A Tribute to Nanowrimo

During November 2011, I took part in the National Novel Writing month writing challenge.  The objective was to write at least 50,000 words by the 30^th November.  I succeeded in the challenge, writing at the time 51,000 words. A year later that Nanowrimo writing piece became Haldred Chronicles: Alyssa; my first novel.

Since then almost every year, I've taken part in Nanowrimo. It has been a fantastic experience each time, and has enhanced my writing extensively.  I have met and communicated with some extremely talented authors, been challenged to improve my writing, and taken full advantage of the huge range of tips and tricks offered by the Nanowrimo community.

5 years after that first big push into the world of writing, I'm still at it. Last week I finished my 2 short story submissions for the Mantic Games Nanowrimo-inspired writing competition, and submitted both. I'm currently working on the Haldred Chronicles: Shade synopsis, with a view to submitting to potential publishers.  I also have a fourth Haldred Chronicles novel to work on called ‘Anna’.

As something of a tribute to the last 5 years, you will find on Amazon for the first time, my third book ‘Haldred Chronicles: Shade’ free for downloading on Kindle.  It will be so for the next five days so if you’ve not already picked it up, now is a good time.  Like my other books, it had its beginnings as a Nanowrimo entry.

Shade on Amazon.com

Shade on Amazon.co.uk

To both the organisers and many participates in the Nanowrimo community, thank you all so much for all your encouragement, direction, advise, critique and most of all, for all the fun I’ve had during the many subsequent Novembers since I took my first steps into writing stories.  May the next 5 years be the same.

Until next time.

Summer update!

Whilst my activities blog wise have been scant, my activities in writing and real life have been busy indeed!

The 21^st June 2014 was my wedding day, and what glorious day it was.  My wife and I enjoyed the day with friends and family at the wonderful Malone Lodge in Belfast, after the ceremony itself at Windsor Baptist church.  The weather was excellent, the company great, and the day a massive success.

Afterwards, we then headed on our honeymoon to the Baltic sea on a 12 day cruise.  Whilst it wasn’t 12 days of sunshine, it was a wonderful time and we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, visiting such places as Helsinki and Copenhagen, as well as Bruges, Tallinn, Oslo and St Petersburg.  Inspiring and beautiful places all.

We’re both back at work now and I’m likewise, back to writing.

I’ve written over 36,000 words now for book 3 and still going strong.  I completed a review of what I had already completed last week and have masses of new ideas to follow up on.  It will not be long before I am contacting proof readers about checking over the first, official draft.

As well as this, I’ve now ideas for 16 additional novels to continue the series.  I’ve kept all these updated overtime and have a good idea how they will all tie together.  Along with prequel and parallel novels there are lot of interesting possibilities for the future of the Haldred Chronicles world!

In the meantime, updates on the blog will probably be few and far between as before, as I pool my time into finishing the book.  I’ll try and keep you all up to date as best I can.  I will continue to be active on social media meantime so for short snippets of information be sure to check the links below.  See you next time!

Facebook = www.facebook.com/haldredchronicles

Twitter = @jgwritesnovels

LinkedIn = uk.linkedin.com/in/jgcully

Pinterest = uk.pinterest.com/jgcully

Tumblr = jgcully.tumblr.com

Goodreads = www.goodreads.com/jgcully

Second post of 2014!

Second blog post of 2014!  Long overdue I know but life is busy.

Wedding preparations are proceeding a-pace and it’s been going very well.  We are on schedule!  Despite the busy times, I have still been writing and progress has been good.

Mat, my fantastic cover artist, has come up with a beautiful cityscape picture for the front cover of ‘Tales of Larrick City’.  Not only this, but he has also updated the front covers of Kalla and Alyssa as well!  The modifications are minor, but you all should notice a little extra unifying factor that has been added to the titles.  Check the links below to see the changes.

Amazon link Alyssa

Amazon link Kalla

As for ‘Tales of Larrick City’ itself, of the 7 stories I’ve written in the book, only 1 now remains to finish completely before the whole book is passed to the proof readers.  That and the ‘little extra something’ at the end of the book is almost done as well.  Fortunately it will be easy for you all to find out what that is as the book will be FREE!  As long as Amazon cooperate, which hopefully they will.

As well as book progress, I’ve been getting more involved in the LinkedIn writing community and have been active in several of the groups.  If you’re on LinkedIn yourself, my address is below.

uk.linkedin.com/in/jgcully/

As well as this, my Facebook page has seen a whole lot of extra attention since I started doing more with the LinkedIn groups.  Find it here if you’ve not already visited.

https://www.facebook.com/HaldredChronicles

There is of course my twitter account as well which has grown nicely in recent months.

https://twitter.com/jgwritesnovels

I also recently registered on Goodreads.com.  Find my author page below :)

https://www.goodreads.com/jgcully

So lots going on and lots to look forward too.  Whilst my blog posts won’t be as regular in the future (I’ll try to update at least once a month) I do hope that the next time I am posting I will have completed ‘Tales of Larrick City’ and it will be with my proof readers for checking.

Thanks all, until next time!

Other people's blog's...again!

As I’ve been working away on Tales of Larrick City (now up to 7500 words) I’ve again been taking a look at a lot of Blog’s out there.  Here are 4 posts in particular that I found very interesting.

