YA Shot Blog Tour: Author Profile Joshua Khan

Today is the Dark Readers stop on the YA Shot blog tour..and what a tour it's been so far. The event which is in it's second year is not only a fantastic way to engage with a bunch of amazing authors but is putting libraries and their importance at the forefront...something we care a lot about here! For our stop I'm doing an author Spotlight on Joshua Khan, whose debut novel Shadow Magic comes out this October! SO let's get this Magic show on the road....

Joshua Khan was born in Britain, a land filled with ancient castles, dark forests, and tales of legendary heroes and fantastical monsters. He can tell you who King Arthur fought on Baden Hill, but can't tell you what he himself had for breakfast. So, his head stuffed with magical stories, it was inevitable that Joshua would want to create some of his own. Hence SHADOW MAGIC. Josh lives in London with his family, but he'd rather live in a castle. It wouldn't have to be very big, just as long as it had battlements.

You can follow him at :@WriterJoshKhan

On Shadow Magic: High fantasy's been my first love. Shadow Magic took a long time to write. Two years, solid full time. The first version was a quest through a couple of kingdoms and the Shardlandsm, but didn't work, too sprawling. So I decided to set it all in Gehenna, and all in Castle Gloom and focus on doing one area in super-fine detail. I purposefully wrote it so BOTH are the MCs. Hence half the chapters are Thorn's POV, half are Lily's.The humour element was pretty critical, I didn't want people being frightened about the concept of living in a kingdom of the undead. The Six Princes are utterly ancient, and no-one knows the whole truth. All the different houses have their own (biased) version of the tales regarding these long ago sorcerers. But I will be revealing some critical things in DREAM MAGIC and then in BURNING MAGIC which will turn everything upside down.

I love mysteries, so Shadow Magic is like those Poirot episodes, there's been a crime committed in a lonely location so the culprit in one the people staying there. I had an awesome time writing it, but DREAM MAGIC will take it to another level.

On Characterisation: I wanted to write about a new style of heroine. I love the kick-ass warrior types but I wanted a girl who was powerful, independent and changed her fate without picking up a sword. I'm a big fan of English history and read a lot on Elizabeth the First. She reigned 45 years, was patron to William Shakespeare and set the foundations of the empire, yet never carried a weapon. Lily Shadow is very much based on her. But Lily needed a foil, so i again dug into English lore and came up with the best outlaw there ever was, Robin Hood. He's my inspiration for Thorn, the peasant boy from Herne's Forest.

On Dream Magic: Can't give too many details away about DREAM MAGIC except it's out in April 17, but the cover's gives you a few hints of what Lily and Thorn will be up against next..And here it is in all its glory

On his inspiration to write: The Hobbit was read to me when I was about 7, and it utterly transported me to Middle Earth. i remember it clearly, sitting on the classroom floor, looking at the sun come in from the window, wondering if I might be able to spot a hobbit myself, if I was really quiet.
That was a long, long time ago and I don't think I ever really came back from that trip.

On Writing: FINISH. If you can write a whole story, beginning, middle and end, and type THE END, then you are a writer. The pay cheque will come if you carry on doing it, learning your craft. I know a fair few great writers of openings and middles, but they never reach the end of what they begin without detouring off onto a new project. No, stick with it, see it through. FINISH!!! Cannot emphasise than enough. And if, when finishing, you realise you didn't enjoy it and never want to do it again, then you've learnt something about being a writer too. If you hit writers block Simple, do something else and step away from the keyboard. I find sitting at the screen, hoping for ideas to come is the worst place to be. I get on with cooking, making, wandering the streets, even fixing stuff up allows the idea to filter through, no pressure need be applied.

What's Next:  BURNING MAGIC [Book three in the series] is on its way! I'm working on it right now and all I can tell you is it'll be set in the Sultanate of Fire. But you have to survive DREAM MAGIC first, and that's going to be INTENSE.

The YA blog shot tour continues tomorrow. Check out the YA Shot website (www.yashot.co.uk) where you can get tickets for the event, get involved on social media using the  #YAshot and #YAShot2016 hashtags and also the YA Shot Twitter Account - @YAShotMediaTeam.




P.s Please not that the information for this blog has been pulled from Johsua's Goodreads page