Jon Cronshaw's Author Diary
370 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 days ago -Jon Cronshaw shares the ups and downs of his life as a visually impaired science fiction and fantasy author.
The British journalist turned independent author released his debut novel Wizard of the Wasteland in June 2017.
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Visit: http://joncronshaw.com for all the latest news and discover how you can claim your free novella, Addict of the Wasteland.
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Episodes
Jon's Author Diary - 114 - December 8, 2019
December 08, 2019 07:00 - 5 minutes - 2.51 MBWelcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending December 8, 2019. My wife and son have been ill this week, so I’ve not done as much writing as usual. My son was ill last weekend and was home on Monday, and then my wife got the same illness. I think it was probably the same virus that knocked me on my back a few weeks ago. I didn't get anything done towards The Ravenglass Chronicles, save for a bit of outlining. But I did manage to do some final editing tasks towards my non-fiction book...
Jon's Author Diary - 113 - December 1, 2019
December 01, 2019 11:07 - 8 minutes - 4.14 MBSupport Jon's work at https://patreon.com/joncronshawauthor
Jon's Author Diary - 112 - November 24, 2019
November 23, 2019 11:27 - 10 minutes - 4.78 MBSupport at https://patreon.com/joncronshawauthor
Jon's Author Diary - 111 - November 17, 2019
November 16, 2019 07:00 - 8 minutes - 4.19 MBWelcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending November 17, 2019. I was ill this week had what was probably the flu, so I was in bed for about four days. This was all the typical symptoms of cold sweats and waking up in the middle of the night full of snot and all that wonderful stuff. I felt well enough to get back to work on Thursday. It was a bit slow-going but it was good to get back into writing Death, which is episode 13 of The Ravenglass Chronicles. I managed to finish writing ...
Jon's Author Diary 110 - November 10, 2019
November 09, 2019 07:00 - 7 minutes - 3.64 MBWelcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending November 10, 2019. It’s been a busy week. Last weekend I went to see my family in Wolverhampton. We celebrated bonfire night a few days early—so there were lots of fireworks, a curry, and gin. I’m not sure if gin is a traditional bonfire night beverage, but it worked for me. I was a little bit concerned how my guide dog Digit would react to the fireworks that have been going off all week, but he’s been fine. Explosions don’t seem to faz...
Jon's Author Diary - 110 - November 10, 2019
November 09, 2019 07:00 - 7 minutes - 3.64 MBWelcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending November 10, 2019. It’s been a busy week. Last weekend I went to see my family in Wolverhampton. We celebrated bonfire night a few days early—so there were lots of fireworks, a curry, and gin. I’m not sure if gin is a traditional bonfire night beverage, but it worked for me. I was a little bit concerned how my guide dog Digit would react to the fireworks that have been going off all week, but he’s been fine. Explosions don’t seem to faz...
Jon's Author Diary - 109 - November 3, 2019
November 03, 2019 06:00 - 3 minutes - 1.6 MBSupport Jon at https://patreon.com/joncronshawauthor
Jon's Author Diary - 108 - October 27, 2019
October 27, 2019 06:00 - 6 minutes - 2.97 MBWelcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending October 27, 2019. This week has been half-term holidays in the UK, so I have been in dad mode. It’s been great spending quality time with my son—the kid is so imaginative! He could talk for England on the subject of Pokémon and got quite competitive over a few games of Mario Kart. I did manage to go over notes from beta readers for book 12 of The Ravenglass Chronicles and a short story set in the Ravenglass Universe for an anthology of st...
Jon's Author Diary - 107 - October 20, 2019
October 19, 2019 12:00 - 8 minutes - 3.85 MBVisit subscribepage.com/ravenglass to join the VIP mailing list. You will receive free stories and be first to know about new releases.
Jon's Author Diary - 106 - October 13, 2019
October 13, 2019 06:00 - 6 minutes - 3.26 MBWelcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending October 13, 2019. I managed to finish the first draft of The Hanged Man and am almost done with my second draft. Hopefully, I’ll have the final draft ready for the editor by the end of next week. Last week I mentioned that my guide dog Digit got attacked walking my son home from school, so I’ve had the fallout from that to deal with. The police tried to fob me off to the dog warden. But because Digit is an assistance dog, it is treated ...
Jon's Author Diary - 105 - October 6, 2019
October 06, 2019 06:00 - 8 minutes - 3.94 MBWelcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending October 6, 2019. It’s been a mixed bag of a week. It started well enough. I wrote a short story called The Princess and the Tailor for a charity anthology inspired by Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I took the theme of a person transforming into a monster and ran with it. It tells the story of the way Kat’s parents met in The Ravenglass Chronicles. And if you’ve read the series, you’ll know that things didn’t exactly go well. I want to thank eve...
