Author: brennig jones

I haven’t written one of these for such a long time, so take a seat while I bring you up to speed with where things are.

Tempest, Storm, Hurricane, and Tornado are currently being heavily marketed as audiobooks. This is good news; a lot of work went into creating and producing those novels as audio products. They are all now available on Apple, Spotify, and Audible.

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My current writing projects are:

Collars and Cuffs (pending a new name, though choosing the right one is difficult, but I do like the title of this blogpost – Bittersweet). This is a modern-day, two-handed tale about people meeting, developing a relationship and dealing with the baggage which trundles along never far behind in this imperfect world. The locations are international and draw heavily on time I spent in Paris. This project currently stands at 25k words and continues to make decent progress

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Lavender Hill. This is a fantasy story (think witches and dragons in a cross-over, real-world/multi-realm piece). There are a number of likeable characters, a couple of loveable characters, and some high comedy moments in this work. This project currently stands at 19k words and makes good progress when I’m in the right mood(!). Bonus points to anyone who correctly identifies the landscape in that photograph

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Running On Empty began life as a reworking of my first novel which was published over 20 years ago. However, that reworking soon became a complete rewrite as new characters took form, old characters were dropped, scenes were written out, new ones were created, significant depths (and defects) have been added to people, and additional twists were written into the plot. It’s best described as “a Jilly Cooper bonkathon on Viagra”. This completed project stands at 71k words and is now sitting in a drawer for a few weeks before it gets a final me-edit. After that it will go to my editor for her tender touch. This project will be aimed at literary agents before Spring is over.

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Speaking of Spring, I’ve already given some thought to the Spring newsletter which will pop out shortly. All I need is a couple of gags and the decent first line of a well-known song and it will be bothering people’s inboxes in a few weeks.

There will be excerpts to each of the above in the Spring newsletter. You can subscribe to it right here if you’d like to: Newsletter

I was talking with an American friend who has completed an actual Creative Writing course (unlike me), and we shared pieces of our writing. She made a suggestion about phrasing and that’s when the question ‘How do you?’ appeared in my head.

I’m a stream of consciousness writer. Yes, there’s a plan. And yes, there are characters. But the words just come out onto (virtual) paper in the order they appear in my head.

Later, I’ll bump and jump backwards and rearrange them later and (because I’m a serial editor), change many things. Then there will be the read-through(s) and each one of those will create further edits (some minor, others severe and major).

My friend is more ordered, more organised. She seems to be capable of writing her first drafts in near-perfect form. Although I’m jealous of anyone who has this capability, I enjoy reading, re-reading, editing and re-editing. At the end of the process I feel as though I have my hands on something I worked on, something I put a lot of effort into writing.

Look, that’s my excuse for carrying on in this slightly disorganised and very inefficient manner, OK?

I read. I read a lot. I read inside and outside my comfort zone. But here’s one thing I’ve noticed a lot lately. Prices.

My paperbacks are shop-priced at £9.99 each. That’s a fairly generous price because it gives suppliers and retailers a comfortable margin, and leaves me with enough from each sale to buy a hot chocolate.

My Kindle eBooks are priced at £1.99 which, again, leaves the platform providers and distributors a healthy whack and almost gives me enough to buy a hot chocolate.

Audiobooks… well, I have no idea how those prices are worked out. The amount that Apple Books, Spotify, Audible and all the rest charge seems to bear no relation to the costs to the consumer which my publisher and I worked out.

But lately I’ve seen paperbacks for sale at RRPs of £14, £15, and even £16. To me, as a consumer of paperbacks, that seems a lot. Similarly, Kindle eBooks have been algorithmically suggested for me with cover prices of £4.99 and even up to £8.99!

I’m only bitching about this from a consumer’s point of view. I consume *a lot* of books. In a typical year I’ll read around a hundred books and that’s not even counting audiobooks.

I don’t understand the logic of asking someone to pay £8.99 for a Kindle or £16 for a paperback. That just seems wrong. I know people have a living to make, but the consumer (which is where I’m firmly putting myself in this piece) has bills to pay and other authors to support.

So expensive books? That’s a no from me. I’ll pass and I’ll give my money to several other folk who are asking much more reasonable fees for their products.

