I was lucky to get an interview with Jowsey Jones, the author of Blazing Coffins, one of this year’s #SPFBO8 entries.
Please, tell us a bit about yourself…
Hello! I’m Jowsey Jones and I’m a recovering journalist. I’ve worked all over the world, resulting in a string of British/Canadian/Bermudian passports—none of them for sale unless KDP fails to come through very soon. I’m lucky to live in Bermuda, which is not in the Caribbean as many people assume, but is very small and too hot; hence frequent flights to cooler climes for R&R. I have a thing for Edinburgh, a cool spot both culturally and meteorologically.
I like Maine Coon cats, pickleball and floundering English football teams. I discovered recently, because it suddenly became a media thing, that I have aphantasia, which means I have no mind’s eye. Ask me to picture something and I see zero behind the eyelids. I’m told this is a bad thing for creatives, but frankly it hasn’t bothered me one jot. Instead of visualising, I remember. If I can recall what a dragon looks like, I can riff on that. (Full disclosure: I do not like dragons. GoT fans should send their sackloads of hate mail to my agent, alexborisjohnson@gov.uk.)
“(Rune) “What’s the hardest thing about being a writer?”
(Jowsey) “Nothing.””
Why did you decide to take part in the SPFBO?
I realised more people than my mother might read my fantasy farce, Blazing Coffins, if they heard about it, so here I am. This is my first SPFBO and I’m delighted to have already met many other authors on Discord and shared in their debilitating paranoia.
Why should we buy your SPFBO8 book?
Theda and Wolfie are The Monster Twins and boy, do they have their hands full in this madcap good vs evil romp with a mind-boggling cast of monstrosities. Sad sack Theda is woken from a horrible hex and finds there is more to life than drudgery in her uncle’s wonky funeral parlour. Something is tingling in her teeth, and wait…why has her dimwit hunk of a brother sprouted a tail?
Full disclosure #2: Blazing Coffins is not for everyone and it’s certainly not your average epic fantasy swordy-elfy-warrior thing. It’s a tongue in cheek fantasy farce, heavy on cultural references, none of which are necessary to still get a good chuckle. I hesitate to put myself in lofty company, but a stylistic comparison might be Good Omens with a sprinkling of Life of Brian, Young Frankenstein, The Munsters, Discworld and a sort of twisted Dickens. My journo comms chief wife says Blazing Coffins is a bit confusing and rather filmic, but I married her for her other qualities. Non-related reviewers have more pleasingly described it as “purposefully chaotic,” which I fully endorse. No trope left unturned, I always say. Also, I revel in being able, as non-trad, to throw around words like macaroon and collops. It’s fun being idiotic and educational at the same time.
What got you into writing? And how long have you been doing it?
I became a journalist decades ago, fresh out of school, so writing is like breathing by now. The trick was to switch from type-repeat-type-repeat man-bites-dog all-the-news-that-fits to longer-form novel writing. That said, my prose style tends towards snappy. I reckon if I’m pastiching so many cliches, readers have enough idea of the originals without me drenching them in florid description.
Why did you choose to write fantasy? And why pick this particular fantasy subgenre?
Comedy fantasy, or humorous fantasy (no one seems to know which) is a tough one to pin down and pinwheels around the shining stars of Terry Pratchett et al. That’s a hard orbit to break into or away from, depending on your point of view. My influences range from the obvious like Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Mel Brooks, Monty Python, Terry-Thomas, Brian Rix and other legends, but leach into more literary types like Will Self. Try his fabulously dystopian The Book of Dave. And don’t forget those unwoke Carry On films. Put simply, I like to laugh.
What’s the best thing about being a writer?
