Jeff Wheeler's Blog, page 3

Cover Reveal – First Argentines Book 1 (Knight’s Ransom)

I know we’re still in the middle of the launch period for my Grave Kingdom series, but I’m just so thrilled to be able to share the cover art for the series that comes out in January 2021.

The First Argentines series is part of the Kingfountain world, a prequel series if you will, about the founding of the Argentine dynasty. While many of the places will be familiar, the characters are all new, you’ll visit new lands, and I hope you will fall in love with all of them as much as I have. This is the first book of a four-book series and I hope you enjoy the little teaser about it on Amazon.

https://amzn.to/3ih1OSN

The cover artist is Shasti O’Leary-Soudant who has done many amazing covers for me before. Feast your eyes on her latest creation!

Also, stay tuned for another exciting announcement coming later this month (dum-dum-dum)!

The Future of Writing and AI

I was talking to one of my brothers and his family recently and learned that his baby daughter’s first words were “Alexa-stop!”

While working at Intel, I learned a lot about AI (artificial intelligence) and how computers were able to learn and do many tasks better than humans. When I went to the International Writing Conference in China a few years ago, I went to a popular bookstore in Shanghai and found an AI device to help readers discover the next book to read. Just by standing in front of the screen, it analyzes you and then offers up reading suggestions that are statistically likely to be interesting to you. Since I don’t know Chinese, I didn’t really understand its recommendations!

AI isn’t just Alexa picking a song to listen to. It impacts readers through advanced algorithms that help suggest books you may like to read based on other people with the same interests as you. But can AI be applied to the craft of writing itself?

Actually, the answer is yes.

Last year, I joined with many other indy authors (including a few friends of mine) to become a founding author at Authors AI after I learned about the research of Matt Jockers, a professor at Washington Statue University. He’s one of the founders of Authors AI and is using a tool he’s invented to help writers (both new authors and bestselling authors) quick analyze a manuscript for all the ingredients that make a bestseller.

I’ve had several of my books analyzed (like The Queen’s Poisoner, The Killing Fog, The Wretched of Muirwood, and Storm Glass). Each book is different and the results were not the same. It’s not a cookie-cutter report but an analysis of pacing, narrative arc, rhythm, characters, dialogue vs narrative, explicit language, readability and other indicators as well. A human editor trying to provide this level of feedback would require hours and hours, not just reading the book but analyzing it. But the AI tool (named Marlowe) can do all of it in less than 60 minutes and provide a custom 25-page report.

Along with other bestselling founding authors, I’ve contributed some of my writing to help Marlowe get it right. Each manuscript that gets uploaded into the tool adds to its collective wisdom.

Now don’t worry, Authors AI isn’t going to replace writers! I think my job is safe. What I do think is it’s going to help improve the learning curve for the craft by providing a much faster feedback cycle than what you’d get asking all your friends for advice. Many of us who have been part of it for a while have been using the feedback to analyze our early novel drafts. I can also see it possibly being a really helpful tool for acquisition editors, agents, and publishers to get through the slush pile faster.

The Authors AI website launched this week. If you’re a writer yourself or interested about the future of technology and writing, stop by their website and have a look at sample reports for The Handmaid’s Tale, Little Women, or The Firm.

Website: https://authors.ai/

Welcome to the future! (The one without Bill & Ted…)

Announcing my new series

While it feels a little strange announcing a new series before you’ve had the chance to finish reading The Grave Kingdom, well…book one is already available for pre-order, so I’ve decide to spill the beans, let the cat out of the bag, and tell you all what is coming next!

I am super excited to announce that I’m under contract with 47North again to bring you another series set in the world of Kingfountain!

My editor decided to leave Amazon Publishing and now I’m working with the capable and delightful Adrienne Procaccini who will edit this series. She and I have a lot in common–a love of Star Wars, medieval history, and one of our mutual favorite authors is Sharon Kay Penman. Let me also say that she is also really excited about this news as well. She’s read many of my books and after reading the first book, told me “I have to say this one might be my favorite.”

Let me set the stage for you. This series is set in the Kingfountain world several centuries before the events of The Queen’s Poisoner. It is the origins of the Argentine family and the dynasty you’ve read about. It will be told in four books and I’m nearly done writing the second, so I’m half-way done. That means very little wait in between them! The series is called The First Argentines. If someone has never read any of the Kingfountain books before, they can start right here. But if you have, it will make it all the more enjoyable.

