10 Steps to Songwriting Success I always had this mindset growing up that if you played an instrument, you wrote songs. Probably because I was surrounded by so many songwriters in high school. But as I grew up, I learned that many talented musicians struggled to write songs. How could this be? [...]
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome Fall has arrived. My absolute favorite season here in good old New Jersey. It's like candy for the eyes with all the leaves changing beautiful colors. And with fall comes so much change. A time that always has me reflecting on what was, what is, and what's to come. [...]
8 Steps to Prevent Story Overwhelm I came up with a saying: The larger your manuscript file size grows, the more overwhelmed you become. If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed about the size of your story, preventing you from moving forward, here are a few tips I found helpful: 1. Take [...]
Book Coaching Spotlight The Downside of Writing Too Much I know what you’re thinking: How can writing too much be an issue? Many writers struggle enough to fill an entire book of 40,000 words. That’s what holds most people back from even starting a book in the first place. It’s scary trying [...]
Book Coaching Spotlight Genre Research and Why It's Important When you walk in a bookstore you see different shelves with different genres: fantasy, romance, mystery, non-fiction, etc. These genres exist on these shelves because this is where the demand is. Same thing with categories on Amazon. These categories exist because there [...]
Book Coaching Spotlight A Songwriting Success Story So turns out last month I went from Book Coaching to Songwriting Coaching. I've been writing songs just for fun for almost 20 years now, writing over 40 songs. It's been my goal to start recording these songs on my own and to upload them [...]
Book Coaching Spotlight 8 Things I Learned Putting Together a Launch Team After finishing the launch for my latest poetry book, I can finally take a second to breathe and comprehend everything that I went through to put this monster of a launch together. It was the first time I focused [...]
Book Coaching Spotlight Make Connections This past month my amazing Life Coach gave me an assignment for the month of February to reach out to as many people as possible in the book coaching world, author community, and corporate settings to network, learn, and make valuable connections. After talking to a bunch of coaches, authors, [...]
Book Coaching Spotlight Lower Your Scope As many of you know I've been stuck on book 3s. Everyone loves to think that writing books gets easier with each one. To some extent this is definitely true, but as a wise man once said, "With great power comes great responsibility." And I think this relates [...]
After I wrote a big chunk of the first draft of The Palms of Light, the projected final book in The Hoarding series, in NaNoWriMo of 2021 I felt a major decrease of productivity with my writing. The current situation in Spain at the time was filling up all my brainpower with anxiety. I started dabbling in Bryan [...]
This week in my newsletter I reveal my lastest publication Stages of a Breakup, a poetry collection focusing on themes of denial, anger, and depression during a heartbreak. Available now on Amazon! To sign up for my poetry newsletter and to receive the FREE poetry chapbook, click here: https://www.subscribepage.com/poetrynewsletter You can order my poetry books [...]
This week in my newsletter I announce a big change in my life and the final countdown of my upcoming poetry book, Stages of a Breakup, that I'll be releasing on August 4th. To sign up for my poetry newsletter and to receive the FREE poetry chapbook, click here: https://www.subscribepage.com/poetrynewsletter You can order my poetry [...]
I just finished watching Seinfeld from start to finish, and it was quite the experience. I used to watch Seinfeld reruns growing up every single night so I was ecstatic when Netflix announced they were going to put my favorite series on their platform in October 2021. Rewatching all 180 episodes and 9 seasons as [...]
This week in my newsletter I announce a very special poetry project I've been working on. To sign up for my poetry newsletter and to receive the FREE poetry chapbook, click here: https://www.subscribepage.com/poetrynewsletter You can order my poetry books here: http://patrickjohnswrites.com/a-poetry-collection-of-growing-up/ Order The Hoarding series here: http://patrickjohnswrites.com/the-hoarding-series/ You can also follow me on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patrickjohnswrites/ [...]
I'm starting a newsletter to update my fans on what's happening and what's to come in the writing world of author Patrick Johns. In this video I discuss the release of my short story, Junkland Journeys: Elyara M'ava. To sign up for my newsletter and to recieve your FREE copy of my short story, Junkland [...]
I am proud to announce the latest product in the Patrick Johns Writes library: Stages of a Scattered Mess hardcover. For those of you who don't know, I released my first poetry book on October 11th called Stages of a Scattered Mess. This will be the first of three books in A Poetry Collection of [...]
I've heard way too many people say the infamous phrase "I want to write a book." But there's only a select few who actually get to celebrate when that finished product arrives at their front door. I never wept so hard when I received the first hard copy of my first book Junkland, the first [...]
What a fricken rollercoaster ride of a writing experience. I feel like I just finished a marathon. For those of you who don’t know National Novel Writing Month is a challenge for writers to write 50,000 words in the month of November. I just moved back to Spain, got screwed over with my apartment situation, [...]
It's about that time again to begin outlining another book. This November I will be participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for the first time since 2017. I will be writing the first draft of The Palms of Light, the third book in The Hoarding series (wow it feels so weird calling it my [...]
I had everything lined up as I approached my second book: the skills, the schedule, the mindset, the story. I thought after writing one book, a second book would be a walk in the park. However, as I came to the end of my three-year project of writing the sequel to Junkland, I began to [...]
I only had three beta readers for Junkland. Now, for The Lost Soul, I had fourteen people willing to be a beta reader, and most of them reached out to me demanding I put them on the list. This is the support that keeps me going, when people show interest in what I am doing. These [...]
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a draft of the prologue of The Lost Soul, book two in The Hoarding series. This chapter will change in the final draft, but it will be similar. I hope you enjoy it! Prologue They were lost. They had discovered footprints in the snow—human footprints. To think that there were [...]
Dream. Believe. Pursue. This motto has gotten me through all the negativity and hardship that has come with following my passion. It was what kept me on track when family, friends, and my conscious told me to focus more on my stable engineering career. However, I knew deep down, I did not want that [...]
And the birthday celebrations continue! I'm not going to lie, the one year anniversary of Junkland came out of no where for me. Especially with it mixing into my big move to Spain. I just can't grasp the thought that it really has been one whole year. And what a year it has [...]
Every author has a spark of inspiration that gives birth to a story. Whether that spark comes from being delayed on a train traveling from Manchester to London King’s Cross or from working on another project which sparks a vivid scene of finding direwolf pups, every story has a beginning before the beginning. But [...]
Fascination, awe, and curiosity are all expressed when I tell people I wrote a bestselling fantasy novel. Especially when I mention my background was in systems engineering, and how my whole life revolved around math—the two fields are totally different! People always wonder how an engineer-type mind could possibly write a fantasy novel. Well, [...]
Happy Birthday Junkland! Today is the one-year anniversary of the day I released my first book, Junkland, the first book in The Hoarding series. It is also the day I became an official author, beginning a wild journey. November 7th, 2017 will forever be engraved in my head as one of the greatest accomplishments [...]
You’ve all probably been wondering, what the heck has Author Pat been up to these past few months? And where the heck is book 2 of The Hoarding Series? Well, let me update you. I sent book 2, The Lost Soul, to my Beta Readers back on August 9th. Some people are probably thinking, [...]