Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/582167340-the-mechanical-crown-the-past-and-future-threat This may well be the longest chapter of the book so far, clocking in at 2,772 words. Given that my weekly target is 1,200, that’s quite a bumper edition. Not uncoincidentally, this chapter arrived a day later than usual. I wrote this while on a fmaily Read more…
Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/578450305-the-mechanical-crown-crowjun The village of Crowjun has been in the plan from the very start. It featured briefly in the first draft of the story over a decade ago and always served as a creepy entry point to the mountains. Originally Crowjun was a deserted village at the Read more…
Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/575269262-the-mechanical-crown-the-reluctant-catalyst And HERE we see Stryke’s reaction to recent events. As I mentioned last time, this was originally going to be the previous chapter but I decided to insert ‘Ashes of peace’ so that this chapter felt a bit more raw. It helps us feel Stryke’s regret, Read more…
Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/572088975-the-mechanical-crown-updated-weekly-ashes-of-peace I did a bit of arc chapter swapping here, as my original plan had been to catch up with Stryke and Pienya. Returning to Kaido, the guest character from ‘A view from the stalls’, wasn’t even in the plan until I sat down to write. At Read more…
Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/569397720-the-mechanical-crown-updated-weekly-through-the Arc 5 begins! Slightly awkwardly, due to Wattpad having a week-long glitch which has locked me out of my own account. I discovered a day after the normal publishing slot that I could still access it via the mobile app, for reasons unknown, and managed to Read more…
This is the story of how serialised writing has helped me write two books, one of which won an award and has been read by over 27,000 people, while having a busy day job and not annoying my family.
When I grew up, I was going to be a writer. As a kid, I was always writing short stories, poems, screenplays and anything else that came to mind.
Then I got distracted, went to university, studied film and English and stumbled down a visual effects rabbit hole for 14 years. I got married, had a kid. These were all great things in their own ways, but I never quite found time to realise that childhood writing dream. (more…)
I love Wattpad, because Wattpad turned me into a writer. I’d always claimed to want to be a writer, and had always been writing bits and pieces here and there, but I’d never published anything or even really finished a project. Writing had become something I did at work in my capacity as a copywriter, while my dreams of being a novelist flapped about in the winds of nostalgia.
A couple of years after publishing on Wattpad I had a novel called A Day of Faces, 116,000 reads, a Watty 2016 award and a lot more confidence. In April I’m talking about my experience as part of the Publishing Day School at Writers’ Centre Norwich. Wattpad even ended up on the International Literature Showcase last year.
But it ain’t perfect. In fact, there are gaping holes. It aspires to be YouTube for words, yet is failing to even replicate that platform’s basic features.I love Wattpad, so hopefully this insight will prove useful to the engineers over there… (more…)
I started a Patreon last year, coinciding with starting work on the A Day of Faces audiobook, The Mechanical Crown and the How To Write Serialised Fiction guide. Given the success I’d had with A Day of Faces on Wattpad, I’d hoped it would have a steady start.
As of right now, I have one patron. He’s the best kind of patron: always has interesting feedback, frequently sends over suggestions for improvement, and is generally supportive. But he’s my lone Patreon supporter, which makes for a slightly awkward situation. (more…)
There’s a brand new cover for The Mechanical Crown which I unveiled last night. It looks like this: (more…)
I’ve renamed Evinden to The Mechanical Crown. The new name is better in just about every way, not least because it’s no longer a made-up fantasy nonsense word. In the story, Evinden is the name of the continent. That’s fine – made-up names inside a fantasy novel are perfectly acceptable. Naming the Read more…