First post of 2024

Hello all.

It has been some time since my last front page post on the website. So I decided to provide a couple of updates, especially for those not on the linked social media sites.

  1. Book 2 – Angels Fall is still the working title for the second novel. The manuscript sadly has not saw any progress since Spring 2024 due to the greatest enemy of all writers…writers block. A completed manuscript was written by the end of 2023 and during the re-reading phase which I do, I found aspects of the plot and the flow of the story were not up to standard. Also the word count was horrendous.

My aim had been for the second novel to be roughly the same word count and thus printed size at the first in the series, Praetors Blood – Shattered Peace. However we were looking at extra 40000 words on top of that. Should that be expected for a first draft? Absolutely, which is where the “Murdering of darlings” happens.

Sadly despite my best intentions, the novel manuscript turned into a bit of a mess as I tried to improve the flow of the story and the pacing. The solution however happened in May 2024, when I had a sudden thought. What if I placed the penultimate arc at the start? But as sudden as that brainstorm hit, so did the reason for my extensive absence.

2) Injury – I sadly during the course of my work suffered a significant injury on my dominant arm. This meant I was unable to use any electronic device larger than a mobile phone without excruciating pain. 4 months on post-injury, the pain has subsided and I can finally do the things I once could, which includes typing. This also means however I have returned to work, which will once again sap into my spare time. The other components of my time will also involve further physiotherapy to return my arm to as close as to its original.

3) Charity auction – Some good news once more. As part of my current career, there exists a lovely charity which provides extensive rehabilitation facilities. I was able to enjoy those facilities for 2 weeks and it has greatly helped in returning me to a fitter condition. As part of my stay, I took part in a few charity events, two of which involved my role as an author. A book reading was performed, with my oration of the first 15 pages of the first novel, this was well received and garnered significant interest. And thus we had a charity auction where a signed copy of my first novel was won after a quite significant donation.

I will over the coming weeks, seek to improve the website, adding more sections. One section which I realised was missing is a “Contact Us” style page where a webform can be completed. Once I realise how one is added, it will be.

I am hoping to provide further updates before the end of 2024. So I hope to once again see you all here.

JMac

Page Turner Award 2023

Hello all

I do apologise to those who had attempted to visit my website in the last few days since I submitted my draft manuscript to the Page Turner Awards. I allowed half of my subscription on my domain to expire which caused minor issues. A 3 year plan should hopefully solve this issue for the future.

A minor change to what I submitted to the Page Turner Award this year. I decided since I had entered a form of “writer’s block” when proofreading and amending Praetor’s Blood Book 2 that I would write a different story. This is something which happened on the “spur of the moment” when I heard a name that I really loved, “Brunhilde”.

So I present to you this year’s submission.

Page Turner Award 2023 – Brunhilde

Though it was written over the course of a couple of weeks, I believe the story has potential and I am likely to continue it in the future.

What is happening with Book 2? More updates will come in the future, but the manuscript for the book was completed at the start of this Spring. However during my reading of it, the flow did not exist and felt very disconnected.

I am currently working on fixing this, and knowing myself, if it is anything like “Shattered Peace”, it may take an entire re-write.

Talking about Book 1 – Shattered Peace, I received notification of the sales of the book over the last year. If you are interested you can of course continue to purchase the series at any of the wholesales such as Amazon or directly from the publisher, Global Publishing Solutions.

Thank you all to those who have supported my project. I hope you continue to enjoy what I write. Any feedback and criticism is always appreciated as I hope to one day write a perfect novel.

Jmac

Page Turner Award

Hello all

Welcome back. I have a small update to my continued efforts to write the sequel to Shattered Peace. Currently sitting on 80ish pages, which though a lot of pages is a significant number of pages away from a complete manuscript. Shattered Peace was just short of 400 pages by the time of complete manuscript, and that was after 50 pages were edited and removed as being “extra”.

But in terms of progress, I submitted an entry into the 2022 Writing Mentorship category of the Page Turner Award. The entry can be found here:

https://pageturnerawards.com/writing-mentorship-award-2022/legacy

Following a spate of e-mails which have come over the last few weeks, I have been notified, to my joy, that I have become a finalist once more and as of last week, another longlisted finalist.

This is the same stage which I managed to reach last year with the completed manuscript which became Book 1. Though Book 2 is still far from written, the story has potential and I hope any of those interested, please give me feedback to the current draft.

Anyone who has read the Legacy entry and the preview of Book 2 will see that even in the weeks since the entry was submitted, how the book opens has changed. Though it is not a full re-write, enough has changed for (in my opinion) the better.

Please enjoy and I will see you again on the next update.

JMac

Publishing

Hello all

Thank you for returning to this site.

I have some great news following the last post. The first book of the Praetor’s Blood series is getting published and the first of these, Shattered Peace, has a release date of the 22nd March 2022.

As you can see from the latest pages on the website, there are links to the first 10 pages which were originally submitted to the Page Turner Awards in 2021, the writing competition which began this adventure.

A handy little link to these extracts can be found here.

Global Publishing Solutions based in Illinois have given me this amazing opportunity for my work to be brought into the public domain. I can express no amount of gratitude to Gloria Foster and her team for this.

The journey has been long, with many diversions but I have finally completed the first step. I can only hope that the work is enjoyed by others and they too wish to know how the adventures of the main characters continue in subsequent novels of the series.

