Fantasy fiction is the best fiction there is, and that's a fact.

 

We've all seen that ridiculous take-down of Brandon Sanderson, number one fantasy author, by an attention seeker, right? I've got some thoughts about it. Before we get too serious, though, here's a picture of an idiot. Honest to God, I can't figure out if anything's going on in his little head. (Heads up before we continue, these blogposts are taken from my exclusive newsletter, and thus are a couple of months behind. Sign up for the latest chit-chat, and for a free Pieces Of Eight prequel novel, Krakenvale.) (Heads up number 2 - all Amazon links are affiliate links, I get the tiniest tip from any purchase, they all go towards Tonto's crunchies bowl.) Hello again, crew, it's been awhile. My fault entirely, obvs. To cut a dull story incredibly short, my inspiration briefly fell off a cliff towards the end of last year, but 2023 has so far been a period of explosive creativity. I've got a lot coming, more even than I promised in my last newsletter (oh so long ago). Silus de Senza and his pirate lunatics are coming back for more, and I've got a new paranormal series on the way very, very soon. But this newsletter is about something else (I gave that away at the start, didn't I?) Reading about what happened to Brandon Sanderson at the hands of a Wired journalist provoked me into writing a newsletter for the first time in a heck of a while - and made me realise what the theme of this newsletter will be going forward. SFF, speculative fiction, all that jazz, is the best that fiction can be, and I'm going to shout it as loud as I can from my little platform, and I want to encourage us as a community towards positive action and away from some of the darker corners of fandom. Some of my conclusions will be fairly obvious already, but something I've got to say in response to the affair might not be, and - a quick heads up - I won't apologise for it. I will say this: I'm no Sanderson fanboy. I've only read the first two books of The Stormlight Archive. They're good, but they're also huge books that go into great detail on every single aspect of the world he's created. I can see why he's popular though, and I'll likely continue the series at some point. For the sake of sanity and to avoid making a fool out of yours truly, I read the original article for myself, and... the majority of the complaints against it stand up. It opens with a frankly incredible claim - that no one on Wired - which believes itself to be a nerd magazine - had heard of Brandon Sanderson. Really? Can you call yourself a nerd if you're that far out of touch? There's also a claim that there have been no major interviews or pieces written about Sanderson until they came along. A very swift Google search can prove that wrong. If you can't get this basic level of research done properly... From here it's easy to conclude that this hit piece is solely designed as a self-promotional effort for the writer. It's an easy way of getting attention - and it's worked! Hey, even I've fallen for it! I'm writing about it right now, and it could easily drive more traffic to the very piece I'm calling out. Anyway, we move onto the writer's fairly savage distaste for Mormons. I was initially surprised that this element of the piece got past the editor, until I clocked that Kehe is senior editor at Wired. He simply cannot stop jibing at Mormons at every chance he can. Would he refer to a company of 50-strong-people/Christians or a company of 50-strong-people/atheists or a company of 50-strong-people/heathens? I've got to wonder. Editorially speaking, there's got to be a reason behind such a through-line, but what is the purpose here? One can only infer that this is the stance of Wired as a whole. Are there any other religions on the website's hitlist? I'm not religious myself, but I certainly wouldn't target those of faith with such a sneer of an opening section as this journalist provides. Now, here's the kicker. The journalist spends a lot of the article telling us that Sanderson doesn't have anything interesting to say, and I mean a lot. It's a four thousand word article. Anyone else see the irony in this? Even better, it apparently took two months to put the piece together. The biggest issue I have lies with the journalist's repeated statement (he bitches about Sanderson loving his own voice, but boy can this guy repeat himself) that Brandon's writing is bad. I want to put this here, loud and clear: it's wrong. I'm afraid this statement cannot even be put down to opinion. Perhaps the journalist doesn't like the style of writing, but it isn't bad. It's factually incorrect. It literally cannot be. Sanderson has too many fans who love his characters and his world-building. Where does that stuff come from? The words he strings together. I genuinely cannot find the words to explain how much this (repeated) part of the article pissed me off (probs coz I write bad, eh Kehe?). It shows an fundamental failure to grasp what fiction writing is actually for. It is meant to transport. Coleridge would weep. We, the readers, have one job: suspend our disbelief. Allow the writer to do the rest. For Sanderson's readers, he is doing the job admirably. What can a certain breed of journalist do? Sneer at those who have found something to enjoy. Certain journalists/websites/magazines/Mormons (haha see what I did there) seem to feel like only a select few books and authors are worthy of praise, and if you don't agree, then you're a 'manboy' who doesn't know bad writing when you see it. Anything popular is somehow not good enough. There are certain books that are considered 'good' and they must be liked because that's the way it is. It's an incredible position to take - it's the equivalent of having no personal taste at all. It's basically saying - I want you to know that I'm better than you because my taste is better. Madness. Now, I'm going to go even further with this. A lot of the stuff we're told are classics are... boring. Sorry. Take all your Ernest Hemingways, your James Joyceses, your Jane Austins, your Dickenses, go on as far and as much as you like, I haven't got enough time left in my life to be bored. Any modern literary