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The Return of JV Jones


Werthead

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JV Jones has broken radio silence, launching a Patreon campaign and reviving her Twitter account. She has reported that writing has been very difficult for the last few years due to life issues she's not willing to talk about just yet, but she is not setting out to "reclaim" her writing career. She is publishing new articles and is planning to finish her novel-in-progress (presumably Endlords but she doesn't specify this).

Good news. Hopefully we'll see an end to Sword of Shadows soon.

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Good to hear there may be some progress on this. I think I started reading this series about 2001-ish, which probably makes it the second-longest wait I'm currently having for a series to finish (although still several years shorter than the wait for ASOIAF to be completed).

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ah, in her posts she says that she is working on two novels: Endlords and a new book, which I assume is a new setting. She'll be releasing the first chapters of both novels as the patron money increases.

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  • 2 weeks later...

https://www.patreon.com/posts/1st-goal-reached-8426479

This means so much to me. If you've been reading my posts you know I lost my mum. I also lost my dearest companion of 15ys, Biggie. I've lost other things, which I haven't shared yet. But will.

I lost myself. I've spent the past four years working at something stressful and thankless to pay the bills. There has been no time for writing. No time for anything except getting by. Until now. Things are changing. Slowly but surely. Your support means so much more to me than the goal we've just reached. I feel you're with me, really with me. And money can't buy that.

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She's also published her (non-fantasy) short story Egress on her Patreon, so that's the first new JVJ fiction in seven years! Progress.

To be honest, I don't really want or need to know the other stuff which went boom in her life to mean she had to stop writing. The important thing is that she seems to be in a better place and is back writing.

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22 hours ago, Werthead said:

To be honest, I don't really want or need to know the other stuff which went boom in her life to mean she had to stop writing. The important thing is that she seems to be in a better place and is back writing.

Yep, I don't need details either. But this is the sort of post I've been waiting for years. Sorry, life got in the way and writing doesn't flow well. Dunno when the book will be out. I'm fine with that, authors are human beings, after all, and I'm waitng for more than one unfinished series ;) but I want to get the occasional quick update.  

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  • 1 month later...

https://www.patreon.com/posts/word-about-sword-10675208

Quote

Writing Sorry Jones doesn't mean I've abandoned Endlords and the Sword Of Shadows series. I have an obligation to myself, my publishers and my readers to complete the series. 

This patreon page is about finishing Endlords. I didn't say it was going to be easy.

 

Also:

Writing a multi-book series is like digging a tunnel. The going is slow and relentless and you can't see the light. The work is all-consuming and demands absolute focus. If you're reentering that tunnel after years of leaving it unfinished you have to be sure of two things: 

1) That you still have the skills to do the work. 

2) That you're ready and able to commit years of your life to its completion.

What you're seeing with this patreon page and Sorry Jones is me working toward both of those requirements. 

The original first chapters of Endlords, through no fault of their own, coincided with the unravelling of my life. I'm still living with those losses. I still have to work to pay the bills. I'm not fully re-ravelled yet.

But I'm getting there.

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  • 2 months later...

https://www.patreon.com/posts/friday-updatery-13411607

3. Writing is going well. I’m now just over 40,000 words into SORRY JONES. I love the characters of Sorry, Big Moo, Vinheet Ganges and Clarence Pearl, which is exactly how I feel about the characters from Sword of Shadows. They’re a cool gang to hang around with, full of surprises and contradictions and gray stuff.

5. I’m hoping to have SORRY finished by November. Which brings us to:

6. I understand people want to know how ENDLORDS is going. My answer is this: I haven’t written anything in 5 years. At this point any writing is better than no writing. There is no trickery or bait and switch. Before I can write ENDLORDS, I need to be sure I can write. I also have to be sure I have the discipline and commitment necessary to bring both a book and a series to completion. 

Fingers crossed, the forecast is looking good.

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Yup, and I believe the intimation from a few months ago was that the work she did have for Endlords (presumably written in 2010-12) is going to wind up rewritten or junked anyway. So we shouldn't be expecting Endlords soon.

I am glad to have the news that the book is moving forwards though.

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  • 2 months later...

JVJ has completed Sorry Jones, the urban fantasy she started work on a few months ago to help restart the writing batteries for Endlords. It also sounds like, contrary to prior reports, a small chunk of work on Endlords has actually been done.

Interestingly, she even gives an insight into what may have been a problem on the delays on the earlier books: she used to write in a very linear fashion, strictly one chapter after another. When she got stuck on one chapter, the entire novel got held up, sometimes for weeks or months, until she figured out how to get past the problem. With Sorry Jones she tried just skipping the chapter onto the next one and going back later, and found this a far more effective solution, which will help with Endlords as well.

She's also confirmed that Sword of Shadows will be a six-book series, so Endlords is the penultimate volume.

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