The sheer enjoyment of typing, or tripeing as I call it on bad days. I truly get a thrill from knocking out that first wobbly but stirring outline. I work in three phases: I begin with a rough list of ideas in Notes on my phone or Mac. This evolves into a very detailed outline, chapter by chapter, sculpting the story as I go. This includes pretty much all the jokes and a lot of proto-dialogue; it’s the equivalent of a shoot-the-breeze session, a writers’ room in my head, if you like, which slowly coalesces into a detailed blueprint. When that’s all battened down with no, or few, plot problems, I start overwriting with the real thing. That elicits a different thrill—the joy of fleshing out, finessing and polishing, followed by many lusty, murderous edits. I admit it, I’m a word junkie. Also, writing satire/comedy/farce allows me to get away with a raft of so-called writing no-nos. Info dumps, multiple points of view and chronological impossibilities can be sloshed in and merrily explained away with a shrug—it’s a comedy, innit?
What’s the hardest thing about being a writer?
Nothing. Well, maybe the rejection. Actually, the writing takes care of itself and I don’t find it a chore in any way. It’s the damned marketing that gets me every time. As soon as anyone starts talking about BookBub and social media and newsletters and reviews and blog appearances and … well, my eyes glaze over. Don’t all those readers out there understand we have stories to write and they should just find their way magically to our Buy Now! buttons and do the right thing? Yes, I know, we need to do the work, put in the SM and research time, gah.
Do you have a tip, app, tool, or resource you recommend to authors?
TOOLS:
I keep it simple when writing. Microsoft Word is too bloated and clunky-slow for my liking, and Scrivener feels like you need to take a cardigan-wearing course from 1995 before using it. I slog out initial drafts using Fade In. It’s a screenwriting program but works smoothly, doesn’t distract the eye, and includes templates for novels. When all is written (and edited!) I move to the industry standard Word for final versions. That’s just me. Use quill and tree gum ink if it gets your words out efficiently; there is no one true way, The Mandalorian be damned.
RESOURCES:
Find a mentor and listen when they tell you how clumsily you write: it can be someone dead if you like. Try imitating a favourite author—Douglas Adams or Jules Verne, for instance—or analysing their dialogue and sentence and story structure. Look what mimicking Jane Austen did for the fabulous Susanna Clarke.
CRAFT (tips for beginners only):
Don’t be a pantser! Map the story out and your brain will thank you later.
Learn to love the edit. Cut, cut, cut until your prose bleeds; there is always a way to rephrase or chop. Be efficient and say goodbye to those clunky first draft sentences you kinda liked. Remember that writing is a craft and words need to be honed and honed again.
Read your dialogue out loud. Does it sound convincing? Is it too long? Cut, trim, slash until it rings true.
Disgorge as many info dumps as you like, but disguise them through cunning technique.
Edit your edits, time and again. There is always something else to fix.
Write until it hurts. When the wounds heal you’ll be a better writer.
Break rules, see what happens, and learn from the wins and errors. Sometimes that dropped duck egg becomes a swan omelette.
Always look for another, better, simpler word. Don’t settle for retorted, gasped, sighed and all those other sad old favourites. No one really wants fluff—said usually does the trick.
Less is always more.
Find a style guide you like (Chicago, New York Times, whatever) and stick to it.
Learn to punctuate and attribute properly and add years to your editor’s life.
What new projects are you working on?
Books 2 and 3 of The Monster Twins series. Book 2 will be out later this summer. Dare I say it, but they get even more ridiculous than Book 1.
Book 2 is Last Train to Lemuria. Dinosaurs. Aliens. Cheerful cannibals. Irish legends. Rabid robots. Includes free time travel!
Book 3 is Escape to Reality. Jailbreaks. Ghosts. Heists. Oh, the horror! Fidgin and his evil crew return for another bout with The Monster Twins.
Beyond that, the lengthy TBW (to be written) pile includes more-but-very-different satires, forays into SF and something a little more literary.
Anything else you would like to say before we close?
Any last words, eh? Did I mention editing?
Thanks for the window, Rune, and good luck to you and everyone else treading crimson water in the SPFBO8 chum bucket.
Isn’t it great not being cut from SPFBO8 ye…
“Jowsey?
That’s odd he was just here…ahh, well, best of luck in the competition, Jowsey Jones, and with sales! And thank you for doing the interview.
Jowsey? Where did you go?”
“Jowsey, you there?”