Jamie Thornton's Blog, page 2

A battle against dark forces

In my Doormaker fantasy series, we follow the journey of Maella, a young woman with the extraordinary ability to open portals to other worlds. But this gift comes with great danger. Each door she opens leads to a new realm filled with magic, peril, and the secrets she must uncover to save her friends and family.

From the fall of the Tower of Shadows to exploring the mysterious Library of Souls, Maella’s journey is one of discovery, courage, and the battle against dark forces. Richly developed characters and intricate world-building will immerse readers in a story that is as captivating as it is thrilling.

Maybe the twelfth time is the charm?

Everyone has their little habits and idiosyncrasies.

I’m no different, especially when it comes to the creative process.

For years, actually, for over a decade now, I’ve used Scrivener to manage and compile all of my books–from brainstorming to outlining, to drafting, and even to the final output files.

Of course, if I needed to I could work in other formats or with other softwares. But it’s part of my process.

I love Scrivener…so much so that it’s really important to me to bring feedback from beta readers into it.

But one thing I seem to never remember how to do is get Microsoft Word and Scrivener to talk to each other.

That means I spent most of today figuring out how to combine Word documents, and then how to bring those comments into Scrivener. It took me at least twelve tries (I admit, I might have lost count), before I finally figured it out.

I was not at all expecting combining everything to take four hours and twelve tries to get it right. This is one of the less glamorous parts of the writing process, but still rather satisfying all the same…once it’s finally done!

What’s cool is now I can see comments all lined up and highlighted within the Scrivener documents themselves, and when I make my fixes, it’s just as easy as x’ing out the comment.

I love To Do lists and I love crossing things off my To Do lists, so this is a very satisfying process.

Over the last few weeks, I was making lists and letting my subconscious work on the different story problems, but now…

(with all these comments combined!)

…I can into the nitty-gritty of working with the text again.

One of those nitty-gritty story issues I’m resolving is the way I challenged myself to write a certain thing and ended up writing a completely different thing by accident.

It isn’t the first time that’s happened.

Here’s what I mean.

If you’ve read my After The World Ends series you know Dessa falls hard for a certain someone. But ORIGINALLY, I had planned to write a love triangle.

And dear reader, I did try, but my writer friends read an early draft of it and said so, so kindly… this is not that.

Anyway, there is no love triangle for my main character in After The World Ends and I think the series is better for it.

But in this new fantasy series, I thought it would be fun to try my hand at an enemies-to-lovers situation.

Dear reader, I did try, but again, my writer friends so, so kindly said… we LOVE this story very much, but… this is not that.

I am amused.

The story does what it wants. The characters are who they are.

Now it’s my job to embrace it.

Anyway, I THINK what I’ve actually got inside The Numinous is a forbidden love that develops between a ‘downtown girl’ from the empire’s poor hinterlands and an ‘uptown boy’ entangled in a politically important arranged marriage.

(I mean, there are a million layers to these books. The forbidden love relationship is one subplot among many, but it is an important one to get right).

By the way, have you followed the kickstarter for The Numinous book series yet?

When the time comes, I’ll be using the Kickstarter to talk more about that forbidden love, and all the other strange and wonderful ways this story has veered.

The Numinous
fantasy book series
Follow the Kickstarter(Launching November 2024)

 

Our Latest Book Sale Adventure: A 15-Pound Treasure Trove of Used Books!

As an avid reader and self-proclaimed bibliophile, there’s nothing quite like the thrill of a used book sale. The anticipation, the hunt for hidden gems, and the satisfaction of finding that perfect book at a fraction of its original price—all contribute to the experience

Recently, my husband and I attended a used book sale at our local public library, and I’m excited to share our latest book haul adventure with you!

The day began with a mix of excitement and strategy. We arrived early, armed with our reusable tote bags and a game plan. The venue was buzzing with fellow book lovers, each eagerly scanning the tables stacked high with books of every genre.

After sifting through countless titles, and making some tough decisions, we emerged victorious. Our combined efforts yielded an impressive 15 pounds of books! For comparison, during my last solo outing to a used book sale, I managed to haul 20 pounds of books by myself. This time, it felt great to share the experience … and the load… with my husband.

Among the treasures we found were a mix of cookbooks, biographies, craft books, and some history.

While I’ve always enjoyed my solo trips to book sales, having a partner in crime was nice. We discovered new books we thought the other might like and we’re already looking forward to the next sale.

We bicycled home with our load of books and a great sense of accomplishment :)

I’d love to hear about your own book sale adventures! Have you found any exciting books recently? Share your stories in the comments below.

Book sale adventures

Books are tricky things. Inside their pages lay wonder upon wonder. Even entire universes. But books also weigh a lot. I mean, their physical weight. The pages and stuff. Especially when you go to a used book sale and know it’s unlikely you’re going to have very much self-control. (Me. I’m talking about me.)

That’s why I create physical limits for myself. I try never to drive my car AND I give myself lots of positive talk. “You CAN fill just ONE bag of books. You will be SO HAPPY with ONE bag of books.”