If you read my FB page you may have already seen last night’s announcement that the paperback, Kindle and audiobook versions of book 4 in the Tempest series will be released soon.

I’m thrilled – really thrilled – to be able to share with you the cover for the latest instalment in Laura’s adventures:

But here’s a mini-spoiler… Tornado is a little different to every part of Laura’s story that’s gone before.

It’s different because Tornado begins with her early childhood memories before taking us through her training in the US army, and her later postings overseas.

Yes, that’s right. Tornado gives you Laura’s full backstory. You’ll get the highs and the lows and then you’ll get all of the answers to questions such as how, why, when and what to Laura’s timelooping story.

I hope everyone who reads this book enjoys Tornado as much as I enjoyed writing it.

In my desire to find organisations that don’t want to have me as a member, I have joined the Society of Authors (and thereby fell at the first hurdle on this occasion).

Last week I went to a local meetup of the East Midlands branch. There were 9 of us which was a good number of people for me to forget the names of. I succeeded.

What was really interesting was the diverse nature of the writers. I was especially taken by a couple of the subjects even though they’re ‘not my bag’ as the kids of yesteryear would have said.

I felt a got a lot from the meeting; it was good to find new people and hear about their writing work. I am looking forward to the next session.

Yesterday evening I toddled along to Newark -Notts – to meet/sit in on a session of the Fosseway Writers. This wasn’t completely out of the blue (I met Nick of the Fosseway Writers at last year’s Newark Book Festival and learned a little about the group there) but, because of commitments in my world, I haven’t been able to make their meetings… until last night.

The evening’s conversation was largely about a multi-handed project where a number of the group are writing an ensemble piece. Does this make it an ensemble-ensemble piece?

Anyway.

I liked the group and I enjoyed the way the participants considered such things as relationships and characters/character development, as well as considering how characters look/might look through the eyes of other characters in the ensemble, as well as through the eyes of other writers/contributors.

I’m making this sound much more complicated than the conversation was (the sign of a good meeting: the conversation wasn’t ever stilted and flowed around topics) and that’s largely to the credit of those present, and also attributable to me being a rubbish explaining device.

I was slightly disappointed to learn that Nick is in the middle of moving to France which, obviously, will mean his attendance will wind up at some point. Que sera sera. However I liked the group as a collective, and enjoyed the detailed thinking and the level of enthusiasm for the WIP.

If you’re in the area and you have a leaning towards writing prose or poetry (or both!), I strongly recommend you find a space in your weekly diary for the Fosseway Writers.

By the way, if you haven’t experienced the “Let’s xcape Café” (and I hadn’t previously), please go along and have a look. It’s a wonderful table-top gaming café that sells cakes and books!

After what seems like a decade or two, 2024 is finally behind us. I’m not wishing time away, but there was a spell back there when I thought 2025 would never arrive!

And now it’s here in all its glory, what shall we do with it? Well, I can only speak for me, obviously, but if you want to let me know what you’ve got in mind for 2025, feel free to drop me a lime line or comment below. In the meantime I’ll give you a little look at what I’ve got in the 2025 plan:

• Two new audiobooks
• Publication of book 4 in the Tempest series (title to be revealed shortly)
• I got a new jumper – and a cardigan – for Christmas
• And a big box of Sports Mix, and finally
• Excerpts of the new book I’m working on will be released

That’s a few things to be going on with, eh?

Another blogpost expanded from a thread I posted on Bluesky (@brennigjones.com)

On Thursday I went into my local library (I go in every Thursday). This time, instead of looking to take a book out, I took in my three (so far) published books. I explained they’d been reprinted and had new covers. I said that as the library service is underfunded, I wished to donate these updated books.

The librarian checked, said they had the first print of the books, though only one was on the shelves at the moment. She accepted the donation and asked what I wanted to do with the other copies. I said the library could do whatever they wanted.

She said as the books were popular with readers, could she put them out to other libraries? I said yes of course. I showed her the dedication in Storm (“For librarians everywhere, because they know”). She laughed and took a photograph of it.

Libraries are great places. Please use them, they need our patronage as much as we need them to be there.