Jon's Author Diary - 104 - September 29, 2019
September 28, 2019 14:16 - 5 minutes - 2.78 MBWelcome to my author diary. Support my work at https://patreon.com/joncronshawauthor
Jon's Author Diary - 103 - September 22, 2019
September 22, 2019 13:59 - 3 minutes - 1.94 MBWelcome to Jon’s author diary for the week ending September 22, 2019. It’s been a busy week. Last Sunday I launched episode 1 to 11 box set of The Ravenglass Chronicles, so I’ve been doing a lot things this week to get new readers interested in that. I want to thank everyone who has helped make it the number one new release in teen and young adult historical fantasy. I also want to thank anyone who left a review on the episodes one to four boxset after a one-star review dragged my star...
Jon's Author Diary - 102 - September 15, 2019
September 15, 2019 06:00 - 11 minutes - 5.34 MBOrder The Ravenglass Chronicles books 1-11 boxset HERE.
Jon's Author Diary - 101 - September 8, 2019
September 08, 2019 06:00 - 7 minutes - 3.49 MBWelcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending September 8, 2019. I’ve had a difficult but productive week. I started working on my first draft of The Hanged Man, which is episode 12 of The Ravenglass Chronicles. I’ve written the first four scenes, but it has been slow going. I think I need to revisit my outline and make it is strong as I can. It’s not there yet. I broke away from the story and focused instead on a new non-fiction book for authors called The Stoic Writer, which is a...
Jon's Author Diary - 100 - September 1, 2019
September 01, 2019 06:00 - 11 minutes - 5.41 MBWelcome to Jon’s Author Diary for the week ending September 1, 2019…yes, September. I’ve had a productive week. If you’ve been receiving my newsletters for a while, you now that I've been telling myself not to start new projects until I clear the backlog of ongoing projects. Well, I failed that this week. I’ve been working on a new prequel for The Ravenglass Chronicles. It’s set about nine months before the events of The Magician, and gives some more insight into Kat’s life and how she...
Jon's Author Diary - 099 - August 25, 2019
August 25, 2019 06:00 - 2 minutes - 1.44 MBWelcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending August 25, 2019. This week has been a bit of a mixed bag. A virus knocked me back for a couple of days, so this gave me chance to read a big chunk of Anthony Ryan's Blood Songs, book one in his Raven Shadow series. It’s a grimdark epic fantasy set in military order, so it ticks a lot of boxes for me. I’m about two –thirds through, and it’s a great story so far. I managed to finish the third draft of Justice, which is book 11 of The Rave...
Jon's Author Diary - 098 - August 18, 2019
August 18, 2019 11:00 - 4 minutes - 1.97 MBVisit subscribepage.com/ravenglass to join the VIP mailing list. You will receive free stories and be first to know about new releases.
Jon's Author Diary - 097 - August 11, 2019
August 11, 2019 06:00 - 13 minutes - 6.29 MBWelcome to my author diary for the week ending August 12, 2019. Support my work at https://patreon.com/joncronshawauthor
Jon's Author Diary - 096 - August 4, 2019
August 04, 2019 06:24 - 9 minutes - 4.39 MBWelcome to Jon's author diary for week ending August 4, 2019. It’s been a slow week in terms of actual writing. I have been in holiday mode, so I've been doing dad stuff. My mother came to stay and took a daytrip to Blackpool in scorching sunshine. I spent most of the day nipping between areas of shade and pouring bowls of water for my guide dog, Digit. It's been difficult to keep any kind of writing routine, so I’ve been snatching moments here and there to do small tasks, such as gat...
Jon's Author Diary - 095 - July 29, 2019
July 29, 2019 14:47 - 11 minutes - 5.27 MBWelcome to Jon's author diary for July 29, 2019. Last week was the 10th anniversary of my wife and me getting married. So we went to Scotland to spend a week in a log cabin enjoying wine and a hot tub. We then went to Edinburgh, where I attended the 20books conference, and got to meet some great authors and catch up with some old friends. So my head is still spinning from that. I’m what you’d describe as an outgoing introvert—I can deal with meeting new people, but when it’s over, I just...
Jon's Author Diary - 094 - July 21, 2019
July 21, 2019 06:00 - 4 minutes - 2.35 MBHello, welcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending July 21, 2019. I have finished my first draft of Blind Reset! It’s taken me over a year, but I've done it. It's a good feeling to know that it’s not an abandoned project, just postponed one. I also got Wheel of Fortune back from a proofread, so I just need to write an author's note and format it, so I’ll probably get that out in the first week of August. I've also been carrying on my rewrite of Knight of the Wasteland, so am abou...
