True Places…
“It is not down in any map;. true places never are”. Herman Melville, Moby-Dick. Regular readers will be well aware of my reverence for...
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jonsparks3
Feb 94 min read
Take It To The Limit
As the world held its breath for 'Vows and Watersheds', I found myself thinking back to the first thing I ever got published in a proper...
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jonsparks3
Dec 10, 20235 min read
Swallows, Amazons and Shattered Moons
A few thoughts about an author who had a significant influence on me from an early age. I'm prompted to write this now because I've been...
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jonsparks3
Jul 11, 20234 min read
Confessions of a Pantser
For anyone unfamiliar with writerly jargon, there's often said to be a divide between 'plotters' and 'pantsers'. Plotting or 'outlining'...
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jonsparks3
Jun 14, 20238 min read
"Write what you know"?
"Write what you know." Along with "show, don't tell," it's one of the most frequently repeated pieces of writing advice. And, in both...
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jonsparks3
Jun 12, 20238 min read
Reading and Me: Non-fiction
Looking back, I've published far more non-fiction than fiction. I'm busily trying to redress that balance, but that doesn't mean I regret...
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jonsparks3
Mar 31, 202312 min read
Reading and Me
It's often said that every writer starts out as a reader—and presumably continues to be one. I know that's true for me. From time to time...
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jonsparks3
Feb 23, 20233 min read
A Long Road (Part 2)
As I related in Part 1, Three Kinds of North, and the whole Shattered Moon series, have been a long time in the making. Today I'm...
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jonsparks3
Feb 20, 20235 min read
A Long Road (Part 1)
"It's been a long road/Gettin' from there to here/It's been a long time/But my time is finally near" Free copy of the print version of...
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jonsparks3
Feb 20, 20232 min read
Cover Stories (Part 2)
The first step was a trawl through my image collection: 30,000-plus photos to look at, though nearly all could be dismissed in a fraction...
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jonsparks3
Feb 20, 20232 min read
Cover Stories (Part 1)
I've looked at lots of advice on self-publishing, and the universal refrain when it comes to cover design is ‘make your cover fit your...
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jonsparks3
Feb 20, 20232 min read
Tweaking the Limits of Genre
Everyone from literary agents to Amazon algorithms seems to like books to clearly match a specific genre. They're easier to market, but...
60 views0 comments
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