First up, a post up by Toddi Gutner on the Entrepreneur site.  This post is all about your LinkedIn profile and gave me a lot to think about regards my own presence on the network.  It has a lot of hints and tips about improving how you as individual can present yourself on the network, although it is primarily aimed at company profiles.

http://m.entrepreneur.com/article/226895

Second, another ‘how to’ post, on, well, how to Blog!  It lays out in concise and practical terms just how to Blog properly and I’m already reading through it and thinking ‘yeah, I missed that step’.  Very useful for putting you on the straight and narrow and making yours updates not only more relevant to what you do, but also more interesting in general.  I hope to implement the suggestions in future posts.

http://m.blogher.com/how-set-blog

Next, a more writing centred post by Diane Mae Robinson on the Imogen Knight Blog. It’s about how to write a good children’s story.  Although only aspects of the post were relevant to what I’m doing (my stories are primarily directed toward teenager / adult level) it’s very well laid out and provides excellent advise.  Well worth the read for any writer of fiction.

http://imogenknightreikicircle.co.uk/plotting-for-children-plotting-plot-childrens-books/

Finally, if you’ve had enough of ‘advise’ post’s, here’s a fantastically funny post by the legendary Conan O’Brien, who has recently become an influencer on LinkedIn.  Yes, I’m scared too!

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131020183000-288872202-hello-linkedin?_mSplash=1

The need to blog more often

Well, tonight I’m not feeling the best.  I had to cancel some gaming I was hosting, which sucks as I was really looking forward to it.  However, I have managed to write up this blog and do some profile updates whilst the meds hopefully do there work to convince my guts that being sick is not a good career path.

As the title says, I need to blog more often.  I’ve started to realize the potential of blogging.

Blogging is supposed to inform people of what I’m up to; that bit I’ve gotten right.  Via this blog in its various forms across websites and forums, I’ve kept everyone up to date on what I’ve been doing on the writing front; word counts, plot plans, book plans, character interactions and all that other good stuff.

I’ve also occasionally posted up short stories to give you a little something extra to take a look through and get a glimpse of just what goes on in this dangerous mind of mine.

What I haven’t done is promoted any particular discussion, or informed on techniques used in my writing.  I’ve been talking about writing stories but not prompted anyone’s individual thoughts on writing.  I’ve proposed characters but not encouraged any engagement on them.  In essence, I need to get people talking instead of just reading a blog post and forgetting about it.

Fortunately, a lot of very talented ebook writers and bloggers have helped immensely in advising on just how to do this and get more from book blogging.  That, and they’ve been a great help in improving my various internet profiles.

An example of good blogging is this post from an interview with the author of ‘Wool’, currently one of the most popular ebooks ever.

It can be found here = http://writerunboxed.com/2013/09/23/the-year-of-the-reader-how-one-successful-indie-author-marketed-his-work-up-the-bestseller-lists/

Then there’s the advise I got from members of the Createspace community.  I’d like to publicly thank Eric from the createspace forums / blogs for helping me improve the next few links to my profiles (his own link is http://ericvanderhope.com/ please visit!)

My LinkedIn profile is now = uk.linkedin.com/in/jgcully

Much easier to remember I think you’ll agree.

My good reads profile is now = http://www.goodreads.com/jgcully

Again, much easier to remember and quote.

And he even helped me update my Author pages on Amazon too!

Amazon.com = http://www.amazon.com/author/jgcully

Amazon.co.uk = http://www.amazon.co.uk/JG-Cully/e/B00AJ3LPA2/

They now look a lot tidier and go directly to my internet pages on these sites.  Thanks again Eric!

Now for some news.  As of today I have officially started writing ‘Tales of Larrick City’.  It’s format will be a departure from the last two Haldred Chronicles books as this one is going to be a short story compendium and glossary of the series.  It’s also going to be a departure from a price point of view too, because when it’s released it will be free!  It will give me an excuse to try a few different writing styles and experiment more, as well as filling in some nice additional detail on characters and the Haldred Chronicle’s background.

In addition, I have decided that I will write book 4 as part of the November Novel Writing Month competition held by The Office of Letters and Light (www.nanowrimo.org).  This competition is the reason ‘Alyssa’ was finished and published in the first instance, so it will be good to get back to it.

This should mean that I will have at least the first drafts of my next 2 books done by the end of November.  It’s ambitious but I’m going to try as a little extra work at the start of the process makes all the difference.

So there we have it.  New ideas about blogging, new internet profiles on websites across the board and new plans for the future.  Lots happening!  Till next time everyone (when I hope to be updating as a much healthier individual).

Updating my internet profile!

The last week has been a whirlwind of activity.  Mostly to improve my internet profile :).

To start with, I am now officially registered on LinkedIn as an Author.  I have also taken the time to register with a few groups on LinkedIn as well which is already bearing fruit.  A lot of very good bloggers are on the network site, so I’m already learning a lot from fellow writers.

www.linkedin.com

Next update, the good people at Goodreads.com have registered me as an official author!  This fantastic website lists thousands of books and details on the authors, as well as customer reviews.  As such I have made sure that Alyssa and Kalla are both listed, along with info about myself.  As with LinkedIn I have registered with a few groups and blogs.  You can find Goodreads at the link below.

www.goodreads.com

Finally, I made sure to update my author central pages on both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.  They now have proper Bio’s and links set up.  You can find them at the links below.

Amazon.co.uk = http://www.amazon.co.uk/JG-Cully/e/B00AJ3LPA2/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1380285886&sr=8-1

Amazon.com = http://www.amazon.com/JG-Cully/e/B00AJ3LPA2/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1380285984&sr=8-1

I’ve been active on a lot of other sites and forums too but I’m taking my time with things, getting used to interactions and posting.

I also hope to blog a bit more often in the next while, and not just with book updates.  Should hopefully offer a more varied reading experience!  We'll see how it goes.

Till the next update everyone.