novel sent in the here and now, the present day, this world of ours, I don't want to read it, I don't want it near me. A younger version of me went through a couple of attempts at 'improving' my reading behaviour by labouring through books we're apparently all supposed to enjoy and appreciate. I will not do that again. Speculative fiction is where it's at, folks. Only SFF can entertain me, dazzle me, excite me, and leave me wanting more. Really good fantasy is driven by powerful imagination, by minds that can conjure up a reality very different to the one we live day-to-day and yet adheres coherently to its own rules. Even more incredible, these writers can convey their wild inventions with strings of words that transport the reader from here to there. This is powerful magic. How amazing that these authors can take you by the hand and show you entire worlds you never knew existed, worlds that you never want to leave. All the other stuff out there? The works that aren't SFF, that aren't speculative? That's just the everyday. That's just minor variations of what we already know. That don't impress me much. **** Click this banner image, catch up on the wild pirate series Pieces Of Eight!! **** In the spirit of cheerleading the world of speculative fiction, here's a half dozen books from new authors that I'd love you to check out. Give the images a click, see if anything tickles your fancy, and let's support the new wave of fantasy fiction. Rebaa’s adopted tribe lies slaughtered behind her. Rebaa’s lover, Juran, lays down his life for hers and now she must use all of her cunning and extraordinary powers to survive the inhospitable wilderness alone, ensuring that Juran’s sacrifice was not in vain. But Rebaa’s battle for survival has only just begun... Hunted by savage predators and more terrifying still, the nightmarish Eldrax, a murderous chieftain who will stop at nothing to possess Rebaa’s mysterious powers for his own, her very existence becomes a life or death chase in the pursuit and quest to reach the one place that surely offers salvation and a safe haven she can call home. But what haven could possibly exist for one who bears... The Forbidden? Enchanted by lies, abducted for truth. In Mandar, humans and mythics have learnt to work together, but sometimes a magical creature goes rogue. As a Tracker for the government, Seraphina’s job is to locate rogues, gather intel and report back to the Hunters. Everything changes when she’s captured… by a dragon. Imprisoned in his cave, Sera discovers the unique ability to share minds with the dragon. Together they explore the limits of her newly discovered power, and he reveals the lies fed to her by the Mandar Government. But can she trust the word of a dragon? While she fights for her freedom, her magic thrusts her into the midst of a hidden conflict. The threat of a new war between humans and mythics looms and Sera must decide where her loyalties lie. Twin brothers, Jaromir and Talmage have been imprisoned, but for different convictions. Jaromir wakes up chained to a table filled with dread, while Talmage is thrown into an underground labyrinth. Jaromir has devoted his life to mastering weapons as the Empress’ Guard and forming a secret order to rid the world of magick. His lifetime devotion is useless when his limbs are chained. Unless he divulges the order’s plans. Jaromir is tortured and his body pushed to breaking but he refuses to betray the order––until his wife is dragged into the room. Jaromir is forced to make a choice between his honor and his beloved wife. Which will he choose? Meanwhile, Talmage is thrown into an underground labyrinth. Since his parent’s death, he had practiced the art of magick in secret from his brother’s order. Magick had been his savior and his security through his troubled life. No matter what Talmage tried, the ghosts of his past haunt him––especially in the dark passages. At first, he thought he was alone, for one last trial, until familiar voices echo from the shadows. Both brothers must escape from their wicked fate, identify their outgrown relationship, and swallow their pride, before it’s too late. At ten years old, Kalindra Therin, throne-princess of Lundell, is forced to make a decision that would change not only her life, but also the Kingdom’s future. Despite her father’s protests, she chooses to travel to Iclindir Academy, to become a Dracomancer. Now that she’s far away from all she has ever known, is she going to survive the path she chose? A sense of duty… With her dragon companion, Rina, by her side, Kali learns the arts of combat and spellcasting. But after 5 years of training as a keeper of balance, is she still willing to obey her father, the King, and secure a political alliance with a nearby kingdom out of duty? What would become of her if she dares to take a stand for herself and her dragon? Now she wonders if she still made the right choice. When fate and duty collide, where will Kali’s loyalty lie? Ellie is a young virgin girl sacrificed to a wyvern in order to keep the village safe, but little does she know what her sacrifice will mean for herself, dragonkind, or the fate of two entirely separate worlds. Ancient pacts have been broken and powers greater than anything is about to be released and threatens to swallow the world. Life wants vengeance and the Wind freedom. The Spirits will fight for their justice and only the thunderous Storm can lead them to victory. But the war her ancestors have started is too much for her to handle alone. To break the Lord of Life's dynasty and set the Spirits free she needs help from her uncle; a long-lost war hero now wasting the remnants of his broken life in ale. Once he was the Lord of Winds, but the Wind, people whisper, cannot be killed. *************************************** Thanks for spending a bit of time with me, I hope you got something out of it. You and I are going to shout from the highest rooftops that not only is fantasy fiction awesome, it's the most awesome thing there is, full stop. It pushes imagination to the absolute limits, and it's within imagination that our greatest power lies. See you in a couple of weeks, until then stay safe and happy. Laters, me hearties.

