Jill Williamson’s Blog
Thirst Release Day!
Happy Thirst-day, everyone!
Eight years ago I wrote chapter one of the story that became Thirst. I was working on a dystopian story (which became Captives), but I was struggling to understand the storyworld I was trying to build. I needed an origins story. A story about what happened to create this dystopian future.
That’s where Thirst came from. One day I was writing about Levi, Mason, Omar, and their great grandfather, Papa Eli. The next day? Eli was a teenager trying to survive the end of the world. It was weird. But I liked Eli. I liked his friends. Their story intrigued me. Thirst was almost published back then. It had an offer and everything. But when I explained that Captives was meant to be the first book in a trilogy, and that it wouldn’t make sense to publish Captives, then Thirst, then Outcasts, then Rebels, the publisher tossed out Thirst and bought the trilogy instead.
But Thirst was still there, in my mind. Eli wanted his story told.
In 2016 I used Thirst as an example for a series I wrote for the Go Teen Writers blog called #WeWriteBooks. I posted one chapter a week on my author blog so that my readers could give me feedback. This year, since I started grad school, I haven’t been able to write the books I wanted to write. But I wanted to give my readers a book in 2019, so I looked in my files to see what I had to work with.
I found Thirst.
So I decided to cut it into two books, fix them up, and today the first part of Eli’s story is finally available in book form for your reading pleasure..I hope you enjoy the story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
For more information about Thirst, and to see all the places the books are available, click here.
I Have Book News and a Chance to Win Free Books!
THIRST, my upcoming post-apocalyptic YA novel, releases in November, and I need your help to start spreading the word! It all starts with the cover reveal on September 24, and I’ve added a bookish giveaway to thank everyone for participating. First, here’s a little bit about THIRST:
A waterborne disease has sprung up in every corner of the globe, decimating the human race. Seventeen-year-old Eli McShane and his friends flee the chaos and violence in Phoenix and journey north toward the rumored location of a safe water source. They add several to their number, including a mysterious girl named Hannah, who, unknown to Eli, is being hunted by a dangerous man. Desperation brings out the worst in many of the travelers, infecting even those closest to Eli. When division comes, will he be able to hold his group together or will each fall victim to their own thirst for survival?
Ahh! I get chills just thinking about the journey these teens are in for! THIRST a prequel to The Safe Lands trilogy. It tells the story of Papa Eli, back when he was a teenager and he and his friends survived the Great Pandemic that sparked the future dystopian world in which Levi, Mason, Omar, and Shaylinn were taken captive. I have a gorgeous book cover that was designed by the talented Emilie Hendryx, and I’m planning a cover reveal for September 24.
I’m also doing a giveaway for everyone who participates in the cover reveal. The prizes are:
- Your choice of a limited edition, signed and numbered hard cover Blood of Kings trilogy –OR– a $50 gift certificate for my author bookstore, plus a signed hard cover copy of THIRST.
- A $25 gift certificate in my author bookstore plus a signed hard cover copy of THIRST.
- A signed hard cover copy of THIRST.
Here’s how the giveaway works:
- Sign up on my cover reveal Google Form (link below).
- On September 17 (which is one week before the cover reveal) you will receive an email with images of the book cover that you can use “as is” or adapt to create your own image. That email will also contain instruction for cover reveal day, the book blurb, hashtags, sample images and written text you can use, and details on pre-order goodies I’ll be offering.
- On cover reveal day, post wherever you like and either tag me or email me the link. You will receive one entry for each social media site you post on (two for Instagram if you post once in your story and once on your grid). You are welcome and encouraged to post more pictures of the book cover in the days and months following the cover reveal day, but only posts from September 24 will be counted toward entries in the cover reveal giveaway.
And that’s it. Easy peasy.
If you’d like to help with the cover reveal, sign up at this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf1sKr36sm03gPyMdLAxH4F3G3ic4qJs7TGguuwzI3KC0iQBg/viewform
Thanks for your help, faithful readers! I so appreciate you. 🙂
Oh, and if you want to pre-order THIRST at a low price or jump on pre-ordering the hard cover (which will count toward pre-order goodies that will be announced later), here are those links:
~Jill
The Blood of Kings Hardcover Books Have Arrived! Plus… A Kickstarter Update: We Met Our First Stretch Goal!