Jon's Author Diary - 093 - July 14, 2019
July 14, 2019 06:00 - 5 minutes - 2.74 MBWelcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending, July 14, 2019. I’ve had another productive week. I’ve been working on my first draft of Blind Reset, my follow-up to Blind Gambit. I'm just about to write the final six chapters, so I should have a first draft of this book ready by the middle of next week. Consider I abandoned this book a year ago, it feels great to know I’ve nearly got the story out of my head. Miracle mornings I’ve continued to get up at 4.45am every morning to g...
Jon's Author Diary - 092 - July 7, 2019
July 07, 2019 06:00 - 7 minutes - 3.78 MBWelcome to Jon's Author Diary for the week ending July 7, 2019. This week has been characterised by getting first drafts done. I complete the first drafts of Cleric of the Wasteland, the Black Death trilogy, and Black Death: London. Black Death: London Now, I’m not quite sure what Black Death: London will end up being. It could work as a standalone novella, my co-author could write his own point of view story around it, or I could write another point of view character and turn it i...
Jon's Author Diary - 091 - June 30, 2019
June 30, 2019 06:00 - 8 minutes - 4.08 MBWelcome to my author diary for the week ending June 30, 2019. I’ve had another productive week. I’ve continued getting up at 5am in order to get a few extra hours work done before everyone else in the house wakes up I wrote the first draft of Justice, which is book 11 in The Ravenglass Chronicles. I also got book 9 The Hermit from the editor and has received a final proofread. It’s now formatted and ready to go, so it’ll be available on July 4. I’ve just finished re-drafting book three...
Jon's Author Diary - 090 - June 23, 2019
June 23, 2019 09:00 - 5 minutes - 2.44 MBVisit subscribepage.com/ravenglass to join the VIP mailing list. You will receive free stories and be first to know about new releases.
Jon's Author Diary - 089 - June 16, 2019
June 16, 2019 09:00 - 2 minutes - 1.37 MBVisit subscribepage.com/ravenglass to join the VIP mailing list. You will receive free stories and be first to know about new releases.
Jon's Author Diary - 088 - June 9, 2019
June 09, 2019 06:00 - 8 minutes - 4.09 MBWelcome to Jon's Author Diary for the week ending June 9, 2019. I am back at the writing desk after last week's half-term holiday and have been experimenting with a new schedule for my work. So instead of just focusing on one project at a time, I now work on a project that needs editing in the mornings and write first drafts and outlines during the afternoon. I’ll track how much I do over the next six weeks to see if this is working, or whether it is slowing me down. Writing Duri...
Jon's Author Diary - 087 - June 2, 2019
June 02, 2019 10:39 - 4 minutes - 2.28 MBWelcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending June 2, 2019. This week was the half-term holidays, so my wife and son have been at home. We visited my family in the Midlands, so it was great to catch up with my siblings. On the car journey, we listened to How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell. It was a lot of fun and vastly different to the movies. I think the only things they kept from the films were the setting and the character names. It was narrated by David Tennant, so that...
Jon's Author Diary - 086 - May 26, 2019
May 26, 2019 06:00 - 4 minutes - 2.28 MBWelcome to Jon's Author Diary for the week ending May 26, 2019. I carried on writing my non-fiction books. I sent Finish Your First Novel off to my beta readers to get some feedback and finished the second draft of the main body of Podcasting for Authors. The next step in that book is to write the appendices because the main section is principles on preparing a podcast and how to source and conduct interviews, etc. The appendices are going to be more technical walk-through guides on how ...
Jon's Author Diary - 086 [ May 26, 2019
May 26, 2019 06:00 - 4 minutes - 2.28 MBWelcome to Jon's Author Diary for the week ending May 26, 2019. I carried on writing my non-fiction books. I sent Finish Your First Novel off to my beta readers to get some feedback and finished the second draft of the main body of Podcasting for Authors. The next step in that book is to write the appendices because the main section is principles on preparing a podcast and how to source and conduct interviews, etc. The appendices are going to be more technical walk-through guides on how ...
Jon's Author Diary - 085 - May 19, 2019
May 19, 2019 11:00 - 4 minutes - 2.22 MBVisit subscribepage.com/ravenglass to join the VIP mailing list. You will receive free stories and be first to know about new releases.