New Releases, May 2018

Hi all,

Quick post today, want to give a shout out to a few indie books being released into the wild this month. Been a bit quiet lately, a lot going on with the book release and much, much else. Will be back to blogging v soon, although I'm wondering how recent events will affect my posts...

Anyway, keep an eye out for the following:

Someone is killing unmarked souls, and Ru Roberts is the only one that can stop them. That's a bit of a problem, though, since she has no idea she's a Keeper.

Adopted as a small child, Ru knows next to nothing about her birth parents. Her new mom insists she was given up because she "ruins everything." Hence, her name-Ruin. Yet, Ru has managed to make a life for herself in the small town of Reaper's Hollow, working as a fourth grade teacher, which she loves. If it wasn't for her inability to touch anything electrical without starting a fire, she'd be the happiest girl in Upstate New York.

That is, until the charming and devastatingly handsome Cutter Michaels moves into the classroom across the hallway and starts filling her head with all sorts of unbelievable fantasies. He claims she is the lost Keeper, the daughter of a half-angel and a half-demon, and she is the only one who can help him locate three portals the Reapers, as in Grim Reaper, are using to ferry souls away to the Underworld. Ru knows he's lost his mind, and yet she finds herself being sucked into his delusions more and more each day. The fact that he can shoot blue fire out of his hands might have something to do with that.

Once she begins having strange dreams where she comes face to face with Thanatos, the most powerful Reaper of all, Ru begins to think there might be more to Cutter's story than she's been giving him credit for. Will joining Cutter lead her to find her biological parents and discover the powers coursing through her veins, or will Thanatos claim her for his own?

Ruin's Lot is the first book in the Reaper's Hollow series which follows the metamorphosis of Ru Roberts as she discovers who she really is, where she comes from, and how to wield the power within her. Will the Keepers successfully close the three portals, or will the Reaper's continue to claim unmarked souls whose names are not yet written in The Book of the Dead?

Get it HERE

************************************

A new threat to the United States has emerged within its own borders. Deutsche Christen, a powerful paramilitary organization, led by a ruthless ex-Special Forces Officer, Carl Dietrich, is threatening to overthrow the U.S. government and assume absolute power over the country.

Bolstered by the overwhelming support provided by two foreign governments, Dietrich believes his forces to be invincible, and his future rise to power inevitable.

Hoping to garner additional members for his organization, he demands an interview with Sean Carrol, an ex-Special Forces officer and an investigative reporter for the New York International News. Dietrich orders that their meeting be held at one of the Deutsche Christen paramilitary camps. To assure Seans cooperation, he kidnaps his niece and nephew.

Understanding Dietrichs rationale for the meeting and further realizing that his niece and nephew arent going to be released, Sean develops a plan to rescue the children. Desperate, he along with Colonel Gannon, his ex-commander, reorganize his old Special Forces team and create a rescue mission.

While tensions rise worldwide and threats of war loom, panic takes center stage, as the prospect for cataclysmic destruction promises to annihilate civilization as we know it.

Get it HERE

*****************************************

Enter the humidity as Bowen travels from Goa to Bangkok; from Hong Kong to Central America. For the first time False Flag, Pandora Red, Blood Tide bundled together in one humid and hot thrilling collection.

>> 1. False Flag (A Frank Bowen conspiracy thriller Book 1)

1991: A plan to destabilise Hong Kong is emerging; the key players are being put into place, the wheels are in motion and innocent people will die.

Frank Bowen is a Londoner on holiday in tropical Thailand. Half drunk and strapped for cash, he’s the perfect bait for a political plot that will leave him running for his life, with nowhere to turn.

An international conspiracy thriller by Jay Tinsiano, False Flag spans South-east Asia, with twists and turns that leave every character in question. 

>> 2. Pandora Red (Frank Bowen Conspiracy Thriller Book 2)

Frank Bowen's mission is to find a GCHQ whistleblower but in doing so unwittingly risks everything, including his own family's safety. As part of a covert team, assigned to dangerous missions, Bowen believes he knows what he's up against, until a team of Russian mercenaries are thrown into the mix, leaving everyone and everything hanging in the balance. It's a race against the clock to save all that he holds dear and uncover the dark truths behind his mission.

>> 3. Blood Tide (A Doug Brown Terrorism Thriller)

Detective Douglas Brown transferred to Hong Kong to forget his past and the dark memory that still haunts him; Richard Blythe.

Blythe, an explosives expert gone rogue, had terrorised London and outwitted Brown, leading to the deaths of countless innocents.

Now the detective's worst fear has come true: Blythe free from prison to wreck havoc and lead Brown on a deadly cat and mouse game in the city of Hong Kong.

Blood Tide is a gripping terrorism thriller from Jay Tinsiano. 

Get it HERE

***********************************

Remember everyone, keep flying the flag for the indies, we writers need every bit of help we can get.

Laters.

The Phantom of the Faerie Mountain by E M McIntyre

A first for my blog!

Today I'm posting an interview with E. M. McIntyre along with a review of her great YA novel The Phantom of Faerie Mountain. Onwards and upwards for Writer, haunted!