Praetor’s Blood: Shattered Peace is currently available with most book sellers in both Paperback and in e-book including Kindle and Nook formats at time of writing.

The novel can be bought directly from the publisher:

Global Publishing Solutions here.

Amazon across their various sites and many more.

Please search using the following references for your home book sellers:

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8985389203

Thank you for your continued support. As always, please comment, share and subscribe. I would love to hear your reviews of the novel and your suggestions on what you might want to see in future novels, as well as questions about this series.

Jeffrey MacSporran

2022 and the future of JMacNovels

Hello all.

It has been a while since my last update and this is sadly due to the many pressures which exist in the world beyond the screen.

A few updates since September 2021, it is now January 2022. If you have returned to this page and reading this, I thank you for your continued interest and hopefully support of this page. Praetor’s Blood: Shattered Peace which is the working name of the 1st novel of the series as indicated in earlier blog posts was submitted to the Page Turner Awards in the Writing competition.

As a full manuscript, it managed to reach the finalist and eventually the longlist stages. The fact that my first attempt at a competition lead to this result was something I had never anticipated, especially due to the subsequent attention and feedback that I received.

Due to the confidence boost, I have decided to make a proper effort in getting this novel released. As such I have begun a review of the various social media platforms to ensure their content is appropriate and whether it is still relevant.

Due to this review, I will be making many changes, this includes the contents of this writing blog and website. The draft pages have sadly been taken down for now, though the first 10 pages of Shattered Peace are available as part of my 2021 entry in the Page Turner Award, linked below:

https://pageturnerawards.com/writing-award-2021/praetors-blood/award-submission

My plans also include registered an appropriate domain name, updating or replacing the website entirely.

I am not sure where the future leads, but I am certainly planning to follow the path for as long as it allows me to.

I hope to update you all in the near future.

JMac

Page Turner and Synopsis

Hello All

It has been a while since my last post, so I thought it would be prudent to keep everyone updated. The Page Turner competition is coming to a close and the results will be released soon. Though the sample pages which I submitted are no longer available on the link previously provided, I was pleasantly surprised by the positive comments given from it. Those words have given me hope that the months and years of work, on and off, have been worth it and that the vision I have in my head could be something which others might enjoy.

I thank everyone who had a read and supported me with ideas and comments during this journey in the writing of Book 1. On other news, it is amazing what happens when you go away for long periods of time, you find mistakes and typos which you and others have missed from initial reads. I have also come to the conclusion that I am kind of hopeless with Microsoft Word.

In other news. I was trying my hand at writing a synopsis. The example is below, please give suggestions on how it could be better.

Premise

In Praetor’s Blood, God’s would use mortal souls as pieces for their games, but their final game, set during the Age of Heroes is interrupted by the sinking of the Island of Atlantis. Now, millennia later, two mortals, unknowingly bound by ancient prophecy, but separated by time and space are chosen as the latest pieces.

Synopsis

SELESIA THEAOLUS, the nineteen year old protagonist is the physically weak, but gifted in magic Crown Princess of Artlars. Forced to flee her home and go into hiding with a handful of bodyguards, her sister and lady in waiting after the murder of her father by her uncle, the Usurper of the throne. Seeking a solution to the ongoing civil war raging on the island, she is drawn north by the message that the Oracle, a messenger of the Gods, wishes for a meeting with her.

But upon arriving at her destination, she finds the Oracle absent and she is now caught in a siege by an enemy who seek to win by any means. Barely able to escape whilst pursued by assassins, she heads further into the untamed north, following a series of visions and dreams containing a woman in a green dress who promises her salvation if she find the “Heir of Europa”.

Slowly, Selesia is forced to confront her weaknesses whilst coming to understand that there are other kinds of strengths than the purely physical and that her choices affects more than just the lives of those around her and who sits on the throne of Artlars.

JAMES ARCHEAN is the deuteragonist. A war-weary officer who has lived for more than a century. Having survived a nuclear war, he is forced into politics, to which he is ill-suited, whilst governing a district of the “Britannic Confederation”, the last beacon of civilisation.

But when he is caught in a terrorist attack on the anniversary of the nation’s founding, he discovers a plot to overthrow the government from those within it. Now wary of enemies within and without, he tries to complete his final mission, to save the remnants of humanity whilst burdened by the guilt of the decisions he was forced to make during the wars of the past and the dreams of a female stranger in green who seeks his aid whilst seemingly knowing the secrets of his lost memories.

Praetor’s Blood is a story told from the separate perspectives of Selesia and James as they begin their journeys, with Shattered Peace detailing their individual struggles before their eventual meeting which commences the game they have unknowingly become parts of. Subsequent novels would details James’s arrival in the world of myths, their prophesised meeting and journey as James assists Selesia’s efforts to overthrow her uncle and end the civil war whilst seeking a means of returning to his own world. With the series concluding with the God game’s conclusions and the revelation of James’s hidden heritage and why he was chosen despite the separation of worlds.

Initially set on two separate worlds, the first is the world of myths and legends detailed in Greek mythology, inhabited by Gods and mythical beasts, whilst the other is the post-apocalyptic world set a century and half into our future. Forcibly separated into the “world of myths” and the “world of mortals” during the events of the sinking of Atlantis, both are still bound by an ancient prophecy which could decide their mutual survival or destruction.

Thank you all

JMac