Jon Sparks

#WIPSnips 14/3:
#WIPSnips are from Book 8 of The Shattered Moon.
There are five instances of ‘recommend’.
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…for me. Now I’m concentrating on the fiction and though I’m keen to sell more books, I’m absolutely not thinking about money or audience as I write.
And that’s wonderful.

#WordWeavers 14/3: Is selling your work for money important to you when you write?
For over 30 years I was writing for money almost every day, and I had to think about the audience as I was writing. But I also wrote fiction on the side, and that was…
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…Star Trek might seek out new life and new civilisations, but it tells the stories of those encounters in highly traditional ways. Storytelling is as old as humanity, and is a big part of what makes us human.

#WritersCoffeeClub 14/3: Do you think readers want new experiences in structure or narrative, or do they prefer what's familiar?
Well, ‘new experiences in structure or narrative’ sounds like the sort of experimental writing that turns most readers off…
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‘I wish I could push ChatGPT off a cliff’: professors scramble to save critical thinking in an age of AI As AI has upended the way students learn, academics worry about the future of the humanities – and society at large

“There’s kind of defeatism, this idea that there’s no stopping technology and resistance is futile, everything will be crushed in its path,” said Clune, the Ohio State professor. “That needs to change … We can decide that we want to be human.”
Worrying reading, but there’s hope too.

#WIPSnips 13/3:
#WIPSnips are from Book 8 of The Shattered Moon.
There’s no direct violence among main characters, but five instances of the word ‘fight’.
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…borrowing a specific trait from another author’s character. Can anyone tell who it is?
And now Hedric’s passed the habit on to his daughter…

#WordWeavers 13/3: Tell us about a quirk your SC has.
Hedric has the habit, at moments of strong emotion or needing deep thought, of pulling off his glasses and polishing the lenses—even if they’re already clean. This is a very rare (for me) case of…
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…only spoke to/emailed people like Fix the Fells, I spent a day at a footpath conference in the Lake District. I almost felt like a proper journalist.

#WritersCoffeeClub 13/3: Talk about an experience when you consulted an expert for a piece of writing.
For clear examples of direct consultation, I turn to my non-fiction career. When writing a piece about mountain bikes and erosion, for example, I not…
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The Kanchenjunga Manifesto—Chapter Thirty-four Continuing this serialised novel of murky goings-on in the great outdoors.

Continuing this serialised novel of murky goings-on in the great outdoors.
Free to read.

#WIPSnips 12/3:
#WIPSnips are from Book 8 of The Shattered Moon.
I didn’t need to search to know there are no instances of ‘shimmy’. I reckon ‘eeled ‘ has the right sort of vibe.
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…read it well away from my usual writing spots.
2: Pass said ebook on to my partner for her to read. This is the nervous bit!

#WritersCoffeeClub 12/3: How do you "stress test" your work?
1: When it feels close to ready, export to Atticus and format it as if for publication. Export to ePub and read it on the iPad. Best of all…
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…change anywhere near fast enough. The best consoler is Railu, who’s genuinely suffered more than Jerya has. This gives her a perspective on how much progress has been made, as well as all that remains undone.

#WordWeavers 12/3: How could someone who knows your MC well console them after the last time you made them suffer?
Jerya suffers, not from anything I do, but because the world is the way it is, and all the efforts of herself and others aren’t delivering…
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#WIPSnips 11/3:
#WIPSnips are from Book 8 of The Shattered Moon.
There are no instances of ‘resident’ but six of ‘residence’.
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…perhaps distressingly so. That’s hard: in current WIP I need someone to feel strong aversion to a character just because they are trans (in our terms, their context is different). I don’t like it!

#writerscoffeeclub 11/3: Does your writing reflect your morals? How so?
On the whole, yes; it would be odd if it didn’t. Of course you sometimes have to try and get into the head of someone whose values (a better word than ‘morals’, btw) are different…
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Wimsey found himself dragged and hurtled by strong hands to his car. Somebody scrambled in beside him. It was the sluicekeeper, still moaning, 'I told 'em, I told 'em!' Another thunderous crash brought down the weir across the Thirty Foot, in a deluge of tossing timbers. Beams and barges were whirled together like straws, and a great spout of water raged over the bank and flung itself across the road. Then the sluice, that held the water back from the Old Wale River, yielded, and the roar of the engines as the cars sped away was lost in the thunder of the meeting and overriding waters.

#WordWeavers: 11/3: Give an example of brilliant writing. What's special about it?
The description of the great flood in Dorothy L Sayers’s The Nine Tailors, which captures both the violence and the strange stillness which flooding can bring.
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#WIPSnips 10/3:
#WIPSnips are from Book 8 of The Shattered Moon.
There are four instance of ‘chapter’.
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…character throughout the main narrative is a slave with no formal education; but she reports conversations between others using more formal idioms. The prelude and postlude which frame the story are in different voices.

#WritersCoffeeClub 10/3: How informal is your prose? Is there a limit to informality?
In practice, it varies, as it must, according to which character we’re following at the time. An obvious example is Book 6, The Silence of Numikès, where the POV…
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…it’s pointless ‘imagining’.
Author’s note: in the timeline of the next book, Perriad is deceased and there is no individual ‘antagonist’ to take her place.

#WordWeavers 10/3: Antagonist POV: Imagine you achieved your goal. What’s next?
Perriad: I DID achieve my goal… but they took it away again before I could really begin to make a difference. They’re not going to give me another chance, so…
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The Kanchenjunga Manifesto—Chapter Thirty-three Continuing this serialised novel of murky goings-on in the great outdoors.

Continuing this serialised novel of murky goings-on in the great outdoors.
Free to read.

open.substack.com/pub/theshatt...

#WIPSnips 8/3:
#WIPSnips are from Book 8 of The Shattered Moon.
There is just one instance of ‘beam(ed)’.
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…most of the books take place in summer, because it’s only then that the Crossing of the mountains is possible.

#WritersCoffeeClub 8/3: Do the seasons influence your writing?
In my former career as an outdoor writer (and photographer), very much so, inevitably. As a fiction writer, the season I’m writing about often bears no relation to what’s outside the window. In fact…
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