JoZebwrites

Today I'm joined by Thaddeus White, one of my favourite indie writers. His new book, Traitor's Prize, a sequel to Kingdom Asunder came out this week. It's his fourth novel in that world, mixing the fantastical and a realistic version of a medieval world, guided but not constrained by history. Even then, there are some conflicts between what most people think today (or how they perceive the medieval world) and what actually happened and this blog is an interesting one, exploring that.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mercy and brutality is a difficult area to try and grasp. We live in a very civilised world (not perfect by any means, but compare it to a time when beating a pig to death was considered a fun game and it’s not hard to appreciate the difference). There were often strong reasons to exercise mercy or be brutal in medieval warfare. The former could encourage people to switch sides, kn...

Just last week, a great writing chum of mine, who knows his way around a bit of PR, commented that I'd done well to get as much visibility for my new book, Waters and the Wild, (you have bought ten, right? You should because it's getting the most awesome reviews) without being agented. Let me very clear, right from the start. I wanted to be agented. I'd still quite like to be agented. This is not an agent-bashing blog, far from it. I am not anti-agents: it seems they're rather more anti-me. This is frustrating - my books have all done well, for being with indie publishers/self-published but, more to the point, the reviews are stellar. People, when they find the books like them and recommend them. But still the agented world and I are not linked, probably for the simple reason that my books and a big publisher are not seen to be a good match.   Let's go back a couple of years. I was, as is quite common, agented for my second novel. I then received a...

I remembered this today. The original 300 word story that became Waters and the Wild Song of the faerie. There's a boat on the beach and it’s not of this world.  “Do you see anything?” I ask. Gary’s the most grounded person I know; he holds me where I’m safe. “Yeah,” he says. “Beautiful.” I hadn’t expected that. “Why here?” He shrugs. “Isn’t it obvious?” Yes. A faerie boat from the underworld. My breathing tightens. Prickles cover my skin, great welts that itch and fade a moment later. “Why now?”  He puts his hand on my arm. “Amy, what do you see?”  I point at the ark and it sings a faerie song to me. Gary holds me so tight that it hurts. “Amy, what is it?” I shake him off.  Amy, amy, amy;  a dangerous lullaby. I reach out and touch the ship, run my fingers over its rusted edges, take comfort in its solid form.  “Amy!” He takes me in his arms and smells of coffee and orange. He kisses me, even though he knows I’m bad. “What do you s...

CHAPTER TWO – KERRA The planet hung below, a shimmering cast of sea and cloud. This was an old planet: Kerra could feel it in the bones of her body, in the dry aged knowledge of them. Silence hung around her, waiting her decision. “Anything from the planet?” she asked. “An old distress signal,” Rana said. He flashed her a smile, one that she knew the promise within, but she ignored him. A mission was not the time to indulge, no matter how pleasant that indulgement was. Especially a mission that she hadn’t filed a flight-plan for, had taken out of the mesh, and which had taken her far beyond the Seven-Stars. A mission she hadn’t, truly, expected to succeed in. Excitement bubbled. She’d spent the last weeks imagining returning to her father and telling him what she had achieved. This was his mission, although he did not know of it, carried out on the back of their last meeting, on a planet deep in the outer zone. Her father was so different to the one she’d known as a ch...

This, then, is my experiment. It follows on from my blog of last week about new models of writing, about how the current model does nothing to support writers anyhow.  The process:  I have no idea where this story is going. It's certainly not going to happen quickly but in between other stuff I'm writing. But, every so often, I'm going to be popping up chapters of this book, The Last Seer (read into that what you will. At some point my sub-conscious might even explain it). They will be early drafts, so don't expect sparkling prose, and any comments about where things are going, what is or isn't working, will be more than welcome. It's designed to be read by people new to the Abendau series, as well as those familiar with the original trilogy (although reading this first will give spoilers to the trilogy https://www.amazon.co.uk/Abendaus-Heir-Inheritance-Trilogy-Book-ebook/dp/B00VF6C1Q4 , be warned).  CHAPTER ONE Baelan stretched in the...

I love to write. I think it's safe to say that no one becomes a writer without wishing to write. Unlike some jobs, I don't think you can write - creatively, I mean, not copywriting, or technical writing for a job role - unless you genuinely have a desire to write the story. Which means, of course, that I can warn anyone starting out that they will find it hard to get their book noticed, that they will most likely make very little money, and that they will find the going tough sometimes, and they will still write. No amount of warnings would have stopped me writing, at any point, nor do they now. But! Writing is a slow process. I'm by no means a turtle at this process, but nor am I among the quickest writers I know. Somewhere in the middle: a reasonable rate of getting-things-out. How long does it take? I tracked my last book from the day I started it to the day I had a draft I was prepared to let beta readers get their teeth into. It took me 72 writing days - not day-d...

Two people this week have indicated to me (following my last blog) that I’m a pretty prolific writer. This is not the first time such an observation has been made. (In fact, compared to many writers I know of, I’m not wildly prolific. In six years (almost to the day) I’ve written and released five novels, have another two trunked for now, and a sixth pretty well at completion. That’s not jaw-droppingly prolific – twelve would be getting there.) But I also have a day job (I run a consultancy), have kids to run after and a range of pets and what-nots, and don’t really have a lot of time to fit writing in. Which means, when I do write, I have to make the most of my time. Now, I’ve been self-employed for years and one thing you have to be able to do to succeed when self-employed is to sit down and work, in my case amid the distractions of a busy house. I apply much the same approach to my writing. Here, then, is how I churn out whatever I do churn out: I work at...