Jon's Author Diary - 084 - May 12, 2019
May 11, 2019 11:59 - 4 minutes - 3.41 MBHello and welcome to my Author Diary for the week ending May 12, 2019. May 12 is my birthday. So happy birthday to me. I received a new guitar amp from my wife, so I’ll be annoying my neighbours/family with clumsy renditions of Queens of the Stone Age songs. I had a mixed bag of a week. It was a bank holiday on Monday so that meant one less writing day and then on Tuesday and Wednesday I was feeling pretty rough. I’m getting over what was basically a chest infection, so that was fun and ...
Jon's Author Diary - 083 - May 5, 2019
May 05, 2019 06:00 - 5 minutes - 3.89 MBHello, welcome to my author newsletter for the week ending May 5, 2019. I’ve had a very productive week. I managed to finish my first draft of The Hermit, episode nine of The Ravenglass Chronicles. I'm really pleased with how that went. I think it answers a few questions and raise more. I also finished writing the new scenes for the third Black Death novel. This was fast-paced, with a lot of drama and action. I really enjoyed getting to write a redemption story. As with all my first draf...
Jon's Author Diary - 082 - April 28, 2019
April 28, 2019 06:00 - 4 minutes - 3.53 MBHello, welcome to my Author Diary for the week ending April 28, 2019. I had a fun week. I’ve not done much in the way of work. My sister came to stay with her boyfriend and my nephew. My nephew is eight and my son is six, and they get on really well. I have to say it was a bit noisy, but they had a good time, so that's the main thing. In terms of actual work, I wrote two scenes for The Hermit (book 9 of The Ravenglass Chronicles), which brings my total up to four scenes! I also...
Jon's Author Diary - 081 - April 21, 2019
April 21, 2019 06:30 - 5 minutes - 4.07 MBHello, welcome to my Author Diary for the week ending April 21, 2019. This week has been a bit different to what I expected. My son went to stay with his grandma for a couple of days, so that gave me chance to do some writing. Because this wasn't scheduled work week, I decided to focus on the Black Death series, so I wrote twenty scenes—ten for book one and ten for book two—to fill in the gaps from losing one the collaborators. The scenes are very barebones at the moment—th...
Jon's Author Diary - 080 - April 14, 2019
April 14, 2019 06:00 - 6 minutes - 5 MBHello, welcome to my author update the weekend. In April 14, 2019. I've had a very busy week. Admittedly, most of it’s been spent playing with my son who is on his Easter holiday. We’ve been enjoying the sunshine, wrestling on his trampoline, and bingeing on David Attenborough programs. We watched the whole series of Frozen Planet and Galapagos. We also watched the movie Wreck-it Ralph, which I've never seen before. It's a kid’s movie a bit like e Shrek or Toy Story where there's a lo...
Jon's Author Diary - 078 - April 7, 2019
April 07, 2019 10:08 - 4 minutes - 3.3 MBJon managed to squeeze in some writing time to complete his third draft of Strength. Get the show a day early, plus regular short stories and early access to releases by joining Jon on Patreon. Visit: patreon.com/joncronshawauthor to get instant access for as a little as $1 a month. Email your questions to Jon (at) joncronshaw (dot) com or to @jlcronshaw on Twitter. Check out Jon’s other podcasts Stop Booking Around!, where he is mentoring an old school friend through the process of wr...
Jon's Author Diary - 079 - April 7, 2019
April 07, 2019 10:08 - 4 minutes - 3.3 MBVisit subscribepage.com/ravenglass to join the VIP mailing list. You will receive free stories and be first to know about new releases.
Jon's Author Diary - 078 - March 31, 2019
March 31, 2019 06:00 - 4 minutes - 2.98 MBJon completed his second draft of Strength just in time for four weeks away from writing. Get the show a day early, plus regular short stories and early access to releases by joining Jon on Patreon. Visit: patreon.com/joncronshawauthor to get instant access for as a little as $1 a month. Email your questions to Jon (at) joncronshaw (dot) com or to @jlcronshaw on Twitter. Check out Jon’s other podcasts Stop Booking Around!, where he is mentoring an old school friend through the process ...
Jon's Author Diary - 077 - March 24, 2019
March 24, 2019 09:51 - 5 minutes - 4.25 MBJon started work on his second draft of Strength. Get the show a day early, plus regular short stories and early access to releases by joining Jon on Patreon. Visit: patreon.com/joncronshawauthor to get instant access for as a little as $1 a month. Email your questions to Jon (at) joncronshaw (dot) com or to @jlcronshaw on Twitter. Check out Jon’s other podcasts Stop Booking Around!, where he is mentoring an old school friend through the process of writing his first novel and Otaku on ...