A quick blurb in italics first, then down to the nitty-gritty.

A telepathic dog. An ancient prophecy. Two devious faeries. 14 yr old Abby Fletcher must unravel their connection when she is thrown into a world of unknowns after receiving a mysterious message from a frightening beast: The Red King must set me free. Determined to discover the meaning of this puzzling phrase, Abby sets off to explore a nearby Scottish mountainside in search of clues. What Abby doesn't realize, however, is that it's not a matter of where she will find her answers but when. Whisked back to the early 14th century, Abby must find the courage to solve the mystery of the Red King and save not only herself but a group of powerless captives wrapped up in a faerie plot.

I always get a kick out of reading about everyday characters in out-of-the-ordinary situations. You get to see how the character reacts and grows as the story goes on. And Abby, the lead character, has a lot of growing to do in this, the first of a trilogy. She finds herself far from the home she knows, in more ways than one...

The story gets into high gear pretty quickly as our hero Abby receives a message from a strange creature in the fog. This is a big plus for me, as I'm not a fan of pages and pages of exposition. I like a story to start with the action, and that's how Phantom draws us in.

The Scottish setting isn't merely here for a different flavour, it's integral to the plot and I really enjoyed digging into the mythology of the creatures and faeries. Much like the Percy Jackson books thrive on the legends of Greek mythology, this book gains a distinct personality from its setting.

Dialogue is natural - including the Scottish character Rory, who is easy to read, and shouldn't be a problem for younger readers. The relationship between the two leads develops and a steady, believable rate too.

Also, the novel isn't overly long, and there's enough here to make me look forward to the next in the series. Oh, and it's not often you get a telepathic dog, so that's an automatic extra mark.

With fantasy, time-travel, and magic, there's plenty here for readers to enjoy. Recommended for readers between 10-14 in particular, although like any good fantasy story people of all ages can enjoy it.

A world well worth visiting.

RIGHT. Let's find out a bit about the author, shall we?

INTERVIEW WITH E. M. MCINTYRE

1.Why write?

When a photo is shared with me of a ‘tween’ with her nose shoved in a book (my book) and is seemingly lost within that world – this is why I write. When I see a teenager staring intently at a page of the same book, her brow furrowed as if upset or concerned – this is why I write. I write so young readers may find themselves swept away to another reality where they are free to ‘just be’ and imagine.

2.What are you most proud of within your work?

What I’m most proud of is twofold. As referenced above, it is humbling, amazing, and exciting to me to know something I’ve created is taking young readers to the same place I went at that age. To that place when I first discovered Pippi Longstocking, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys, and later, Piers Anthony and his Xanth series, to name a few. I am also proud to have been awarded 5 accolades thus far for the first two books in my trilogy, it’s astonishing to me.

3.What’s your writing process? Anything you find easy or hard?

Before I can even begin writing a new project, I must have a solid outline planned, chapter by chapter. Otherwise, I’m quite certain my brain might explode. This is probably the hardest and slowest part of the process for me. I use Scrivener as my software of choice, and once said outline is accomplished, I’m ready to roll. I normally write both days on the weekends, locked away in my bedroom with only the hum of the fish tank next to me. I start as soon as I’ve had breakfast and work most of the day, breaking only for lunch, until I hit my quota.

4.Which book do you wish you had written and why?

While there are many amazing books already written by equally amazing authors, those books were theirs to write. What I do wish I had written were the many stories in my own mind waiting to be discovered decades ago. How nice it would have been to have started on the path of authorship a bit earlier.

5.If you were a food, what food would you be?

Cheese pizza with a sweet sauce and hand-tossed dough cooked to golden perfection.

6.Is there any hope for Planet Earth?

This is a tough one, as we all know there are so many negative things happening on and to our planet. I’d like to think our youngest generation and those yet to come will say ‘enough is enough’ and begin to heal not only the Earth but ourselves. The realist in me thinks it might be too late but I will always have hope.

Hope you all enjoyed reading this interview, and I'm hoping to post more in the future.

Check out The Phantom of Faerie Mountain here, bearing in mind that I only really recommend books here that I think you might enjoy, there's nothing random about my recommendations. Stop making the boring choices, people. Live a little.

Laters.

Is it okay to write two novels at once?

Back to writery stuff about writering.

I've gone back and forth about this question over the years. A long time ago I used to write two novels (unrelated) in parallel, but as none of those have ever seen the light of day, it seemed safe to assume that this was not the world's greatest writing technique. I enjoyed it and got plenty done... but you've never heard of Dog Dinner, have you? No. And yes, that is a bad title. What of it?

We all have our different writing styles, favourite places to be, our preferences regarding paper or word processor, which underpants we should have on. But, should you ever take on two projects at once?

For clarification, I'm not talking about the writing of a series of books all in one go. If you plan from the outset to do a trilogy or whatever, bang 'em all out from the outset, don't pause. I wrote a sequel to Macadamian Pliers, but only after writing a couple of other books first, and man was that a task, so difficult to pick the threads up (and if people think A Graveyard Visible is dark, I'd love to dish them up a slice of Mac 2). What I'm discussing here is two completely separate stories with no characters or settings in common.

