by john | Feb 9, 2011 | Real Life, Writing
Hell if I know! This is one of those weeks where it gets to be hard to remember what town (or state) I’m in on any given evening, and you really get confused because the hotel room last night had the bathroom in the other direction and now you just peed on the air conditioner at 3:30 in the morning, and trust me that is NOT something you want to explain to the front desk at checkout.
Theoretically speaking, of course.
Sunday I flew to Wisconsin for some work training, and got home Tuesday night a little after midnight. It’s now Wednesday and I’m in Atlanta, because I thought driving for 4 1/2 hours today was about all I was good for, rather than the 6+ it would have taken me to get all the way to Columbus, GA, which is where I’ll be heading tomorrow for the rest of the week. Then I get home Saturday night (or Sunday late morning) and we go to take my parents out for their collective birthdays (Mom today, Dad Saturday). I also have some additional work travel next week, but that’s all day trip stuff, nothing overnight.
And then there’s a Charlotte Writers’ Club meeting next week, with novelist Heather Newton, and then off to RoundCon next weekend! Hopefully the folks there will be able to look up from their d20s long enough to buy a few books. If you’re in Columbia, stop by and say hello!
Just got the site update to the Charlotte ComiCon site, which now lists me as an official guest, and I’m very excited about that. I used to buy comics from Dave when I was in college, so now that I can be a guest at his show, that’s pretty cool. He runs a very nice little show with some amazing deals on comics, so check out their site and stop by on March 20th if you’re around Charlotte.
Alright, I’m off. Just a quick post tonight before I get to proofing Back in Black (and Blue). Gotta get that rolling for the March release date!
by john | Feb 6, 2011 | Book Spotlight
My posting this week will be a bit limited as I bounce from the Great White North back down to Georgia for work travel all week, but I didn’t want to leave you without a Sunday Spotlight. And this one’s super-fresh because I just finished this book on the plane. Jenny Pox by JL Bryan – wow, what a roller coaster ride.
The blurb from Smashwords goes like this – Jenny has a secret. Her touch spreads a deadly supernatural plague. She devotes her life to avoiding contact with people, but her senior year of high school, she falls in love with the one boy she can touch. But he’s under the spell of his devious girlfriend Ashleigh, who secretly wields the most dangerous power of all. Now Jenny must master the “Jenny pox” before Ashleigh can destroy her.
I picked up the book because it had gotten some great responses on a couple of message boards I frequent, but put off getting started because it sounded a little too chick-flick, Lifetime movie for me. I couldn’t have been more wrong. JL Bryan has written a book that runs the gamut from young adult romance to revenge thriller to horror novel to grand fantasy epic love story, and doesn’t miss on any fronts. I was, quite simply, blown away.
I grew up in rural SC, so I’m a little touchy about people writing about rednecks from my home state. Bryan captures the class separation in the rural South beautifully, and paints a totally realistic picture of what life is like when the haves target the have-nots for torment. Throw in the fact that Jenny, the main character, really is a freak of nature with poisonous hands, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster like I haven’t read in years.
Seriously, kids, this book kicks ass. It’s old-school Stephen King good, before he got hit by a car and started thinking too many deep thoughts. This is Pet Sematary and Needful Things kinda good. Jenny Morton is the hero, the kid you love despite all the crap she does that’s not lovable. That’s where Bryan excels – he paints realistic heroes. Jenny steals her dad’s weed when life gets to be too much, and has nasty thoughts of revenge when people do mean things to her. She’s not some wimpy little chickadee that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, and that’s what makes the book all the better. The cast of supporting characters is solid, too, but it’s the villain of the piece that gets some of the best attention. She’s as fully realized as Jenny, a nasty little bitch that you hope against hope for most of the book that she gets what’s coming to her.
I’m not going to give away any plotlines, because that’s just shitty, but the climactic confrontation is every bit as scorched-earth badass as anything I’ve read in a long, long time. This is a book that you should all go buy, because it’s a hell of a thrill ride!
by john | Feb 5, 2011 | Writing
Before I get to dead birds, I just found out that my book, The Chosen, is featured on Spalding’s Racket today! If you don’t know Nick, you should check out his blog. He highlights indie authors, is an indie author, and has a fantastic snarky sense of humor! Check out his book, Life…with no Breaks, when you need a good laugh!
Now, about my albatross. The one that’s been hanging around my neck all week, I mean. I’ve finished my short story for the Twelve Worlds anthology that the inimitable Derek J. Canyon is putting together. The anthology will be out sometime in late spring and will feature a dozen short stories from self-published authors, as well as a few extra stories from previously unpublished writers. It’s also for a good cause, as all proceeds from the sale of the book will go to charity. I’ll post up more info as it develops, but I think it will be a cool thing. I wrote a Black Knight Chronicles story, a short adventure set before the events in Hard Day’s Knight, so I hope that people who enjoyed that book will pick up the anthology and get some stand-alone back story for our boys. There’s certainly nothing in there that is required reading for anyone’s understanding of the universe, it’ll just add a little color for the folks that read it.
