luckily, one of the parents got half decent photo of the guy and his dog, so that's with the police.

Since it happened, I've actually seen the guy with his dog three times over the past week. I’ve let the investigating officer know each time I’ve seen him, and it’s at the same time and place as the attack. So, if the police are actually looking to talk to him, they know exactly where to find him.

I’m sure the police have much more important things to deal with, so I don’t think anything will happen.

Digit is still injured. He’s been to the vets three times and will be going back on Tuesday to have the staples taken out his leg. Poor guy still has one of those cone things around his head and keeps bumping into things around the house.

Hopefully, the attack won’t have knocked his confidence when he gets back to work. I really struggle in the winter when I have to use a white cane, so I just hope he’s going to be okay.

So thank you to everyone who sent Digit well wishes, I tried to respond to as many as I could, but there were so many that some of them might have slipped through the cracks.

Finally, I also want to thank everyone who left a review on the episodes 1-11 of The Ravenglass Chronicles boxed set. I had one reviewer compare my writing to Robin Hobb, so I’ll take that :D

Take care,

Jon

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

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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