Book 1, Knight’s Ransom, will debut on January 26, 2021. You can pre-order it here: https://amzn.to/2Ytrns7

Stay tuned for the cover reveal, which should be happening in the near future. Shasti O’Leary-Soudant, who designed the original Kingfountain books, is back on the job! And I know you’ve all missed your favorite narrator too!

It has been so much fun writing in this world again. This series is an adventure which will take your breath away.

I’m so glad I can finally share the news!

-Jeff

 

P.S. took this picture at Wartburg Castle in Germany in January…it is *not* where I’ve been social-distancing.

I finished watching “The Chosen”

Just found out that school is cancelled for the next three weeks for my kids. Maybe more. Does it feel like every day the world rattles and what was normal isn’t anymore? In 1989, I was working at a retail job when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck during the middle of the World Series between the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants. I hunkered down beneath the desk in the back room while things flew off the shelves (literally) and I bounced around beneath the desk like a ping pong ball. When I made it back home that night, we were the only house in the area that had power because of my dad’s generator. It was strange approaching it down a dark street and seeing light coming from its windows when the rest of the neighborhood was dark.

The ’89 earthquake wasn’t the only disaster I’ve been through. You’ve had your own as well. It’s normal to be afraid when life is turned upside down. But we’re going to make it through this. We’ll learn lessons from it and hopefully prepare for other unexpected events in the future. Right now, we’re getting daily, even hourly, blasts of fear and doubt about the world. I’d like to offer a source of light that has been a big uplift to my family.

We finished watching the first season of a new TV series called The Chosen. I normally don’t recommend TV shows or movies because people have such different tastes. I discovered this show from a friend who watched it with his family. They all loved it. The Chosen is a dramatization of the calling of the apostles and takes place during the time of the New Testament. It provides some fictional, although realistic, backstories to people like Matthew, Peter, and Nicodemus. The scripts are amazing. The acting is truly remarkable. The production crew did such a great job making you feel that you’re in the Holy Land during the Roman occupation. It’s part history lesson, part soap opera, and totally uplifting and inspiring. I have to say that I’m so impressed with Dallas Jenkins and his crew and what they’ve accomplished and hope they fulfill their vision of filming seven more seasons. You all know that I value “Virtus” themes in the books that I write. It was an absolute pleasure to see an entire TV series involving those themes. It’s a story about Jesus unlike any I’ve seen in decades and how he takes flawed people and out of control circumstances and makes things better.

You can watch it for free on Vidangel.com for the next two weeks. After watching it, maybe you will buy the DVD as I did to help fund future seasons.

With so much tumult and fear, we need more comforting words. We need hope. We need light. So here is a message taught by Jesus during the Sermon on the Mount that has been meaningful to me this last week:

Matthew 6:25-26

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

Be safe everyone!

-Jeff

 

Cover Reveal – Grave Kingdom Book 3 (Immortal Words)

I’m thrilled to announce the cover reveal for the 3rd book in the Grave Kingdom series. It’s a little weird that all 3 covers are done before the first book has hit the shelves, but…soon…I promise! This series has been an epic journey for me and one that I can’t wait to share.

Again, Shasti did an amazing job visualizing the cover and the colors…wow! They really pop.

I can’t wait until this comes out. Enjoy the sneak peek at the cover and stay tuned for an announcement coming later about what’s coming after this series. I’ve been busy writing and have a secret I can share soon.

 

-Jeff

Finding the Story Inside You

Not many people know the story of how I became a full-time author. It’s a story about setting goals, failing, trying again, trying new things, failing again, sticking with it. It’s full of twists and turns, a lot like my novels. For years I have wanted to tell the story, to share it with other writers to help motivate and inspire them to hang in there.

Over a decade ago I took a writing class from Terry Brooks which changed my thinking on many things related to the path to publishing. It was a turning point moment. He gave me some advice which really helped make a difference in how I approached the craft. After many years of waiting for the “right opportunity” to share these experiences, I literally felt compelled to write about them this year, even though I was in the middle of working on a new series (The Grave Kingdom) and publishing my e-zine. When I finally started writing it this summer, it flowed out of me like water trying to burst out. I’m hoping it will be insightful to fellow writers still on the journey to their success. I also think it will be enjoyable for anyone who loves my books and wants to know where all this imagination came from and how my life experiences forged who I am today and why I write fantasy novels instead of thrillers or historical fiction. I used to write both.

I’ll admit I’m nervous about this new book coming out. It’s a true story, it’s my story, and I don’t pull any punches of where I made mistakes and some of the life lessons I experienced which were very painful as well as unbelievably cool.

I’m often asked for writing advice by people just starting their journey. This story is also for you. It’s not easy. It takes a lot of work to write a million words.

