Tag: Jefferson and the Magician’s Curse

The Time Machine

Nope, I’m not here to discuss a classic Sci Fi Story. Nope. Not that.

I’m here to be all… What the hell, it’s already June!?

 

This should read, “You should be editing.”

 

The Time Machine in this sense is what I’ve been up to since my last post, apparently in March. MARCH.

So, what exactly have I been up to? Fantastic question, the short answer? EVERYTHING. The long answer is (in no particular order):

  • Trying to sort out our backyard still so we can put our fence up (bloody council).
  • Completing my citizenship test for Australia (pledge taking place 4th of July).
  • Handmade all the invitations for our pending wedding (September isn’t far away now).
  • Sourced our rings, or attempted to (waiting on a reply…).
  • Read quite a few books (Throne of Glass, The Final Empire, Sabriel just to name a few).
  • Submitted to three writing competitions (haven’t won yet…).
  • Attended a “Pitch Perfect” workshop on how to pitch my novel (which became more of a publisher Q&A).
  • Became a member of two writers’ centres and one writing society (now to take advantage of all their services).
  • Attended my first writers’ festival (met two writers and asked them all my pressing questions, got a book signed too).
  • Made a few new fantasy writer friends (If you’re reading this, hello friends!)
  • I am apparently mentoring three writers (blind leading the blind much, but I’ll coach them through to “The End”).
  • Been to one leadership training event for work, and two product training sessions. (I hate parking in big cities).
  • And last but not least, managed to rewrite the intro to my story, as well as the synopsis and two rough pitches. (*gasp*)

SO! Really not too much. Might as well go and write another one, right? Okay, no. So in less than four weeks I will be at the Kids & YA Festival where there is the potential to actually pitch to a panel of publishers. I’m only slightly freaking out because everything appears to be lining up.

What’s that?

Don’t believe me?

PROOF! (Put on your tinfoil hats kids, it’s going to be a bumpy one…)

 

Me explaining the following theory…

 

I became a member of the ASA last year, and they posted the event for Pitch Perfect early this year. As it appeared to sell out every year, I leapt at the chance (stay with me here). Then, a few weeks before I attend that event, the Kids and YA Festival comes up and releases the program for it, guess what? PITCHING. Holy crap, I think to myself. It must be fate! (Nope, still not there, but what are the odds?) THEN, to get a discount to that, I decide to join a writers’ centre near me like I was going to anyway. So bam, got both the membership and then my ticket. Fast forward a week AFTER the Pitch Perfect session, a small welcome pack arrives. What’s this? A magazine with the Director of the Kids & YA Festival in it, offering up her top tips for… what do you think it could be… oh man… PITCHING. AGAIN. With heaps of advice from not just her, but also advice from the lovely lady at HarperCollins, which is oddly enough where I’d love to end up!

So, all in all, I’m dreaming about my novel now. Thinking about it 24/7. My pitch is literally on my phone, should just make it my lock screen. ANYWAY…

I’d love for anyone’s feedback in regards to my pitch. I’ve adjusted it slightly as I will only have one minute to get the whole thing out, providing they choose my one hundred word pitch from the piles I’m sure they’ll get on the day. I’ve taken into account the winning pitch from last year’s festival and how she pitched her book, so hopefully I’ve got this… my pulse is racing just thinking about it.

THE PITCH – JEFFERSON & THE MAGICIAN’S CURSE

Born because an immortal magician travelled back in time, Jefferson is forever an outcast struggling to find his place in the world. Jefferson & The Magician’s Curse follows the boy as he is recruited into a secret society by Gabriel, the immortal magician, who is desperately trying to stop the end of the world at his own hands. While the forbidden arts begin to rise and war seems likely, Gabriel spitefully decides to infiltrate the enemy ranks after being bested by his young apprentice. As Gabriel succumbs to his alter ego and the magician’s curse, Jefferson hopes he’s powerful enough to stop him, without tapping into the power around him he doesn’t fully understand…

Jefferson & The Magician’s Curse is a 98 thousand word YA novel for readers 13 and up. With a strong fantasy element, the novel is reminiscent of the unique magic from Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Trilogy, and invokes the strong characters from Sarah J Maas’s Throne of Glass series. Like these books, Jefferson & The Magician’s Curse offers up an intriguing world filled with rich lore, diverse characters and the possibility for a series of novels.