The closest I've ever come in the last 5 or 6 years to writing two stories at once would be during the creation of my latest novel A Graveyard Visible, which is currently undergoing an incredibly interesting pre-release process of review gathering - that's code for 'the reviews I'm getting are all over the place'. Halfway through, I stopped writing it. Couldn't go any further. It was dead. Tens of thousands of words in, I buried it (only ever happened once before, with a pirate story called Shanty for the Soulless which I'm currently considering for revival). So, after a period of glumness (we writers a miserable bunch of bastards) I got stuck into a new novel. I was most of the way through that when A Graveyard Visible dug itself back out of its admittedly shallow grave (one of those big light-bulb moments came out of nowhere - you gotta love 'em) and I hammered on until the end.

This is what you want - 

a bloody big idea

Since all of those shenanigans, I've finished another novel called Ten Doors Down (about a girl who breaks her phone and has to take on an incredibly strange job in order to save for another), and started my current project, Polka. It's about pigs. Oh yeah, a city of them. A whole society of pigs, a complete world, and everything a world is made of. It's become way bigger than I expected. I'm usually pretty good at getting a novel wrapped up in 80k or under, but with Polka and his personal journey I'm sailing towards eighty thousand words pretty rapidly and the middle is nowhere in sight. Now, I think the realisation of that fact freaked me out. There's a lot of work to do, and everything has to remain consistent. Polka, the titular pig, has led a small life in the walled (and guarded) city when we meet him in the first chapter, but when there's a dramatic change at the library where he works and a rebellious friend returns, his whole world flips and he starts to see what's on the other side. It's far more political than anything else I've written. It's about the disconnect between politicians and the people they govern. It's about loss, how large the pain can feel and yet how small it can seem to the world around you. It's about personal empowerment. It's about what a drop can do to an ocean. In some respects, 'Polka' is almost a playground for me to grab hold of a lot of the issues that affect me, to turn them round and hold them up in new lights.

Two months ago, it slowed to a near-stop. Not a complete halt, mind you. There were still a few words trickling onto the page. This was not a catastrophe of A Graveyard Visible proportions. The story was still there, and I knew where I was heading (or at least a had a piece of the map). But the weight of it...

We writers are always looking 

for that ray of hope.

The usual stuff - a change of activity, leaving it alone for a day or two, going for a walk, trying a chapter from a new angle - wasn't really giving me the bump start I needed. The only thing for it was a holiday. Not merely a real-life trip away for me (although by all the known gods I love getting away somewhere new). I had to get myself off to a new world.

The sneakiest and peakiest sneak-peak

of Flip.

The new one's called Flip (this flipping is a lot more literal than Polka's series of revelations), and for now I won't say much more, other than there's humans, and magic, and monsters. Starting a new story is always brilliant, and even though I'd had a false start with this one back in NaNoWriMo, a second attempt at the start of February went very quickly indeed, and I got a lot done (for me, anyway) in a short space of time. Now, I had a bit of a concern here. Writing lots is great, but what if I just kept writing Flip, and Polka died? What if I couldn't go back? The thing is, I was writing again, the energy was back, and as soon as I returned to Polka, the pages started flowing again.

Now, if they were both set in similar human fantasy worlds, and both had magic, and both had horror elements, and both were from the same point of view, then I don't think this would be feasible. There would be bleed between the two pieces. There would be forgetfulness, there would be a stylistic blur, and it would simply become too difficult. However, the fact that Polka and Flip are so very different actually helps me bounce from one to the other. Flip may never be finished. But if it's only reason to exist is to help me get to the end of Polka, then I will be forever grateful.

To conclude, I think it's possible to pull off this two novels at once thing... but only if both stories are very different. There can be little-to-no cross-over in regards of character type, theme or, if possible, style. Otherwise, everything could blend together and you'll end up with two indistinct piles of mess.

The moral here? Go on holiday, real or imagined. It's good for you.

Laters.

P.S. A Graveyard Visible is out soon - April 27th 2018. The horror novel that reviewers love to love, or love to hate. Go pre-order it now. The dead won't wait much longer...

Why you really should be doing author interviews

Hey.

I've been a big moan in the past (we know, says everyone ever, we know), but there is one aspect of self-promotion I enjoy: author interviews and spotlights. They tend to be good fun, and they are an aspect of promotion that should not be overlooked. If you haven't done any yet, get involved. It's a chance to talk directly to your readership, to give them an opportunity to learn a little bit about what kind of person you are, about what drove you to write your crazy book in the first place. Yes, reviews and promo spots are great, but a lot of readers want to know if the author is similar to any of the characters, of if the author found her or his self in similar situations in real life. Young social media savvy readers in particular will want to reach out and connect - so give them the opportunity to do exactly that.

Everyone's a winner here. The author gets some positive exposure, the blogger gets some good content to post and tweet about, driving traffic to both blogger and author. An added bonus - this content isn't time limited. It stays up until the blogger decides to take it down (and we all hope they don't!).

