Jeff Hewitt

I know, I know, I don’t update enough. I’ve been working on learning how to program (Python, if you want to know the language) and been busy with life stuff. I’ve written another short story or two, and those will soon be sent through the grinder. Wish me luck!

Jeff

Hello, friends,

I’ve updated the source file for At the End of All Magic, so it’s the most current and hopefully least error-filled edition. In addition, I’ve updated Tools of the Trade under The Practegist and, if you didn’t notice before, added the first chapter of Men of Gods to the preview section!

Here’s the interview! I think it went pretty well!

All kinds of updates, friends!

I’ve consolidated The Practegist posts into a single place, updated the writing samples, and adjusted and tweaked a few things. Hope you enjoy! I’ll try to get a substantial update sometime this week.

Watch out for that interview coming up!

Hello, gang!

Just a note here to let you know my interview with Sean Taylor’s excellent blog Bad Girls, Good Guys, and Two-Fisted Action will be up and available! I talk about current projects, my writing history, and other cool writer-y things. Check it out! Also take the time to look through more of Sean Taylor’s blog. There’s a lot of very cool articles and other information to be found and enjoyed.

Hey gang!

For Friday, expect pictures for several past posts from The Practegist! I’ve also got a number of Practegist articles in the primer, so expect to see some more for that!

As for writing, I’ve got to figure out a couple of articles and I’ll get those going. More to come!

I need to update my blog more often. To that end, I asked my wife for a topic. She suggested I talk about where I am and how I feel as a writer right now. I think that’s a good idea. I also thought I’d write about my history as a writer, since one has to know the past to understand the present and future. /Deep thoughts.

I remember writing as far back as the third grade. That was, for you youngins, in the days that computers were still monochrome and keyboards had heavy keys that had a great physical “click” to them. When you were typing you announced it to everyone within ear shot. We sometimes got free-writing time, with a word limit, and could use one or two bit of clipart. I chose to write in an awful old English font and I’m pretty sure every story had a picture of a dragon with it. That’s just the way it was, man. I couldn’t begin to tell you what I wrote about as a third grader (perhaps my adventures with my father in Indiana. We went into a cave one time. I imagine alcohol was involved.) (I was not the person drinking, by the way)

I don’t doubt historians wail and gnash their teeth when they think about missing these Gnostic gospels of my childhood. And that’s that. I remember writing in that manner off and on for years, right up through high school and college.

Middle/highschool comprised mainly of poetry, the majority of which was dreadful, but I do think there was the occasional gem in there somewhere. I’ll have to transcribe some of these to edify the masses. I wrote by hand for the most part because I felt that I couldn’t connect to my work by mere typing. (I hope my artistic pretentions have found another home since then.) I did write two short stories. One of them, during detention, was about a guy who ran into another guy in a virtual reality MMO that was trapped in the system. Horror of horrors, if he died in the game then he’d die in real life! This was a year or two before the Matrix, but it was already a cliché anyway. The other was about researchers on a station outside a black hole. They discover that time travel, something or other. It wasn’t good.

I wrote a little bit of poetry in college, but most of that fell by the wayside. It wasn’t until I was out of school and working a job I don’t like that I found my voice again. I worked on my first novel A Reflection of Glass off and on, and finished it Christmas Eve, 2010 I want to say. I was off work for two weeks due to a disciplinary incident I won’t get into, and I figured finishing my first novel would be good revenge. After that, I outlined and wrote At the End of All Magic and began the editing process. I have to hand it to my coworkers, they’ve been wonderful help with suggestions and editing.

Most of all, I have to thank my wife Megan. She’s wonderfully supportive and my best reader.

Anyway, so that’s my history of writing. It’s really not been as involved or frequent in the past as I would have liked, but that’s the nature of not knowing what you want to do I suppose. I think I’ve always wanted to write, but I haven’t pursued that as purposefully as I have in the last four years or so.

Ever since attending ConNooga, I’ve really felt a lot more driven. It was so awesome to meet writers who are making it happen, and doing it as an independent, like me. I feel a lot more confident I’ll be able to live the life I want to, and do what I love, which is writing, of course. I wish I had any great or amusing stories about writing, but really, other than finishing my first novel as revenge, that’s the bare bones. I wish I had spent more time really focusing on it, but that’s been a problem I’ve always had and have today. I haven’t known what I wanted to do for a long time. Writing in earnest and meeting my colleagues really opened my eyes to the art and the business. I know it’s what I want to do, now.

Sorry, I’m writing this at 430 AM so I’m not as interesting or expressive as I normally am. But hey, this is a good show of my brand of listlessness and self-doubt. However! I am feeling a lot more confident since the con, and looking back at how much I’ve written and accomplished in the last few years inspires me. I can do this, and you can, too.

So, updates:

I’m just about halfway done with making sure all of the formatting is correct in At the End of All Magic. I anticipate being done tomorrow, and that way it’ll be available shortly from CreateSpace, and instead of looking terrible, it will look very nice.

I just sent in my interview stuff for Sean Taylor’s writing blog Bad Girls, Good Guys, and Two-Fisted Action Keep an eye out, I’ll let you know when he posts it up. Also, good articles and information there, so worth visiting anyway.

Phew! Thanks for reading this rather meandering post. I’ll try to be more focused (and interesting) in the future.

Last of all, are there any topics you’d like to see me discuss? Send me an email, LIKE me on Facebook, and ask away!

Hey gang,
I’m writing this on my tablet and while swipe makes it less odious than typing it’s not how I would write a novel.

