Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 37

Question of the week: the first mystery

It’s time for Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics.

This week’s question: if you read mystery novels, what was the first mystery novel you ever read? No wrong questions, obviously.

For myself, I think it was TELL NO ONE by Harlan Coben. This was way back in 2001, and I had a long car ride coming up. At that time, I didn’t read anything except fantasy and science fiction, but I had gotten TELL NO ONE as a present, and I didn’t have anything else to read in the car. So I started reading TELL NO ONE during the ride. It’s about a ER physician whose wife was murdered eight years ago. Then one day, out of the blue, the physician gets a message that could only have come from her. Suddenly people show up to kill him, and the physician finds himself on the run from the agents of a sinister billionaire.

I was definitely hooked, and I’ve read mysteries and thrillers on and off since then. I think this was good for me long-term since I ended up a writer, and it’s good for writers to read widely in different genres. You can always tell when a science fiction novel, for example, was written by someone who has never read anything but SF.

-JM

TALES OF THE SHIELD KNIGHT now available in audio!

I am pleased to report that TALES OF THE SHIELD KNIGHT, the collection of the SHIELD KNIGHT stories, is now available in audio, as excellently narrated by Brad Wills!

You can listen to it at Audible, Apple Books, Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon AU. It should be available on the other audiobook stores in a few weeks.

Recording sixteen different short stories with a lot of different characters is quite an undertaking, so I would like to thank Brad for all his hard work on this long and extremely complicated project, and also Neil & Mara of Dynamix Productions. I would also like to thank my listener. In summer 2023 I had Covid for a couple of months, which made me realize I couldn’t keep doing everything myself. Carving out 10+ hours to proof listen to a finished audiobook was a heavy lift, so I hired a listener to do the final proof listen of the audiobooks. Let’s just say the DRAGONSKULL series would not be in audio without her help!

Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter, since every so often I will give away one of the audio short stories from the collection for free.

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 203: 7 Bad Ways To Start Your Novel

In this week’s episode, we take a look at seven bad ways to open your novel and how to avoid their pitfalls. You can listen to the complete episode with transcript at the official Pulp Writer Show site.

-JM

Progress updates

Time for a end of the week (and month!) progress update.

Currently I am 38,000 words into SHIELD OF DARKNESS, 20,000 words into HALF-ORC PALADIN, and also 6,000 words into GHOST IN THE TOMBS.

I should note that this only puts me on Chapter 7 of 24 SHIELD OF DARKNESS. (The total number of chapters is probably going to increase in the final draft as I split up some of the longer ones.) I had hoped to have that out in June, but I strongly suspect that SHIELD OF DARKNESS is going to slip to mid-July. I’ve got a lot of home repair and multi-day commitments in June, so July is looking more likely for the book.

In audiobook news, recording for the short story anthology TALES OF THE SHIELD KNIGHT (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) is finished, and if all goes well that should be coming along in June.

-JM

Question of the Week: A Useful Smartphone?

It’s time for Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics.

This week’s question: what was the first smartphone you ever used, and what was the first time you decided it was useful and not a waste of money?

For myself, it was in 2013 when I got my first smartphone, a Samsung Galaxy S3. I hadn’t wanted to get a smartphone, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to find non-smartphones, so I finally bit the bullet and moved into the new technology. At the time I hugely resented it since I just wanted another flip phone.

When did I find it useful for the first time? I remember it distinctly. I was working in IT support at the time, and the next day I had to go activate some network ports in another building. The building in question had been built in the 90s before Wi-Fi, and so every room had something like a billion Ethernet ports in it. But network switches are expensive, and even though the building had something like five hundred Ethernet ports, only forty-eight of them could be active at any one time since that was how many ports the network switch had. So when anyone moved offices, an IT support minion (me) had to go over there and move the active network ports in the network closet.

I used to take a notebook with me on those kinds of calls so I could write down the port numbers and then match them up to the appropriate ports in the switch closet. But as I was doing this, it occurred to me that I didn’t have to write down the port numbers, I could just take a picture of them and then look at the picture on my phone!

This was much more efficient than writing down a bunch of port numbers, and that was the first time I saw a smartphone as a useful tool instead of just an expensive toy.

The inspiration for this week’s question was a recent email I got from a reader complaining at how the characters in SILENT ORDER still use “phones” even though it’s far in the future.

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 202: 7 Lessons From Defunct Ebook Stores

In this week’s episode, we take a look at seven ebook stores that failed, and what lessons indie authors can learn from them. You can listen to the complete episode with transcript at the official Pulp Writer Show podcast site.

-JM

Coupon of the week, 5/27/2024

Once again it is time for Coupon of the Week!

This coupon code will get you 25% off the audiobook of DRAGONSKULL: TALONS OF THE SORCERER (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store:

SPRINGTALONS

The coupon code is valid through June 4th, 2024. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we’ve got you covered!

-JM

CLOAK OF TITANS inspiration

Thanks for the strong response to CLOAK OF TITANS! A lot of people emailed to say nice things about the book.

I think the original inspiration for CLOAK OF TITANS was the blog post I wrote about the trip I took to the US Civil War battlefield of Chickamauga back in May of 2022. I had planned for an “Elven civil war” plotline in CLOAK MAGE by then, but I started thinking about it in a different way after that trip.

Of course, astute readers will note that was two years ago. Sometimes an idea needs to “bake” in the subconscious for a while before I’m ready to write about it.

-JM

SHIELD OF DARKNESS underway

I am pleased to report that SHIELD OF DARKNESS, the second book in THE SHIELD WAR series, is now underway!

Progress has not been as fast as I might like because I keep have to double-check continuity on stuff, but I’m 12,000 words into it.

If all goes well the book should be out towards the end of June, but I have a lot of stuff to do in June so it might slip to July.

I’m also 16,000 words into HALF-ORC PALADIN and 2,000 words into GHOST IN THE TOMBS.

This is what I would like the next couple of months to look like.

June: SHIELD OF DARKNESS

July: HALF-ORC PALADIN

August: SHIELD WAR #3

September: GHOST IN THE TOMBS

That might be ambitious since there is a lot to do this summer that doesn’t involve writing, but we’ll see how things go!

-JM

Question of the Week: Previously On…

It’s time for Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics.

This week’s question: should a book in a long-running series start with a little summary of what’s happened in previous books?

Like, you know how a streaming series will often have a “Previously On…” section at the start of the show? It’s usually a little 30 second montage of key scenes and whatnot from the previous episodes.

I got to wondering about this because I was talking with someone who was reading CLOAK OF TITANS, and the reader in question couldn’t remember when the character of “Dr. Spencer” had first appeared in the series and wished the book had included a little “Previously On…” summary.

For myself, I suppose it depends on how well-written and concise a “previously” summary at the start of the book would be.

-JM