I’ve been reading Side Jobs, which is a collection of stories from the world of The Dresden Files, and it’s really good. Of course, by reading in this case I mean listening to while I drive, but that’s how I’ve “read” the last four or five Dresden books, so that’s just my M.O. for those novels. I signed up with Audible forever ago, and for $15/month I get one free audiobook. And as much as I drive, I love it. All of these stories are similar to what I tried to do for the anthology, a separate story that doesn’t impact the continuity of the universe, but allows for a little depth into something that I haven’t yet explored in the main storyline. Of course, since I’ve written two books as opposed to Butcher’s dozen or so Dresden novels, it was a little easier for me. But I turned it in at around 5,000 words, which is a nice length for a short story.
Now on to the next thing – I think I’m going to work on Return to Eden Volume 1. I posted the first chapter here a week or so ago, and I think I want to spend some time with those kids and see what I can make of their story. I need to pump a little more immediacy into it, or at least get ready for a big conflict soon. I’ll keep you posted. I have no idea how long this one is going to be, but if it runs like most of my stuff, in that 60K range, I’ll be ready with a first draft of it some time in late March or early April. Depends on how the prep work for Back in Black (and Blue) goes.
I fly to Wisconsin tomorrow for work, because the baby Jesus hates me and wants me to be cold. I just hope all my flights are ok from the weather they got earlier this week, and I can get there on time. Wish me luck!
by john | Feb 4, 2011 | Writing
It’s 10:30 on a Friday night and I’m just beginning to catch my breath. This was a long week, and it looks to be followed by another one of the same. I’ve been to Atlanta, Durham, Raleigh and Winston-Salem this week, and next week sees me in Madison, WI, Atlanta and Columbus, GA and then eventually back to Charlotte. Then I think I’m home for most of a week before RoundCon in Columbia, SC, which will be a nice little semi-vacation. More to the point, I’ll be working, but I’ll be working for me and not for The Man.
Although, I guess since I’m middle management, I’m the epitome of The Man most days. Oh well, it is what it is. I’m getting through the first round of edits on Back in Black (and Blue) and March is still looking good for a release date. Gotta get to work on a cover, though. Might try something radically different with this cover. I love the covers Lindsay has made for me, but they might not be the best covers as far as marketability, and the whole point is to sell books, after all. So I’m gonna look at some things. I can always change the cover later.
The Win a Kindle/Nook/Gift Card contest is getting a lot of entrants, but not a lot of people are emailing me book receipts or trivia question answers, so I’m not sure how effective it is as a sales tool. But it’s getting my name out there, and anything that increases my name recognition doesn’t hurt at this point. Joe Konrath had a really interesting post on his blog a while back about book tours and signings and things like that. Basically he said that now that he’s self-pubbing, his writing is making him enough money to stay home and write. And since he’s doing most of his business through e-books, it’s better for him financially to not do as many cons and appearances, and stay home and get the next book out. This makes sense, especially if you’re as prolific as Joe (and I hope to one day be), but I’m likely to continue doing as many cons and book fairs as I can for a while, simply because I really enjoy them. I like meeting people and talking to them about my book. I’m sure eventually the gild will come off that lily and I’ll want to stay home and write, but for now I’ll be behind a table every chance I get signing books.
Speaking of books, we’re at 8 books sold 4 days into the month, so why don’t you go to Amazon and put me into double digits already?
by john | Feb 1, 2011 | Writing
I missed a deadline this morning. Well, I probably haven’t really missed it until tonight, and there is a slightly less than zero percent chance that I can create a short story out of whole cloth between now and the time I go to sleep. Except for the fact that I’m at work, which interferes with my writing. It’s considered somewhat untoward for the manager to be working on his fiction writing while at work. We’re not going to talk about my blogging while working, because it doesn’t take as long. And because we’re not going to talk about it.
Just got some interesting news, though. The 2012 Democratic National Convention will be coming to Charlotte, which is good news for the day job. You see, I sell theatrical lighting equipment. And news crews use a lot of lighting. And so do event companies. And two things that flood into a town during a big political convention are event companies and news crews, so that looks like next summer will provide a nice little bump in sales for us.Nothing huge, but a decent bump is better than nothing, which is what we would have gotten if the convention had gone to St. Louis.
On the writing front, I’m getting the first proofreading bits of Back in Black (and Blue) back, so I think we’ll be all systems go to have that ready in March. I just stocked up on Hard Day’s Knight and The Chosen to have copies at RoundCon in a couple of weeks, so if you’re gonna be around Columbia, SC come by and say hello. I’ve also been featured on a couple of cool websites lately, including Fang-Tastic Books and No Trees Harmed. Please go visit these folks and thank them for supporting your favorite independent author!