Let me know what you think as it’s 1 AM and I should be sleeping!

What Now?

There’s always been a part of me that believed I could actually write a novel. I mean, honestly, writing as often as I do I’d have to just get to an ending eventually. The writing process for me was completely haphazard and without a written plan.

Plot? Not exactly.

Characters? Some at the beginning… many along the way.

Setting? It is in a world… indeed.

It was so exciting though experiencing the world through my characters. Their voices carried the narrative and their actions dictated the direction. Could it be better? I’m sure it could. But as my first written novel, I’m damn proud of it! I told everyone who would listen about my story!

My coworkers! (Paid to listen, captive audience!)

My friends! (People who seem really enthusiastic for me!)

My family! (Must love me no matter what!)

Random guy selling me books! (Strangely, genuinely interested… great feeling!)

People on the internet! (In the same boat as me, well… and you out there reading this!)

Finally, I’d written something worthwhile and it was good. The best thing I’d ever written. All the toiling over a keyboard, finally living up to my hopes and dreams. I loaded up my trusty MacBook and stared at my Pages document. Something wasn’t right. Not with the story, but a feeling. If I were a Jedi… I’d imagine this is what a disturbance in the force feels like.

What now?

All the words, characters, settings, and events… what was I supposed to do with them now? I have this responsibility to introduce them to the world and have no idea where to start. Guides online are absolutely hopeless or written by someone self-publishing or trying to get published. You can submit to publishing houses but they slog through probably thousands of unsolicited manuscripts. Some typo sneak into page one of your book? Deleted.

It felt like getting a degree all over again.

You do all the hard yards, get the grades and then they give you the certificate. Congratulations! You’re done! Go out and conquer the world! Then you wake up the next day at noon and wonder why you don’t have a job yet. You finished it! But so did everyone else. Some of them were actually better than you too. So your chances of landing the gig are even less. Then sometimes, it’s just who you know.

That feeling, the disturbance in the force, that diploma, all at once sitting there and joining together in a chorus of mockery.

“Oh, oh wait. You thought that was the hard part?” They laugh. “You poor thing.”

The worst part is while I’ve been searching for all (or any) tips I can find about the step after writing and editing, all  writing website tips seem based around actually just writing.

“Just write.”

“Write it already.”

“You’ll never find the time, you have to make the time.”

“Set a schedule.”

“Find a support group.”

“Read a lot. Write a lot. Read some more. Write some more.”

Okay, okay. Now that I followed everyone’s advice… I look to their other articles, and all of them reiterate the same thing; Writing is the hardest part of writing. I made it though, so what now? It would be like getting to the light at the end of the tunnel and it just being a really bright room.

What the hell do we do now?

And I leave that question for you. If you’ve managed to get some decent advice or found a decent website on how to actually organise a manuscript, please point me in the direction! Thanks in advance!

Ten Days… But Who's Counting?

I swore, swore to the old gods and the new…

I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

As the month wears on and my store seems to be doing decently in the things we are tracking, my mind ever so lightly flickers between work and play. Ten days, eight business days; Then it will have been four weeks since I submitted my novel. Strangely enough, I haven’t been freaking out as much now as I was, in fact, I’m pretty sure that I won’t get this one and that feels fine.

Do I still check my email all the time? Yes.

Do I get excited when I see any new email? Of course.

The craziest part of it all is that I’m actually here with a completed novel and that I’ve begun plotting the next two for Jefferson. I’m extremely happy with the direction they head in and the overall character development for both Jefferson and his antagonist.

Another fun thing I’m working on is a mature themed novel that takes place in the distant future of my world. This allows for Jefferson and characters from the novel to become legend and for the magic that began in his novel to have evolved into many different types and merge with society.

Well for now, another week down, another one and a bit to go. Here’s to hoping that I hear something this week! Either way, back to work for now!

One Week(ish)

So last Wednesday I submitted the first fifty pages of Jefferson & The Magician’s Curse to HarperCollins’ Wednesday Post. I’ve been checking my email roughly one hundred times a day on the off chance I’m something that they’re looking for. That being said, I’m still not even sure if they’re back to work yet but I hope so. It kills me that my iPhone won’t alert me to new emails… some sort of glitch I assume as I’ve centuple checked the settings to the point where I’m starting to wear swipe marks into my screen protector.