So! What have I been up to in the weeks since ConNooga? A lot of planning and networking for one. I’ve followed probably a dozen more people on Twitter. I’ve made myself a public Facebook page. I’ve planned some stories and novels. I’m going to attend Libertycon and hopefully sell some more novels and maybe meet some famous authors! It’d be nice to blunder into an agent but I will say the people I met at ConNooga were a huge help and a blast to work with. I think I could do this on my own to be honest. With friends and advice but without a major publisher or agent.

So I am about to start working on Men of Gods in earnest, but as we all know sometimes what we intend and what happens are different. I think it will be a strong novel and I think it will do even better than my last one. So, other than making plans and networking honestly I haven’t done much other work. I am still submitting out short stories and hope to hear back any day on several.

I’ve also gotten interested in making my own R2D2 since the convention, and I want to join the 501st Imperial Legion in the future, so expect some nerdy star wars posts in the future as well.

That’s really all that’s going on right now. I will have something more substantive in the near future. I’m on overtime at work today so I figurer I’d tap a little something out for everyone.

Have a good Tuesday!

Hello, readers!

Wow! What a weekend! I have no idea where to start or what, even, to say about ConNooga. It was an incredibly, incredibly positive experience, I can say that for certain right here. Everyone was so nice! Everyone was super friendly and more than happy to have their picture taken, which was nice. I guess I’ll just have to break this up into several smaller topics so I can wrap my head around it.

First, as a first-time con goer.

I was quite surprised, even having known that cons existed and that people put together great costumes for cons, at all the great costumes. Weird, right? Still, again, everyone was so nice to let me take their picture and grab a few pictures with them as well. The passion and love of the different fans was just so awesome to see. It really made me proud to have my own booth at the convention, and proud to think of myself as a fellow fan and nerd. There’s no way to describe the first time you see someone in full Stormtrooper armor, for instance. I’ve seen it on the silver screen, played Stormtroopers in games, blown them away in other games, played them as miniatures, and so on. Yet, here there were several troopers in dynamite looking armor acting and playing the part. And for charity! Who knew? I sure didn’t.

And beyond that, the fans of different media who made their own costumes as well. The attention to detail and the effort and passion, again, humbling, and thrilling. And how cool it was to be amongst people who loved so many of the things that I love! Not to disparage my coworkers, but fellow nerds are hard to come by in law enforcement. You spend a lot of time with very serious people. I got to have fun with people just like me, with interests just like mine, and we got to celebrate that without any shame whatsoever. How, freaking, cool!

As an author!

Man, I wish I had come to a con with my fellow authors a long time ago. I learned so much at this convention it’s not even funny. I learned tons about my craft, about the management and business side of it (because let’s face it, I’m selling a product, here,) and so much more. I honestly cannot express how much I got out of this just from a professional development side of things. I got to meet a lot of great men and women who are living the life I want to live. It’s so uplifting and encouraging to see people doing what you want to do. They were all so friendly and absolutely brimming with advice! Humbling, again. The whole weekend was humbling, and exciting.

Now that I’ve met people who are making it happen, I feel even more than ever that writing is my calling and I know it’s my passion. One day I will be doing this for a living and supporting myself by doing so. I’ll get to go to cons as a professional where people know me and want to hear me talk about it. They’ll want to see what I’m doing with my work and where I’m headed! Man. Man! Too cool.

I know I’m gushing, but I have to be honest, I was plagued with doubts before the convention. It’s hard to get feedback, it’s hard to break into the industry at all. I was really feeling down. Now, I feel much more confidence than I’ve had in the past. I feel like I can do it, and moreso, I want to do it! This is the life for me, yo ho!

Speaking of pirates…

The after parties were spectacular. The convention rented out the whole first floor of a hotel and everyone basically had an open bar. I think the pictures will mostly speak for themselves.

So, while I take away a ton of professional development and fond memories, what I take away the most is the experience and interaction with the people there. I’ve done eight hours and twelve hours in customer oriented professions before, and it was okay. This was like the most powerful feel-good drug imaginable. Being amongst my new friends, the fans, the hobbies…too cool, my friends, too cool. I’m looking forward to going next year, and the years following. I have to say, it’s because of you, the people who went and talked to me and dressed up. You made everything the way it was, and it was spectacular. Thank you!

Updates for the month of March:

My first rejection since the last bout of submissions. Writ of Possession did not get accepted, but it DID receive a lot of very useful feedback. I think a rewrite or two will see it placed this year.

I am working on a part of the Tiger of Mysore series, starring returning female thief and heroin Lakshmi. The first story in the series is out for consideration with a publisher, hopefully I’ll be hearing back from them soon. In the mean time, I hope to get Sea of Glass done and ready to be sent out.

I plan on starting the series of pulp shorts Deliver Me, from E.V.I.L. About robot assassin Falston. We’ll see if I’ve got the chops for that particular idea for a sci-fi short story series.

I’ll also throw out the tenuous goals of writing two one page stories for hand outs: a one page sci-fi story and a fantasy. That way I’ll have something representative of all three genres to hand out at conventions. I have ideas for both, so we’ll see how that goes.

Other than that, I’ll stick to my ongoing goal of selling a story this month and adding a chapter to my third novel Men of Gods.

Phew! A good update! I’ll sign off for now, and hope y’all enjoy the coming weekend!

Last, I just want to close by thanking everyone involved. The organizers, Robby who ran the literary track events, my booth buddy Rocky Perry, and all the authors who made me feel welcome. Thank you, thank you!