Jon's Author Diary - 076 - March 17, 2019
March 17, 2019 08:28 - 5 minutes - 4.12 MBJon completed his first draft of Strength and talks about taking the Margaret Atwood Masterclass. Get the show a day early, plus regular short stories and early access to releases by joining Jon on Patreon. Visit: patreon.com/joncronshawauthor to get instant access for as a little as $1 a month. Email your questions to Jon (at) joncronshaw (dot) com or to @jlcronshaw on Twitter. Check out Jon’s other podcasts Stop Booking Around!, where he is mentoring an old school friend through the ...
Jon's Author Diary - 075 - March 10, 2019
March 10, 2019 07:00 - 4 minutes - 3.5 MBJon was ill this week and talks about taking the Dan Brown Masterclass. Get the show a day early, plus regular short stories and early access to releases by joining Jon on Patreon. Visit: patreon.com/joncronshawauthor to get instant access for as a little as $1 a month. Email your questions to Jon (at) joncronshaw (dot) com or to @jlcronshaw on Twitter. Check out Jon’s other podcasts Stop Booking Around!, where he is mentoring an old school friend through the process of writing his fir...
Jon's Author Diary - 074 - March 3, 2019
March 03, 2019 07:00 - 6 minutes - 4.96 MBJon completed his third draft of The Chariot and talks about taking the Neil Gaiman Masterclass. Get the show a day early, plus regular short stories and early access to releases by joining Jon on Patreon. Visit: patreon.com/joncronshawauthor to get instant access for as a little as $1 a month. Email your questions to Jon (at) joncronshaw (dot) com or to @jlcronshaw on Twitter. Check out Jon’s other podcasts Stop Booking Around!, where he is mentoring an old school friend through the p...
Jon's Author Diary - 073 - February 24, 2019
February 24, 2019 05:30 - 3 minutes - 1.58 MBVisit https://www.subscribepage.com/ravenglass to join the VIP mailing list. You will receive free stories and be first to know about new releases.
Jon's Author Diary - 072 - February 17, 2019
February 17, 2019 07:30 - 6 minutes - 4.71 MBJon completed his rewrite of Wizard of the wasteland and carried on with his second draft of The Chariot. Get the show a day early, plus regular short stories and early access to releases by joining Jon on Patreon. Visit: patreon.com/joncronshawauthor to get instant access for as a little as $1 a month. Email your questions to Jon (at) joncronshaw (dot) com or to @jlcronshaw on Twitter. Check out Jon’s other podcasts Stop Booking Around!, where he is mentoring an old school friend thro...
Jon's Author Diary - 071 - February 10, 2019
February 10, 2019 17:00 - 4 minutes - 3.23 MBVisit https://www.subscribepage.com/ravenglass to join the VIP mailing list. You will receive free stories and be first to know about new releases.
Jon's Author Diary - 070 - February 3, 2019
February 03, 2019 08:00 - 3 minutes - 2.88 MBJon wrote through depression this week to write towards the first draft of The Chariot. Get the show a day early, plus regular short stories and early access to releases by joining Jon on Patreon. Visit: patreon.com/joncronshawauthor to get instant access for as a little as $1 a month. Email your questions to Jon (at) joncronshaw (dot) com or to @jlcronshaw on Twitter. Check out Jon’s other podcasts Stop Booking Around!, where he is mentoring an old school friend through the process of...
Jon's Author Diary - 069 - January 27, 2019
January 27, 2019 07:00 - 8 minutes - 5.97 MBJon finished his third draft of The Lovers and started work on the first draft of The Chariot. He talks about re-reading Moby Dick, meditation, and learning harmonica. Get the show a day early, plus regular short stories and early access to releases by joining Jon on Patreon. Visit: patreon.com/joncronshawauthor to get instant access for as a little as $1 a month. Email your questions to Jon (at) joncronshaw (dot) com or to @jlcronshaw on Twitter. Check out Jon’s other podcasts Stop ...
Jon's Author Diary - 068 - January 20, 2019
January 20, 2019 12:35 - 4 minutes - 2.47 MBJon spent the week writing the second draft of The Lovers, episode seven of The Ravenglass Chronicles. He talks about the book The Gulag Archipelago and his decision to join Patreon. Get the show a day early, plus regular short stories and early access to releases by joining Jon on Patreon. Visit: patreon.com/joncronshawauthor to get instant access for as a little as $1 a month. Email your questions to Jon (at) joncronshaw (dot) com or to @jlcronshaw on Twitter. Check out Jon’s other...