That aside, I have definitely enjoyed being back on the blog and it feels really good to get back into writing regularly. Not that video games aren’t fulfilling, but it doesn’t have that same satisfaction of writing something to completion. Although I do have the Jet Pack in Fallout 4 and I am abusing its power to get pretty much everywhere.

My writing as of late has been entirely history, backgrounds and character descriptions. The reason for all of this? I’m trying to cut down on inconsistencies in my writing. Once a person’s eye colour is mentioned, it should always be that colour. Hopefully. Also, I really want to flesh out the main areas for the story so that I can keep them alive. Some of the hardest things for me as an author is describing scenes when that isn’t the most important thing that is going on.

Take this example. I can remember vividly the conversation I had with my Mother when my Father had passed away. Do I remember what I was wearing? Do I remember where I was? Do I remember what was around me in the room?

The answer is no, no and no. I remember the following vague details: I was most likely wearing jeans and a collared shirt, I was at work and I remember I was in the office. I remember pacing back and forth as the conversation went on, but I always do that. The rest of that day is more of a blur. I’m not saying this because I’m looking for sympathy, but I’m saying those details did not matter. So in a scene involving the death of a character, I probably won’t be using all of the senses. I’ll be more importantly using the emotions of the protagonist and supporting characters because that is why the scene is there.

That being said, keeping a busy scene hustling and bustling while the characters are a part of the scene is something I managed to accomplish in this story. There used to be the initial description setting the scene, and then the characters acted around it like everyone stood around like statues. Now, there is a flow where the busy street is experienced through the protagonist’s eyes. Do I have room to improve? Always!

Anyway, as I plot out the next two novels in the Jefferson Trilogy, I can’t help but remember how hard it was to actually write a novel in the first place. The only thing that really got me there in the end was putting one word after the other. NaNoWriMo was a fantastic help for that, and now that I know I can write a novel, the next one is that much easier.

How are you all doing out there? Is your writing going to plan?

Just remember, you’ll never find the time to write… if you don’t make the time.

The Work Week

*Check email* *Be Disappointed* *Check email again*

The funniest part about the above chain of events is that I’ve been repeating this roughly one hundred times a day without considering publishers probably aren’t even returning to work until this week.

Hilarious.

On the other hand, since submitting my story to HarperCollins I’ve been talking a lot more about my story… and carrying a bit more stress. My wonderful work colleagues asked me if everything was okay to which I told them of my submission. A few people understood, but more than a few asked me more questions about it.

What’s it about? How did you come up with that? How many words is it? When did you write it? How long did it take you? Why did you write it? When will they get back to you?

Not that I thought my coworkers were cold, unfeeling monsters, but I’d always just considered the fact that my work life and my personal life were very separate and that I don’t fit the mold that my company unofficially has. It felt good to have people getting excited and interested in my story and as I looked around, I felt a bit better about the team I work with.

Although I also spoke at length with a customer who was having trouble with her eReader about it as well, which was a weird feeling and also pretty exciting. The questions she was asking were actually very deep questions that made me think long and hard.

What sets your novel about magic apart from Harry Potter and other such stories? How does the magic work in your novel? Do you have enough female characters?

Admittedly, I don’t have as many leading ladies as I should, although Jefferson is near ambiguous enough to be either. To be honest, it wouldn’t kill me as a person to think of him either way, even if someone suggested I changed him to a female lead, I’d still love the story. Strange to think the protagonist could be either, but my antagonist must be a male. I have a very strongly defined image of him and could even write a novel about his journey before he met Jefferson. In fact, that’s not a bad idea.

The world of Jefferson’s story has seven novels in my head. Three directly including Jefferson, one prequel about Gabriel and three novels (much more mature) set hundreds of years after the events of Jefferson’s Trilogy explaining the division of the land and how magic has progressed over the course of time. I’ve already begun on the first one of that trilogy and the word count’s just over fifty thousand!

For today, my writing is turning to some background on Jefferson’s world and the characters within it. While I’m waiting for any news (hopefully) from HarperCollins, I’ll be fleshing out the depth of my story. As for you fellow writers out there, how goes your own writing? Did you make a New Year’s Writing Resolution? Let me know, maybe we can help each other!