It will be published November 25, 2019 in print, e-book, and audio (and yes, I’ll be doing the narration myself)

Pre-order on Kindle here: https://amzn.to/35ArwLt

(sorry, can’t create pre-order pages for the print book or audio before it comes out)

 

Cover Reveal – Grave Kingdom Book 2 (Buried World)

The cover art for the Grave Kingdom series is truly epic. Shasti O’Leary Soudant, who did my Kingfountain world, has also done this one. So even though you haven’t seen the first book yet, it’s time to reveal the cover for Book 2 of the series – The Buried World.

Get ready for an adventure that will take you into worlds you haven’t been to before! I’m so excited for this series to launch next year. I hope you love it.

 

One more thing.

 

It’s a long wait until then, right? Well, there’s another story that I’ve been dying to tell. Watch for a surprise announcement next month about a new story that’s coming before the holidays. Stay tuned…

 

 

 

Cover Reveal – The Grave Kingdom series is coming…

Creativity strikes people in many ways, but for me, it often happens when I mash-up two different ideas. By taking two very different things and combining them, something new and intriguing emerges.

After working so hard to finish the Harbinger series and mashing up some of my other worlds, I wanted to try something new. To create a new world that didn’t borrow from the legends I’ve already told.

I’ve been fascinated by martial arts since Karate Kid came out and I’ve studied several branches of kung fu. I also loved the film “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” and learned about the origin of wuxia novels. Last year, I had an opportunity to spend a month in China and visited the ancient palaces and learned even more about the unique culture there. There was another plot idea that I’d been saving since a trip our family took to Alaska, but it was in  China that the two ideas collided and created my new series – The Grave Kingdom.

This is an adventure story. It’s fantasy but it doesn’t leverage any of my previous magic systems or worlds. It’s something new, something exciting and dangerous, and I’m so thrilled to announce that the first book, The Killing Fog, will be released in March 2020. All three books in this series are slated to be published in 2020, so you won’t have to wait long to see how Bingmei’s adventure unfolds. I think you will like our new heroine. She’s been so fun to write and has a story worth telling.

You can pre-order the first book here: https://amzn.to/2xHTqp0

I will be updating my website soon with some additional details about this new world. Stay tuned!

Coming soon…

Thank you for stopping by. I wanted to share some news first of all. The last short story I’ve written about Ankarette from the Kingfountain series will be coming out in a stand-alone Kindle version. She’s one of my all-time favorite characters and a fan favorite as well. In fact, I just got a message recently from a fan who named an RPG character after her. That’s pretty sweet. This was the last story I intend to write about her, and if you’d like to add it to your collection, you can pre-order it on Kindle here:

https://amzn.to/2IdQaJr 

Over the years, I’ve had many letters from fan asking me to write stories based on some of the characters from my different worlds. After giving this some thought, I’ve decided to do this. It might be a backstory. A character who doesn’t get a lot of “screen time”. Or just a character sketch so you know what happens to someone. Interestingly, one of the characters I’ve gotten this request about on many occasions is the Kishion from the Covenant of Muirwood series. So it’s my plan to write a short story/novella about him next and we’ll see where this goes. I’ll try to squeeze these in between novels and publish them from time to time. I’ll let you know when the next one becomes available.

I’ve also been preparing to teach two classes for the upcoming Storymakers 2019 conference. One of the classes is called Worldbuilding 505 and the other is called The How of Creativity. It’s been almost 5 years now that I’ve been writing full-time and have several more million words under my belt. Developing these classes has helped me hone my thinking around the craft. I’ve also been reading a lot of books lately which have resonated with me as a writer (Stephen King’s On Writing, Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, and Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly just to name a few). Something I’ve wanted to do for many years now is create a non-fiction book about the craft of writing, creativity, and sharing some of the tips I’ve learned over the years. It’s not really a memoir, not a how-to guide, but more a way of thinking past the difficult trials authors have to pass through in order to make writing a consistent part of their lives. Anyway, I think I’ll get around to this eventually. As I’ve given talks about these topics, I feel I have a strong message to share.

I truly appreciate the support you’ve all been during my writer’s journey. Some of you are pretty riled up with me for how Prism Cloud ended, and I don’t blame you! Thankfully, Broken Veil is just around the corner. Hang in there!

And last, some pix from Zion’s National Park in southern Utah. Let’s just say the trip helped stoke my imagination!

