Yesterday, I decided to give my About the Author page a little refresher.
A winter clean, if you will.
There was nothing inherently wrong with its predecessor, but it wasn’t clear what my mission was, which — admittedly — had only become crystallised in the past couple of months.
That mission?
To bring more fast-paced, short fantasy novels to the marketplace.
As in, more action, less fancy wordplay, pointless exposition, and complicated names you cannot pronounce (let alone remember).
The same will be true for sci-fi when I finally plant my flag there.
Until then?
I’m fantasy all the way, brethren.
I’ve not only got The Divided Region to wrap up, but there are several other storylines in the same world begging to be inked. And inked they shall be.
Anyway, here’s my new bio:
From an early age, D.J.J. Watson got sucked into epic fantasy worlds fraught with danger, quests, survival, and otherworldly beings. His imaginative mind – known all too well by his long-suffering friends and family – constantly sought to live these experiences through movies and video games, only to exhaust their catalogues in a few short years.
When he finally turned to the birthplace of these worlds (books), he soon encountered a problem:
He couldn't finish most of them.
Many were sprawling, bloated with needless narrative, and featured so many POVs, it was easier to neck several shots of vodka than to remember the character names.
This bothered him immeasurably.
There he was, yearning for the same magic and escape fantasy offered him in other forms, but couldn't find his "in" anywhere. Not in bookstores. Not on Amazon. Not in all the popular reader forums and groups. Nowhere.
And so, for more years than he'd like to count, he retreated from the genre and conceded that he might be the problem. It was only during the 2020 lockdowns in a cockroach-ridden Cypriot apartment – after his partner, Laura, couldn't stomach rewatching The Lord of the Rings for the 113th time – that Watson finally set out to do something about it.
He figured if he struggled with this issue, there had to be others out there struggling with it, too.
And so, The Divided Region was born.
Beyond his mission to bring more short, bingeable, fast-paced epic fantasy novels into the world, Watson is a father of two rambunctious boys, affectionately known as Stinker One and Stinker Two.
When he's not battling sleep deprivation or changing dirty nappies, he also plays Overlord & Saviour of the Legion (his author newsletter), where he connects with his most ardent fans, known as Legionnaires, and serves up whimsical musings and a steady stream of egregious puns.
If you so happen to be in the market for “more short, bingeable, fast-paced epic fantasy novels,” then I have you covered here:
https://djjwatsonstore.com/products/TDR-Bundle
DJJW