Unfortunately, that didn’t really work this time…or the last time…or the time before that. But I’m hopeful it’ll all work out someday.

In the meantime, I’m pretty excited to dive into a few new cooking books, several nonfiction books, a couple biographies, and more. When will I dig into them? That IS a good question. Since I haven’t yet cracked open a book I purchased from the last book sale I attended… it might be a bit.

The Numinous
fantasy book series
Follow the Kickstarter(Launching November 2024)

 

Secret fantastical projects coming soon…

I’ve been making lots of fun bookish videos these last few months. And by fun, I mean videos I find personally amusing.

Maybe we’ll discover some of you out there share a similar sense of humor as me?

From heart-pounding plot twists to the occasional science experiment mishap, I think the rest of this year will be a wildly dystopian, definitely bookish, mildly silly.

Especially as I work towards a November release for my new fantasy series….

The Numinous
fantasy book series
Follow the Kickstarter(Launching November 2024)

 

My Secret Weapons… Chickens

I can now happily reveal two thrilling pieces of news – not at all related to each other.

The first piece of news…

In the most recent edition of my newsletter, I sketched out my current backyard drama.

An overgrown veggie garden. Really, really overgrown. Absolutely choked with weeds.

(The before picture. No green organism in this picture is fit for human consumption).

I mentioned my utter demoralization at the state of things, especially because I wanted to put in a fall garden.

Ahem, this was a bit of a problem since we are already well into fall.

And then I remembered my nine secret weapons…

My chickens!

So I immediately constructed a makeshift fence between the chicken area and my veggie garden.

A little bit of cardboard, a little bit of netting, a few sticks to prop things up…

…and then the waiting to see how much they would clear out.

Now I am happy to reveal the AFTER picture in all its greenless, weedless glory.

(Look at all that barreness. Beautiful. To be transparent, I did pull a few plants myself while the chickens worked. But only the ones not great for either humans or chickens to eat.)

9 chickens. 9 days. 90% of the weeds gone. Hooray!

And that brings me to my second piece of news…

ALL the audiobooks for my portal fantasy Doormaker series are now available…

…on all major audio retailers (Audible, Apple, Kobo, NOOK, Chirp, Google Play).

…AND in public libraries across the nation.

(though you might have to request the audiobooks through your librarian).

The Doormaker Series … Now in AUDIO

Three worlds. One rule. She must never open a door.

The complete Doormaker portal fantasy series. Now live on all retailers and in public libraries. Available in ebook and AUDIO box sets at a serious discount.

 

Not yet signed up to my author newsletter? I’ve sent out a newsletter twice monthly for years and have no plans to stop. Each newsletter is usually packed with even more awesome stories like the above, some of my best photography from the week, a book giveaway, super (not) serious polls, and oh yeah, book deals and writing news.

Sign up for the newsletter at JamieThornton.com/newsletter

 

A Brilliant Chicken Idea

Anyone following my newsletter for a bit knows I have a love-hate relationship with my garden.

Generally I follow a policy of benign neglect. Unfortunately this policy has turned malignant.

I really like gardening. But sometimes I really am bad at it.

My good intentions to stay on top of the weeding this year fell apart between relentless wildfire smoke and self-imposed book deadlines.

(One of those deadlines was to put all the Doormaker novels into audio, which finally happened this week!)

There isn’t any room whatsoever to put in some vegetables. Morning glory vines and crabgrass form an impenetrable fortress.

Yet hope springs eternal because here I am planning my fall garden.

Except the mass of overgrown weeds is so demoralizing to look at. So I’ve avoided looking.

(Of course that’s only made things worse.)

Over the last two weeks I’ve been giving myself pep talks to just…

… “get out there and pull a few weeds”

… “you can do it, I know you can”

… “focus on small steps. Even 5 minutes is better than nothing”

Ahem, none of those little talks with myself worked.

Until I remembered I HAVE A SECRET WEAPON.

Actually, I have nine secret weapons.

My voracious backyard chickens.

I do like to think of myself as relatively intelligent but it literally took weeks of dread to remember chickens love eating green things down to the soil.

So genius that I am, I immediately constructed a makeshift fence between the chicken area and my veggie garden.

A little bit of cardboard, a little bit of netting, a few sticks to prop things up and bingo!

Go chickens go. May they consume everything in sight.

(because every single green thing you see in this picture is a weed not a veggie.)

Will the human (me) come out on top? Only time will tell.

To stay updated and get access to the special book deals only newsletter subscribers receive, sign up for the newsletter at JamieThornton.com/newsletter

Fall Colors 2020

My husband and I took advantage of the quiet that is Thanksgiving today to explore Sacramento by bicycle. It really is the city of trees and provides a glorious fall.

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Empire Mine in the fall

I’m out and about doing some book research today. The fall colors are pretty nice out there. Get outside if you can.

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We are not hiding

We are not in hiding, nor are we victims. Instead, we are working to protect the most vulnerable. Mindset matters. So does taking a moment to enjoy a pretty sunrise. #stayhome #everydayadventures

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