As you do more and more interviews, you'll end up with a vault of answers you can give to a wide range of questions - although you might not need an answer to If you were a box of cereal which one would you be? very often in your career. You never can tell, though.

Plus, if you're a bit reticent like me, interviews will give you increasing confidence to talk about your work, and you should be talking about it because you should be proud of what you've achieved.

A great big thank you to the guys below. They truly believe in indie authors, and do their very best to promote those they showcase on their blogs. I enjoyed doing every one of these interviews and spotlights. Visit them, read them, follow them.

And if you get featured on someone's blog, make sure you re-tweet them. And link back to them. They've done you a favour - do the same for them.

https://teripolen.com/2017/12/08/indieauthor-friday-steve-conoboy-ya-horror-ghosts-steveconoboy/

Twitter handle: @TPolen6

I did an interview with Teri Polen on her great blog. This is a little sample of how that went:

What’s the most constructive criticism you’ve been given in your writing career?

There’s two things, the first of which I’ve heard time and time again, most clearly from Stephen King’s legendary ‘On Writing’ (I reference King a lot in blogs and posts and I just don’t care). Drop the adverbs. Don’t be afraid to just say ‘she said’. Honestly, I think this piece of advice makes writing a lot clearer. Going through a passage a few times and taking out adverbs goes far in the removal of clunkiness.

The second thing, and slightly more abstract, was my introduction to General Semantics. Look it up, seriously. It’s where we get the notion ‘the map is not the territory’. I learned about it from this sci-fi editor who was attempting to get my short story writing up to the point where I was worth printing. He nearly managed it. But GS can teach you a lot about clarity, word usage and meaning. Basically, I was throwing too many words at the page without considering if they were getting my message across (there are those who say I over-extend my sentences now – I was way worse back when I started out). Writing stories is fundamentally an attempt at communication between myself and the reader, and I want them to get the image I’m trying to transmit to them as clearly as possible.

General Semantics is meant to bring clearer thinking, peaceful interaction and greater sanity. This is the complete opposite of my home life. Daughters and cats result in none of these things.

writerdmayall.wordpress.com/2017/09/17/authors-spotlight-steve-conoboy/amp/?__tw

David put together a great Author Spotlight for me, covers both my books in detail with large cover images. Really appreciative of this one.

Twitter handle: @writerdmayall

Hit David up if you fancy something similar for yourself.

authoranthonyavinablog.com/2018/01/28/interview-with-author-steve-conoboy/amp/?__twitt

Twitter handle: @AuthorAAvina

And finally, this is an extract of an interview I did with Anthony Avina, who not only gave me a great review for my first release, but he's also going to read my next novel A Graveyard Visible. A hard working guy doing a lot for indie authors.

7) What advice would you give to up and coming authors?

Do it for the love. Really, that’s the most important part of the whole process. If you’re enjoying what you’re writing, then there’s a chance that someone else will enjoy reading it. If it feels like a slog, something’s wrong. I’ve dumped a couple of novels partway through the writing process because they felt so off.

8) What’s next for you in the world of writing? Any new or upcoming books on the horizon?

I’m currently gearing up for the release of A Graveyard Visible on 27th April 2018, so there’s a lot of promotion work and pulling together some reviews (which are proving to be very divisive so far – that’s either incredibly worrying or a great marketing tool). It’s being published by Lodestone Books, and the cover and the layout of the paperback look absolutely fantastic, so pleased with the result. On the writing side of things, I’m playing about with a possible tone change for an AGV sequel, as well as being deep into the writing of a story about the political activism of a pig. Yeah, it’s something a little bit different.

That's my highlights from the last couple of months. You know what? I've been enjoying doing little blog posts about upcoming indie books in recent times... Maybe I'll start posting some author interviews as well. After all, everyone wins. And it means I get to mess with other authors' heads by setting them weird questions about what cereal they would be and why. Yeah. Revenge.

Laters.

Running Toward Illumia by Angel Leya

Time to boost another fellow author, and this one sounds like a whole new place worth visiting. 

Over to Angel to introduce us to a new world.

Hi, I’m Angel Leya, and I write clean young adult stories with (at least) a touch of magic and romance. My latest story is Running Toward Illumia, Astrea’s tale of finding herself while running from the one thing she wants most: To find her sense of belonging.

Astrea’s lived in the Mist all her life, and she loves it there. In fact, she’d do just about anything to feel like she fits in with her Rudan people, even hunt a unicorn to feed her starving tribe.

Illumia is the first city beyond the Mist, just past the Dragon Range. Astrea’s come up with 10 reasons to never go to Illumia. I’ll let her tell you more.

***

Top 10 Reasons NOT to Travel to Illumia

10. They don’t have fog.

Who needs sunshine? I’m a Mist girl. Great for concealing movement, comfortable like an old blanket, and you never have to worry about dry skin. 

9. They don’t all have red hair.

That’s why this tribe is here, despite being sent to the fog to die. And why we call ourselves the Rudan, rather than the Banned.

Wish my hair was redder. And I could use a few more freckles. But I’m one of the Rudan, I swear. I’d be dead if I wasn’t.

