When I was a kid I had two passions: peanut butter and banana sandwiches and Super Friends, the eighties cartoon about the Justice League of America. That said, my lifetime goal was to marry Aquaman. In the past this has garnered great ridicule. "Aquaman? That's so lame!" So now I'm just going to go ahead and leave this here. It's the promo for the Jason Momoa version of Aquaman. I don't think any further comments are needed except, "Told you so, bitches."
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Ah, the good old days. When writers didn't share every minutiae of their lives. When men were men and women knew their place. ...Wait, scratch that last part. Maybe the good old days were not so good. I am the worst of the worst when it comes to sharing about my writing on Facebook and other social media. I will tell you everything. My fan page is basically a livetweet of whatever I'm writing at the time. This can lead to problems. Right now it looks like a running tally of deleted scenes and written-out characters of a book that I ended up having to put aside. Social media is too alluring, too tempting for lonely writers to resist. We have forgotten the fact that writers are supposed to do this alone, we're supposed to feel disconnected. It makes us better able to examine the world at large and comment upon it. (In books, you guys. No one cares how you feel about Benghazi on Twitter). Which reminds me, I've had to put my vampire novel Blood Day aside for a while. I've tried to write it every which way, and some parts work and some parts don't. I just need to come back to it in a year or two and figure out which is which. My main problem was that I didn't plan it out. I never expected to be the kind of writer that needs an outline, but it turns out, I am. Writing by the seat of my pants apparently doesn't work for me. Writing without knowing what I need to write about just ends up being my characters wandering around aimlessly and being annoyingly angsty. That might work if this was a teenage vampire story, but this is horror, son. It needs structure. So here I am, complaining about oversharing, and I'm oversharing again. Typical. Somebody just take my internet away. And in the spirit of oversharing, I'm dedicating all my time to writing the sequel to Jenny Undead, titled Eat the Ones You Love. I'm really excited and hope to have it done soon. My last post was a cover reveal, but I'll share it again because it's so fucking great. I've been told by more than one reader that this is exactly how they pictured Jenny, so I'm pretty excited.
But enough oversharing. The weather is gorgeous here in Oregon (sorry Eastcoasters!), which mostly means good writing weather. So I'm firing up a pot of coffee and getting ready to finish plotting this bad boy out. Because plotting is my thing. Apparently. You asked for more Jenny Undead, so you're going to get what's coming to you. BEHOLD THE COVER FOR BOOK TWO!!! Don't say I didn't warn you. This little pretty should be out sometime this summer, hopefully. And it's going to be bloodier, gorier, and more heartbreaking than the first. Also, totally insane. FUN!
Cover is by the talented Conzpiracy Dean, who I definitely want to do more covers in the future. He is awesome and easy to work with. Also, just look at that badassery. Still pecking away at Blood Day, which should be finished soon. It's been a really weird experience to write, but I'm feeling pretty good that it will turn out decent. Keep an eye out for a release date any day now. Oh, hello there. Long time no see. I have been terrible about blogging. As you can see, I haven't written a thing on this blog since the summer. I have excuses, of course. We moved across the world from Hawaii to Oregon, I got very sick, I got better and then I got sick again. I had to unpack all our earthly possessions. And then my laptop crashed and I lost a book. But, you know, excuses, excuses. I've been working on Blood Day, and I have to say, the rewrite is making it even better than it was. I'm glad I lost the first version, because it gave me the chance to go a lot deeper with the characters. It's taking a while, but I'm about a quarter to a third of the way into it. Stay tuned for details on that. And here's something fun: I have a side project. I'm working on clockpunk fairy tale that seems to be writing itself. It'll probably be shorter than a novel, but it's been a blast to write. I'll be releasing it, well, whenever I'm done, I guess. (Isn't it infuriating trying to get dates out of indie writers?) Shouldn't be long. Oh, and the best part? I have your cover reveal right here. Gorgeous, right? This is the work of the lovely Ravven who I highly recommend. And since I love you all, here is an excerpt from said fairy tale, which does not contain fairies, princesses or glass slippers. Her heart was made of iron. Not metaphorical iron, but actual, honest-to-goodness cold, unfeeling iron. To the girl, whose name was Summer, time was a clock. And since her heart was very much like a clock, her heart was time, and vice versa. But to the boy, whose heart was meat, her heart was not iron, or a clock, or time. To the boy, Summer's heart was everything gold or beautiful or precious in the world. And since time has never been kind to meat, the boys soft, warm heart was bound to be shredded and bruised and cut to ribbons by Summer's cold clockwork heart. I'll let you all know when Blood Day and/or Wicked Clockwork Heart is available. In the meantime, feel free to put Blood Day on your to-read list via Goodreads. It says its publication date is December 15th, but that's a damn lie. I'm just really really late. But now that we've finally settled in to our new house and neighborhood, I'll be able to really sink my teeth into writing. Which is good, because the sequel to Jenny Undead is next on my list.
