About Jumping From Cliffs

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Hello there, I’m Jon. Pleased to meet you and thanks for stopping in.

I first decided to write a novel at the age of 7. I got out my child-sized typewriter (the size for a child, not of a child I hasten to add), a copy of Alice in Wonderland and began dutifully typing it out word-for-word. I figured, with unbeatable 7-year-old logic, that it had sold millions of copies, so selling a few million more would make me an overnight star and unspeakably wealthy. Plagiarism is a long word for a 7-year-old.

Persistence also proved to be a long word and I gave up around 3 pages into the endeavour. I didn’t give up the dream of writing a novel though and, for the next 25 years, always believed I would one day find the time, motivation, ideas and, most crucially of all, words. Finally, 3 years ago, I was spurred on by two near-simultaneous occurrences:

  1. The realisation that at this rate I was likely to reach my own final chapter before getting the prologue of the novel written;
  2. A random contact from a mysterious and beautiful stranger via a social network.

From this strange parentage was Dark Energies (or at least the germ of the idea) born.

The journey to a completed first draft was a long one, fraught with wrong turns and dead ends, finally culminating 3 years later. On the way, I learned a huge amount about how to write and, more importantly perhaps, how not to. This blog will share as much of that learning as I can recall without cringing in embarrassment, in the hope that it will be of use to others who’ve harboured the same lifelong dream as the 7-year-old I once was.

As with all first drafts, Dark Energies still needs work – some of that will also be documented here for your edification and general amusement – but, in tandem with that, I’m now setting out on the journey of publishing. It’s a bewildering yet hopeful route these days. The slavish dependence on agents and publishers is dwindling, replaced by the freedom and overwhelming choices of self-publishing and crowd-sourcing.

Gulp.

Let’s see how we get on shall we, as Kate, Dan and I venture forth …?

29 thoughts on “About Jumping From Cliffs”

  2. Thank you for visiting my website. I alwaysenjoy seeing how other writers come to what they do. Your start was particularly interesting! Don’t worry that your first draft needs work; every draft does. Never worry about whether it’s perfect, only whether it’s right.

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  4. Hey Jon. Just found you on 6SS. There are a lot of us, hey? Writers, novelists, wordsmiths in various stages of aspiration and achievement.
    Love the idea of (re)writing Alice In Wonderland! I’m kinda glad I didn’t have the same idea of with Stephen King’s Dark Tower series at that age… assuming he’d written it all back when I was 7. I think he’d only written and shelved The Gunslinger (book 1) at that stage of my life.
    It’s always interesting to read what inspires people to begin the mammoth task of writing a novel. For me I like trying to come up with something close to an original story and speech has no backspace key so I prefer to write it! 😉
    Good luck with it all and I look forward to more 6SS stuff.

    Cheers!

    – R

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  7. Hold out for the real deal man. That’s a much better story regarding how you started your love of writing than mine. Mine involves an old online journal hosting sire, Diaryland, and writing about my heart wrenching internal battle of whether or not to go for seconds during Thanksgiving dinner.

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  14. Thank you for dropping by my blog, Jon. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I started a novel, got discouraged and abandoned it. I would like to pick it up again. I look forward to reading about your process and your discoveries. Best of luck with your writing! – Amy

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