8. They’re weak.

Fog weeds out the weak. And if the fog doesn’t, the Lynx, ogres, or Rudan will. Illumians live the easy life. They have no reason to be strong.

7. They’re not very welcoming.

The Rudan take in anyone who can survive the fog. Illumians kicked us out (or at least my parents, but children of the Banned are no less welcome).

6. Illumians are idiots.

Everyone says so.

5. Big government.

I know all five of my council members, and they earned their spot. Like Seneca, first huntress—my mentor. Illumians probably have no idea who runs their council.

4. The journey’s dangerous.

Even if you can navigate the fog, streams filled with flesh-eating fish, and ogre-infested swamps, there’s the dragon range. There’s one pass, guarded by Illumians. The rest is mountain. Treacherous, dragon-housing mountains. No other way around it. Going to Illumia is a fool’s errand.

3. My family’s not there.

If you think getting one person into Illumia is hard, try five. Two brothers, plus Mamaa and Pawpaw.

Course, the whole tribe’s basically family. I’d want to take them all.

Except maybe Mavin. He’s a jerk. (Kidding. Sort of.)

2. I can never come back.

Going to Illumia is a one-way trip. Illumians and dragons ensure that.

1. I don’t want to.

Do I need any other reason?

***

Thanks for reading! If you’d like more, click for an excerpt from Banned, Part 1 of Running Toward Illumia.

Get all 4 parts of Running Toward Illumia today:

1.       Banned (free!)

2.       Lost (On Sale for 99¢ through 2/15/18)

3.       Drenched (On Sale for 99¢ through 2/15/18)

4.       Marked (On Sale for 99¢ through 2/15/18)

So go for it, guys, check out something new, you really don't have much to lose.

More promos soon.

Laters. 

Mannethorn's Key by Simon Lindley

Hey.

It's been a while.

In my next post I'm going to talk about what happened with NaNoWriMo, but for now it's time to big-up another up-and-coming author.
This time round, I've got Simon Lindley talking about his fantasy novel Mannethorn's Key. He talks not only about his novel, but also about the process of world-building, and it's pretty great advice for any budding fantasy writers out there.

World-Building 101 by Simon Lindley

The Realm, The Land, Middle Earth, Narnia – I presume you have spent some time visiting at least one of them. I know I have. And, if all goes well with the ‘travel brochures’, Drageverden will soon be another fantasy ‘tourist’ destination. However, I expect people will only visit if the place promises immersive adventure!

World-building in fantasy is as critical to a plot as character development. When done well, it can transport the reader so absolutely that they yearn for the place long after finishing the book.

I’ll share with you some of my challenges, and the process I go through in creating a land that I am confident is not only believable but tangible, tactile and immersive for my readers.

One of the difficulties I’ve struggled with at times is purple prose. As writers, we sometimes lean to the flowery – long, buttery descriptives – waxing poetic, sprinkled with a fine, magical dust, like morning dew settling on the vine and… oh, I beg your pardon!
I have learned to 1) be succinct, 2) alternate between long and short/slow and faster-paced sentences, and 3) avoid overuse of adverbs. Purple prose detracts a reader as much as a similar life scenario. We’ve all been in one of those awkward moments when someone has talked for well over twenty minutes about, say, fruit flies because, well, they’re a fruit-fly expert, and we nod, and nod, and nod and mm-hmm — until we nod off.

Another habit I picked up came from kindergarten: Show & Tell. I love to tell people things. He saw a dog. Maggie was angry. The bird was tired. The danger is that by doing so, a writer creates a barrier rather than an invitation. We must ‘walk’ as we write, immersed in the land and noting its effect upon our character/s. I must show, not tell.

Like all trips we take, we discover as we go. I make an effort to step from character interiority back into Drageverden regularly, to generate an interaction between the two. It is easy to blurt out all the details of a place, but that is not how we naturally absorb our surroundings, and it quickly becomes tedious. Our character must shake as she enters the darkness of the spider’s lair, snap her head back at the whisper over her shoulder, brace with teeth clenched as the dust cloud rises from the horde cresting the last knoll – and we must be there with them.

Tolkien carried his readers along – experiencing the ground under a hobbit’s foot, smelling the foul mead and men of the Prancing Pony, and anticipating the Brandywine narrowing near the ferry, still far too distant to escape the Nazgul. He rarely tells. What’s more important is that no matter who you talk to, Middle Earth is different for everyone. Why? Tolkien let the scenes play out as much by emotion as he did geography and although he painted a vivid picture of the land, he left our conviction of and immersion in Middle Earth to fill in the deeper details.

So I haven’t provided you much regarding DrageVerden. Oh, I could talk, believe me – ask anyone who knows me and you’ll soon discover I rarely shut up — but you must ‘walk’ alongside the giants crossing the Arvian Plains to understand the shock of it all, or spend a day with Ka the drakehawk to experience her love for the Swamps of Ierloquetze. Brochures never do a place justice. You have to book the holiday.

Okay, okay! I’ll give you a little foreshadowing prior to your trip: Drage is Danish for dragon. Verden means land.

