Jonathan's Scrivenings

Below is the rough draft of the first chapter of my current foray into the genre of urban fantasy. I am trying a few new things with this, both in the genre and in my writing process. As far as genre goes, I am writing the story as if magic is really a scientific process that is poorly understood. Cause and effect are understood, but the "why" isn't.  "Spells" are really just 'mathematical' equations that allow the magus to channel the "aether" in a specific way that gets a specific result. Basically, the magus "solves' the equation to get the desired result. I also wanted to avoid the trope of mysticism and such that most urban fantasy has. This is the normal world, just with a few new twists. As far as my writing process goes, I am experimenting with just using a basic outline and a few character and world notes to pull it together. Rise to Revolt has tens of thousands of world building notes, I wanted to see how my writing proc...

I am not an author. What I am is an aspiring  author, someone who has hopes of having a career as an author, where people pay me money in exchange for my stories. Right now, what I have is a completed novel that has so far earned me .45 cents and some outlines of stories in various stages of completion. And you know what? That is completely fine, Rome was neither built nor burned in a day. What I am trying to chart on this blog is the path that I follow on my way to whatever success I eventually wind up with, and to be an encouragement to anyone else out here who is trying to get off the ground, same as I am. Currently, I am an S List novelist, based on Larry Correia's Offical Alphabetical List of Author Success , which he defined as: S List – The Struggling Authors who’ve written something, but haven’t had any luck selling it yet. Authors with the most incredibly frustrating job in the universe. The Future of Writing. That's actually very encouraging because it gives...

Three men are dead in Fresno, after a man named Kori Ali Muhammad opened fire, hitting four white men in total and killing three of them. He is also suspected of the murder of a security guard this past Thursday.  A survey of his Twitter shows him using the well known Amish hate phrase " Allahu Akbar. " Not that you would know that from the AP, as they said that he was instead shouting "God is great" as he went on his murderous rampage.  True that is a rough  approximation of what the phrase means, but I am reasonably sure that everybody these days knows who is likely to be shouting that phrase as they murder the innocent.  It's the Amish of course.  Anything to further obfusticate the facts of the case and push the Narrative of Muslims(I mean Amish) as peace-loving, misunderstood individuals, not like those violent Christians who go to church on Sunday where they plot to further their terroristic reign over the world.  ABC is now ...

The Truth About Guns ran an article earlier today on the efforts of Illinois Democrats to create an Orwellian gun registry with mandated compliance. For the children of course. This totalitarianism is of course shared by most Democrats across the nation, they just can afford to be far more open about it from inside of the handful of states that they control from top to bottom. The article referenced similar laws currently afflicting Californians and made the following statement that really shows the trenchant totalitarianism of the California Democratic Party and the problems that occur for the law-abiding citizens who have the misfortune to be under them. . California’s new laws give gun owners three choices on what to do with their freshly outlawed self-defense tools. They can surrender their guns – without compensation – to police. Alternately, they can sell them to a dealer or ship them out of state. The Golden State’s too-smart-by-half legislature seems to disco...

I have chosen to keep from releasing R2R on any other platform other than Kobo. Why? Because when it comes down to it, I learned so much from writing it, and feel that I developed enough as a writer from writing it, that I do not want to put it on the market in its current state. It's a good story, and I love the universe...but I am very aware of the flaws that are present in it. It still is something I am proud of because I finished it, and because I feel that the universe building in it is a strong point. I read somewhere that only about one in four people who say they intend to write a novel, actually follow through and finish something.  I have no idea how reliable a statistic that is, but anyway you look at it, it is an accomplishment to actually finish writing a book. Too many aspiring authors are always talking about the great thing that they are going to write, but never actually get around to doing it...the difficulty of actually seeing a work through to com...

Peter Grant is one of my favorite indie authors writing today. I first discovered him when his western Brings the Lightning  came to my attention last year. Upon reading it, I found the first Western worth reading since Louis L'Amour's passing.  Quoting from the review that I left on Amazon:   The western novel once was a top seller, as the west faded into memory and nostalgia set in for that bygone era. Authors such as Zane Grey, William Raine, B.M. Bower, Max Brand and many others wrote engrossing novels that brought the mythical west to life. These novels emphasized the key aspects of the western mythos: self-sufficiency, integrity, a love and respect for America, and the need for a man to stand on his own two feet.   Sadly, as the authors faded into history themselves, the quality of the Western novel declined, and once the last great western author, Louis L'amour died, the genre completed its fall into decrepitude. Go to any bookstore today an...