If you haven’t been following the Kickstarter campaign for the Blood of Kings audio books, amazing things have been happening! Within the first twelve hours you guys raised the $2500 to fund the By Darkness Hid audio book. I was floored!
And over the past few weeks we’ve now surpassed the $5000 mark, reaching our first stretch goal to fund the To Darkness Fled audio book. That means we will for sure have audio books of the first two books. We are now working toward the stretch goal for book three. And we have eight days left! Come support this project. This will be the best time to lock in a deal for all three Blood of Kings audio books at the $25 support level. That’s $8.33 per audio book. What a deal!
Also, the test set of the limited 10 year anniversary edition Blood of Kings trilogy (finally!) arrived, and they look amazing. I am so excited. Here is a video of me showing them off.
I think they look fabulous. Like I said in the video, I need to make some adjustments to them so that they will be perfect for those of you who backed at the hardcover book level!
These hard covers will only be available as part of this Kickstarter campaign, so if you want a set of these pretties, you can order your limited edition hard cover books on the Kickstarter home page.
International readers, I have them listed as USA only, but if you really want to order a set, please email me and we can talk about shipping costs. I’m working with a few international people on this already.
Thanks for your support, everyone. Keep on reading!
Ebook Sale
Today only, the ebooks of Storyworld First and Punctuation 101 are .99 each. Click on the links below to find the book in each store.
Punctuation 101: A Fiction Writer’s Guide to Getting it Right
You don’t need to be an expert in grammar and punctuation to write great novels, but you do need to learn the basics. This handy reference book includes all the need-to-know punctuation rules for fiction writers, and it’s presented in a clear, user-friendly format with many examples for the visual learner—including some from popular novels.
Are you tired of paging through massive style guides or scouring the internet for information on em dashes, colons, or which words to capitalize in a title? Punctuation 101 will save you time and energy, which you can spend writing your novel.
More info →
Storyworld First: Creating a Unique Fantasy World for Your Novel
Building a storyworld? Where do you start? This book can help you.
Oz, Wonderland, Narnia, the 100 Acre Wood, Neverland, Hogwarts, the United Federation of Planets, Westeros, Middle Earth, Alagaesia, Terabithia, Gotham City, Jurassic Park, Fablehaven, and a galaxy far, far away. These fictional places have become real in the minds and hearts of readers. These are storyworlds that someone invented—someone who was once like you, learning to tell stories, learning to write, and dreaming about publishing a novel.
Whether you’re starting from scratch or are looking to add depth to a world you've already created, Storyworld First will get you thinking. Includes tips on the following worldbuilding subjects: astronomy, magic, government, map-making, history, religion, technology, languages, culture, and how it all works together.
More info →
Want more books? Click here to see eight more writing crafts books that are on sale each for .99 too! Check out the image below to see what’s on sale.
EPIC Blood of Kings Sale–40% off the paperback prices
Punctuation 101 is here!
Punctuation 101 is here at last! This is a book for fiction writers. This is a handy reference that you can keep close by so you don’t have to page through the massive Chicago Manual of Style, which I love, but that index alone is twenty-nine pages long! Trust me. I used it as a reference to check my facts as I wrote Punctuation 101, and I spent a lot of time trying to find things in that index…
Why write a book on punctuation? Well, it all started back in 2011 with an idea, then a series of blog posts on goteenwriters.com in 2012 and 2013. I saw so many of the same mistakes in the manuscripts of beginning writers, I wanted to lay out the rules in an straightforward and easy-to-understand way. The posts were a hit. And many of those teen bloggers said, “You should write this as a book, Jill!” And I thought, ooh. That would be a lot of work.
:-/
It was a lot of work! I would spend some time writing it, then I would get SO BORED of commas or semicolons or em dashes that I’d quit and work on something else. But every time this happened, I eventually went back. I’d poured too much time and effort into this project to just walk away. And while it was boring for me to write it and rewrite it again and again, I knew it would be a help to you all. Still, I needed to take some serious punctuation breaks throughout the year, because one can only take so much punctuation at a time, you know?
But I finished, and I am SO HAPPY! *dances* Punctuation 101 is here to stay. Grab your copy. Dog-ear the pages with rules you need to reference. (My trouble area is capitalization in titles. Who can remember all that? Seriously?) And then write your novel without worrying about the rules. Because we all just want to write stories, right? I know I do.