Happy Trails!

Simon Lindley is an author, musician and intrepid explorer in the real world and along the rolling landscapes of his imagination. His book, Mannethorn's Key, the first in the Key of Life Trilogy, will be released in print and ebook formats January 5, 2018 at fine retailers everywhere. It is also available for pre-order now.

So there you go, guys. Give Simon's book a shot, remember we're all meant to be supporting each other. It's too easy to buy the same old crap from your local supermarket shelf from the same old names. Try something new, why don't you?

Laters

I'm an author without a website!

I know, shocking isn't it?

Actually, it's really bad that I've left it so long. It's only because I've committed myself to updating this blog with info on how my promotion work is going (long sentence, breeeeeathe) that I even realised I'd made such an oversight.

During my research into the things authors should have/should be doing/cannot possibly function without, post after post after post reiterated the same thing: as an author, you must have a website. It's essential. It's like your store front, it's a central hub for everything you do, it's the first thing prospective readers are going to look for.

Here's an example of what I'm on about. This is taken from Publishing... And Other Forms of Insanity. It's an amazing website for authors of all levels. Honestly, there's so much content here it's ridiculous.

Even if you have not yet been published, you absolutely MUST have an author's website. Websites are not optional; they are a requirement for anyone with something to sell. (Authors are not only selling their writing, they are selling themselves.) At the very least, put up your first page (bio and photo), a blog, and a contact page. If you want to talk about your current writing project, do so on your blog.

Not optional. A requirement. Lordy.

(Go here to read more of this article, and then get yourself totally lost in all the links: http://publishedtodeath.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/everything-i-did-wrong-part-2-designing.html)

Long past time to get cracking, then.

Now, I should say that I did have a website already in place - and it's still up. Macadamian Pliers was due for release, and I knew I had to at least try to do something to get that novel some space on the interweb, and everything has a website these days. But instead of making an author website with a page or two about the book with links to go and buy it, I did something slightly different. And by slightly I mean radically. The website I created was put together from the point of view of the novel's characters. Yeah, that's right, it's a site from within the Macadamian Pliers universe, as if he was real and Cherry and Frank were real and all the stuff that happened was real. Yeah, I did that. Spent hours on it. Thought I was really clever.

I suppose it might have been clever if I was an established author, or there was lots of buzz around the book and people were aware of it, but in hindsight it just came across as confusing.

It's still online, I can't bring myself to kill it off - this is the link: http://ihatemacadamianpliers.weebly.com/

So, Life-Threateningly Important Point Number 01 - you must build your brand first. You must be clear. Do not muddy the waters. Save the funky tricks for later, when there's a chance that someone might know who you are. Put yourself in the position of a potential reader/buyer coming to your website. Show them the most important things first. Latest book. Upcoming releases. Make sure your reader/buyer can see these products and can get to them easily. They want to know who you are and what you've written, so make it easy for them. Not like I did.

I've kept a couple of aspects of this website made by an insane version of myself, and put them in the new one, although they are far from the main feature. The books are up front, everything else is there to explore if the visitor wishes.

Ah, straight away, Life-Threateningly Important Point Number 02 - Get the books up front! With links TO BUY! The first thing you see now on my brand new website is the front cover of my upcoming novel, with a link to Pre-Order. Actually, I've literally right this second just discovered the pre-order button is not functioning. So....

Life-Threateningly Important Point Number 03 - Check EVERYTHING. (These Life-Threateningly Important Points are coming thick and fast all of a sudden.) And check it again. And AGAIN. When I first published my new website, I trumpeted loudly about it (always happens after too many dry roasted peanuts) on Facebook, Twitter, all that stuff, confident that it was looking good, even though a few of the lesser pages weren't yet in place. A day or two later, I found the time to have another look at it. There were two pages of wildlife photography hanging over from the original template, there was a weird heading about 'Fotographia' that I couldn't get rid of, links weren't working, nightmare, nightmare, nightmare. It looked incredibly unprofessional (and don't you dare say it still does, I will cry). Check your work, people. Check it, and check it again.

Really, all of this should have been done already. I just put making a real author website off. I told myself, what difference will it make anyway? And I still don't know if it will make any difference at all. However, and here's...
Life-Threateningly Important Point Number 04 - Your books CANNOT sell themselves. You need to do everything you can, and if sites like Publishing and Other Forms of Insanity are telling you to have an author website, then damn well get one. Make it yourself, get a friend to do it, pay for it to be done, whatever. But get it done. Maybe it won't be much help. But if you don't have one, then it DEFINITELY can't generate sales. It's your space to talk about your work, to show off your work, so why not? I thought of it this way - Every time I read a Clive Barker book or think about one, I head to his website to catch up on what he might be doing next (more specifically, when is he going to release the next bloody Abarat book). So if I'm doing that, others are.

It all makes sense.

Honestly, take advice from someone who's done everything wrong.

(Edit: I wrote a piece about websites and didn't even put a link into mine. Amazing, right? www.steveconoboy.com )

Laters

*******Pre-order A Graveyard Visible on Amazon now!*********