Firstly, welcome. Thanks for stopping by.
Let me introduce myself and hopefully explain why you’ve found an interesting destination.
My name is Adrian Faulkner. I’m a writer of fantasy fiction who’s steadily working towards mass market success and I’m inviting you along for the ride!
Whilst like many writers I spend a lot of time hunched over a computer fussing about words, in my spare time and between books I like to live a life as crazy as any of my protagonists. I competitively swordfight (predominantly rapier & dagger and sword & buckler) and travel to competitions around the world to try and improve my world-ranking. I also travel out to the American Mid-West to chase storms and tornadoes. I sometimes put movies together which I post to this site showing these beasts of nature up close. People tell me they love the action in my books and I like to think that the reason for this is because I really know what it’s like to be in a fight or to stand feet in front of an unrelenting destructive force.
In May 2015 I got picked up by one of the best literary agents in the world (she represents such stalwarts of SFF as Charles Stross and Brian McClellan) for a novel called Black as Knight. I describe it as Regency Batman but it’s set in a regency inspired fantasy world, and it’s not the actual Batman (that would result in DC rightly suing my ass off) but you get the general idea.
Since that time I’ve been busy rewriting (and working on future books whilst I wait editorial feedback). I’ve discovered that trying to get a novel ready to sell takes a lot of work. But you know what? I’m prepared to work harder than any other fantasy author out there if that’s what it takes.
I love reading about other writers; it’s one of my favourite procrastination activities. Before I got my first small-press book published I would try and read everything I could about my favourite writers, finding out about their processes, seeing if they had the same worries and doubts as I did. I often wondered what the true greats were like before they were great? Did they have days when the writing was hard? How big were their aspirations back then?
This is one of the reasons I started The Climb. I couldn’t find a whole lot about the day-to-day of professional writers so in my quest to become a full-time writer I started documenting my own journey. It’s a daily blog about my progress. The ups, the downs, the things on my mind that might influence what I write.
As the books I write get published it’ll also serve as a useful insight on how that book got made. Whilst I don’t want to spoil those books, I have written about them in such a way that it brings value to those interested in writing and my process, but that, having (hopefully) eventually read them, you’ll be able to come back and easily understand what I was working on at the time. Think of it as DVD extras or a making-of documentary a couple of years in advance!
If you ever have any questions, feel free to leave a comment, contact me or hit me up on any of my social channels.
So jump into the latest edition of The Climb and follow along what is already an incredible journey.