Punctuation 101: A Fiction Writer’s Guide to Getting it Right
You don’t need to be an expert in grammar and punctuation to write great novels, but you do need to learn the basics. This handy reference book includes all the need-to-know punctuation rules for fiction writers, and it’s presented in a clear, user-friendly format with many examples for the visual learner—including some from popular novels.
Are you tired of paging through massive style guides or scouring the internet for information on em dashes, colons, or which words to capitalize in a title? Punctuation 101 will save you time and energy, which you can spend writing your novel.
More info →
Pre-order The Profile Match and Get a Vinyl Mission League Logo Sticker!
To celebrate the release of The Profile Match (the final book in the Mission League series), I had some stickers made!
I will mail one to anybody who pre-orders a copy of The Profile Match. If you’ve already pre-ordered, click here and fill out the form: I pre-ordered. Send me a sticker!
You can pre-order in the following places:
Paperback Copies
I only have paperback copies available for pre-order from my author store. They’re listed at a special pre-order price of $10, which is about $5 off the regular $14.99 price. I will autograph these, so if you would like the autograph personalized, be sure to write me instructions in the note section when you check out.
Order The Profile Match in paperback from Jill’s Author Bookstore!
Ebook Copies
You can pre-order the ebook from these etailiers:
Once you’ve pre-ordered, click here and fill out the form: I pre-ordered. Send me a sticker!
The Profile Match Cover Reveal
It’s Release Day for King’s War and Warrior’s of the Veil–plus a BIG sale!
Today is the day! *dances* After four years of hard work, the final installments of the Kinsman Chronicles, King’s War and Warriors of the Veil, have released into the wild.
King’s War is my 20th book. It feels surreal to hold this one and to look at the stack of author copies and remember what it took to finish.
The Kinsman Chronicles were by far the most challenging books I’ve ever written. At the time, it seemed like a good idea to try my hand at epic fantasy, the way general market authors do, with multiple points of views and storylines that weave into one grand epic. “It seemed like a good idea at the time” is a mantra I have parroted more than a few times in my life. Funny how one can get an idea 
💡in a breath that takes four years to complete. 
😉
I have a new respect for authors like J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson, Brent Weeks, and Ken Follett. And I can sympathize with George R. R. Martin, who has yet to finish his epic series. I get it, George. There’s a lot to tie up. A lot.
Thankfully, my epic was only a trilogy, so I managed the feat in four years and now get to move on to a new idea. Such is the life of a novelist. I’m grateful for the opportunity I had to write this series and for all it taught me. I’m also thankful to my publisher for investing in it and all my explorers who took the plunge and read all three. 
❤
And if you haven’t read these books yet, I’m having a sale. So this is a good time to grab them, if they’re been on your list. You can get all three autographed paperbacks for $30 through June 30, 2018, while supplies last. Click here to visit my bookstore.
This week I celebrate a major feat. 
📚 I will post pictures, have parties, and crow just a little. I’m the best kind of proud of my book babies, going out into the world to make their way. To remind a broken world that there is reason to hope. To shine light in the darkness. 
✨
Happy reading, Explorers. Don’t get lost in there. 😉
King’s War Book Release Party and RSVP
I’m having my first ever in-person book release party to celebrate both the release of King’s War, the final book in the Kinsman Chronicles, and my 20th published book! (I can’t believe I wrote 20 books. 😯 )
This is a different party from the online Facebook Launch Party I’m doing with Gillian Bronte Adams (click here for details on that one).
If you live in the Portland, Oregon/Vancouver, Washington area, please try to come. We’re going to have a lot of fun and prizes and cake.
Here are the details:
Saturday, June 23, 2-4 PM
Three Creeks Library
800 NE Tenney Rd
Vancouver, WA 98685
I will have a limited amount of swag packs to give away at this event. If you would like one, you must RSVP at this link: https://goo.gl/forms/hV7Hl65UFyCjOY5L2
Also, I will only have the three Kinsman Chronicles books for sale at the event.
Hope to see you all there!
Book Progress
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About Me
My name is Jill. I’m a daydreaming, chocolate loving, creator of kingdoms. I write weird books for teens. Fantasy is my fave. I'm a Whovian, a Photoshop addict, and a recovering fashion design assistant, who was raised in Alaska. I love to teach writing.
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