Until next time,

 

-Jeff

 

 

The Power of Short Stories

You know, short stories have been on my brain recently. I invited my bud Charlie Holmberg here to blog about them a few months ago. I also finished reading, for the first time, Stephen King’s memoir “On Writing” and he had some really practical advice to new writers about starting there. More on this later. I also just finished participating as a juror in the 2019 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards (https://www.artandwriting.org/) and got to read many flash fiction stories and short stories by young writers all over the US.

 

So let’s talk about it. What’s so important about short stories? Why are they so powerful? The answer may surprise you.

 

The process for landing a publishing deal is basically still the same after a hundred years. Yes, it’s possible to indy publish (and yes, I think that’s a good thing) but let’s wind the process backwards and I think you’ll see how short stories fit into it. Author gets a publishing contract with a publisher. Check. Back up a step. More times than not, the deal was arranged between an agent and the publisher. There are exceptions, but stick with me a moment longer. Still going backwards. Author searches for the agent. Ah, now we’re getting closer. What sets the author apart from other authors trying to break into the field?

 

Publishing credits. Bingo. We found it. It’s where the author tells the agent, “look, I’ve been published before. This story in ABC magazine. This story in XYZ magazine. And so forth. The longer the list, the more times the author has made it past the slush pile and been noticed by editors. Without a publishing credit, especially a *paid* one, the agent might pass and look at another query letter and move on.

 

So short stories are a vital part of the writing ecosystem. It’s where authors learn the craft of telling stories and editors weed out the amateurs.

 

As I learned in Stephen King’s memoir, he submitted short stories all over the place. The first ones got published for free and he only received some complimentary copies. That’s a start! Then he worked up the food chain a bit and landed some stories where he got paid a few hundred dollars. Not enough to pay the bills, but they definitely added to his publishing credits. Then he found an agent, then he landed a book deal for Carrie, and then—ba ba boom—he sold the paperback rights and it catapulted his career.

(Stephen King in his writer’s lair long ago)

 

But it had to start somewhere.

 

Short stories.

 

It was my creative writing teacher in college, Mr Hannah, who said that my short story “The Wishing Lantern” would make a great children’s book. That was my first published story in a New York literary newspaper. Long time ago! I submitted to other magazines after that and yes, got a lot of rejection letters. It’s hard to stay motivated.

(this is my then-girlfriend/now-wife and I circa 1993 – we were babies!)

 

But the best creative writing class I ever took wasn’t in school. It wasn’t even a class. There are many ways to learn the skills of a trade. My friends Jeremy Whitted, Brendon Taylor, and I created Deep Magic e-zine in 2002 to help authors (including ourselves) get published but also to see things from an editor’s point of view. We didn’t start paying, at first, but having to go through the slush pile looking for gems really trained my eye to spot good storytelling. And it taught me to be a better writer. With the e-zine I was able to interview some of the top authors and pick their brains. I interviewed George RR Martin before he was a big deal. I interviewed Robin Hobb, Brandon Sanderson, and even the guy who wrote the original script for Pirates of the Caribbean and Count of Monte Cristo…Jay Wolpert. I learned a ton! It showed me not only how so many stories look and sound alike. But the gems—how they rose to the top.

 

I closed down Deep Magic in 2006 to focus on my own writing but I was glad, ten years later, to open it again, paying pro rates and giving authors all over the world a chance to earn one more publishing credit. To help a few get one step closer to realizing their dream of publishing a book. Here’s a note we received after accepting a story in Deep Magic last year. If we really like something, even though it doesn’t meet our guidelines, we will often work with the author to fix it. This is just such a case: “This is my first sale at full professional rates after something like 200 previous attempts.  As you might expect, I am over the moon.  I want to express my gratitude to the editorial board, and particularly to Jeff Wheeler for giving me the opportunity to revise the original submission to meet DM’s specifications. Not many publications would have been as generous.”

 

And that’s why I also agreed to be a juror for the 2019 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards this year. Each story had passed a hurdle of being one of the best from a high school writer somewhere in the country. I don’t know their names, where they are from, but just like I do with Deep Magic, I was looking for the gems. And I found some. I don’t know about you, but isn’t it magical discovering an author for the first time? One that you end up really liking?

 

That’s why short stories are so powerful. They are the seeds that grow into trees. And writers love it when readers leave a few encouraging words. You have no idea how it makes up for the years of toil and sacrifice. It waters the seeds and adds sunshine.

(a redwood seed – super tiny but grows into a giant tree!)

 

It can take a while. It took over 21 years at my day job before the harvest started to come. But it was worth it.

 

So if you want to learn how to write stories, read short stories. If you want to find new cherished authors, read short stories.