There's a crazy-cool giveaway going on. I hope you will enter. There's an Amazon gift card and lots of free books up for grabs! a Rafflecopter giveaway Giveaway | Rafflecopter :) www.rafflecopter.com I've decided to publish Blood Day through Hellzapoppin Press (the same way all my others are published). So it now has a Goodreads page! Yay! I'm not allowed to format on Goodreads, so I'll also post the description here, in case you haven't seen it on this website yet. I hope some of you will consider adding it to you to-read lists. Very excited. I've set the release date for December 15, but that may change later. This is the way the world ends... It happened quietly and without violence. While the world was intoxicated on a prescription drug nicknamed Slack, the Revenants came. They took over governments across the world and started changing everything. Illness and disease were no more. Poverty was eradicated and no human went hungry so long as they followed the rules. And in return, the Revenants asked for only one thing: blood. Such a tiny thing. A small blood donation every month to enable the Revs to survive. Soon, however, it was every fortnight. Then every week. That's when the children started to disappear. In this valley of dying stars... Jane Rossi is an addict. After the Revs made Slack illegal, it was only available on the black market. Criminals made a fortune off of it and, one cold night, Jane killed for it. Caught and picked up by Movers in dark vans, Jane was taken to rehabilitate. She was sure she would be forced to become a full-time donor, like all the other Disobedients; but the Revs had something else in mind for her. Something to do with the rebel vampire Joshua Flynn. Eyes I dare not meet in dreams... Mike Novak was a great reporter once. But after attempting to print a story filled with truths instead of propaganda, Mike is on the run. Hunted by Revs, not even Mike's friends in the Underworld can help him. He is penniless and friendless and in fear for his life. Until he is approached by a dark man who has a purpose for him. Joshua Flynn wants the truth, and he wants Mike to write it. In death's twilight kingdom... Genevieve White is a widow who has lost her child. They came into her home on a dark moonless night and when they left, her boy was gone. After the death of her husband, Viv is alone and terrified. She follows the rules, shows up for her Blood Day, and doesn't make a fuss. But she has a secret. Her husband left something behind, something that could change everything. If only she has the courage to use it. The only hope of empty men... Joshua Flynn is old. Tired and ancient. His kind is dead, replaced by monsters without purpose, vampires without power. He has vowed to stop them, to bring back the old ways. But to bring the Revenants to their knees, he must work with his prey. With humans. And even if he brings the new order down, the darkness and beauty and blood of the old ways may very well die with him. This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. Okay, so I don't usually post stuff about movies here, but for some reason I'm stupid, crazy excited about the Guardians of the Galaxy. So I'm posting this new extended trailer here just because IT'S FREAKING AWESOME. What with Blood Day being all about...well...blood, I thought this blood infographic might come in handy.
It's weird being a writer. Most of the time I feel just on the verge of falling down the rabbit hole. As though if I don't hold myself together very tightly, I will go careening into the universe in a mess of atoms and whatever I ate that day for lunch. It's exhausting holding my molecules together. But it's worth it when I put all the words together and make something incredible. A book. There is no greater reward. When I sleep, it all falls apart. I have incredibly vivid dreams usually involving something terrifying chasing me or my family members. I wake up and it's like I didn't sleep at all. But that doesn't stop me from staying up until the wee hours because I'm absolutely wide awake when the world is sleeping. It's when I work the best. I think when you tap into a certain part of the imagination as often as I do, you thin the boundaries that separate dreams from reality. It's why writers are so eccentric (crazy) and likely why some find themselves in a hospital (mental asylum) one day. My husband claims that writing full time has turned me into "hot mess." I'm stuck in that fantasy world from the time I write the first word to the moment where I type "the end." It's a running joke in our house. Don't mind Mom, she's working on a book. She's not really here right now. Except the more I do this job, the less time there is between books. It used to be that I'd have to take a month off, sometimes more, just to recover after finishing a book. Sometimes I'd cry a little (Hello. Book three of Niki Slobodian DESTROYED me). Then I'd feel a little better, and a little better. Then one day I'd have an itch and I'd start the next one. It took me a day the last time. I didn't even finish editing Niki 5 before I started plotting Blood Day. And I've been in it ever since. And Blood Day is DARK. Maybe the darkest I've ever worked on. Am I insane to keep doing this to myself? Well, yes, I am. But sometimes I feel I'm not so much a person as a writer who is sometimes a person. I'm a hot mess all the time now. I miss appointments. I run out of gas. And my nightmares are crazier than ever. But you know, I think it's worth it. People read this thing you made. It used to be nothing, and now it's a thing. And sometimes, if you're lucky, and you work very hard, they will say to you, "You made this thing, and it's beautiful. I love this thing. This is the best thing I have ever read. Can you make more things?" Yes. I will make things. Always. And it doesn't matter how long it takes, or how much I have to work to get it done, I will make more things. And I hope that someday, someone else will find them beautiful, too. I fall down the rabbit hole over and over. But it's okay, because that's what I'm supposed to do. I'm a writer. |
AuthorJ.L. Murray is the bestselling author of the Niki Slobodian series, After the Fire, and Jenny Undead. Archives
August 2023
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Things I Should Probably
Keep To Myself
Also, fun links, new authors, books I like, and probably a good deal of incoherent ramblings.