Happy Bookday!

It’s here!  After more than a year, After Death is finally available in Paperback AND Kindle!

Paperback

Kindle

I’m so excited for the ghostly misadventures of Michael, Luke, and Kate to continue.  I hope you all enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them!

I want to take a little bit of time, however, to celebrate a few OTHER books being released today: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, Life and Death by Stephenie Meyer, and of course, the illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

The fact that my book came out on the same day as all of these ladies is, quite frankly, a huge fangirl honor for me.  JK Rowling is Queen, as everyone knows, and I don’t know a single person whose lives she hasn’t touched with her magical world.  Stephenie Meyer, yeah, okay, it’s kind of fun to make fun of Twilight.  But I’ve got to be honest.  I still love it.  I love the story.  It’s just pure fun and fantasy, you know?  Very escapist, and I do love to escape.

Then, finally, there’s Rainbow Rowell.  I fell in love with her writing after reading the story of my life, Fangirl.  I’m serious.  I’ve never read a book that so keenly described what it feels like to love a book and, frankly, to be apprehensive of the world outside.  Oh my Heavens, do I love Fangirl.

As if I didn’t already love Rainbow Rowell enough for  bringing that story to life, I then got to meet her last May.  She is incredible, basically everything I want to be as an author and as a person.  When I found out that her new book, Carry On, inspired by the book series in Fangirl, was being released the same day as mine, I was thrilled.  And yes, I’ve already run out and bought my own copy.

Yes, I bought Life and Death too.  I wanted to buy the new Harry Potter, but let’s face it, as an Indie Author, I barely have two dimes to rub together.  I really shouldn’t have bought these two books, but I can’t help it.  I have to support the authors and stories that I love.  And, yeah, okay, I really need to feed my addiction to YA literature.  Most importantly, though, these books serve as a reminder of why I do what I do and why I put so much time and effort into my books.  I want this world of words to be my world, too.

Happy Bookday, everyone!  Go read your favorite book!  Or, if you’re feeling adventurous, go pick up something new!

May I recommend a ghost story?

Style

When I was in college, I met this guy at a party.  We talked for maybe two minutes because everything he said translated in my mind to, “Hi, I’m a jerk. You don’t want to know me. I am physically repelling you with my voice right now.”

It happens.

Anyway, in those two minutes, we ended up talking about writing styles.  Specifically, we talked about JK Rowling’s writing style.

I don’t remember how Harry Potter came up, but considering it’s me, it’s not very surprising.  I’ve mentioned how the Harry Potter books got me through some of the hardest parts of my life. https://jackiesmith114.wordpress.com/2014/01/24/i-believe-in-dragons/

It was JK Rowling and her style that inspired me to begin writing my own stories.  Granted, back then it was just for fun.  I had absolutely no intention or inclination to consider becoming a writer full time, or even part time.  It was just something I did for me.  The guy that I met that night at the party, however, apparently had had it in his head for a while that he was destined to become the next Tolstoy or something.  Let me tell you, he had an ego on him the size of… well… Texas.  I was going to say Hogwarts, but Texas is way bigger than Hogwarts.

Anyway, the moment I mentioned Harry Potter, this guy goes all out, trashing JK Rowling and her horrible, juvenile, dialogue-based writing.  I was appalled.  For one thing, it was the first time I’d ever heard someone say anything even remotely negative about Queen Rowling.  For another, I love the way that JK Rowling writes!  It was so personable to me, so easy and fun to read, so truly and uniquely in her own voice.  I much prefer reading books with narrators who speak to their readers like old friends rather than narrators who are aloof and above it all, which that guy at the party definitely was.

It’s weird to think that a two-minute conversation I had with some jerk at a party would stay with me for eight years, but that conversation is wildly relevant to my life as a writer now, mostly because I want to be everything that he trashed that night.  I want to write like I’m friends with my readers.  I want them to read my stories and feel like it’s a real person telling them.  I want my characters to have lives personalities of their own and I want their dialogue to reflect it.

I love writing dialogue.  It’s my favorite thing to write.  I’m very mediocre when it comes to action and descriptions, but dialogue is my thing.  And you know, when it comes to writing, there is no right or wrong.  There is no such thing as too much dialogue or not enough dialogue.  It fully depends on the author’s intention for the story.  I’ve read and enjoyed books that are almost all dialogue and I’ve read and enjoyed books that have very little.  Not every book is meant to be written a certain way.  In fact, if they were, reading would be terribly, terribly boring.  I love that every author of every book I’ve ever read has their own style that makes them 100% unique.

As for me?  I know I tend to hover around the more dialogue-based narrative.  I love characters.  Even when I was little, I had four or five imaginary friends running around inside my head at once.  It’s really no wonder I became a writer.

That all being said, I hope you all have a fantastic Wednesday!  This week is going so slowly for me.  Is it for anyone else?  It’s probably because my sister is coming home this weekend and we’re going to see Ed Sheeran and I’m dying to see her.  I also have a very good friend taking some pretty intimidating exams at the end of the week and I keep wanting them to be over for him.  Hurry up, weekend!  We’re all ready for you!

One Day More

I just read on the Weather Channel that although we (as in all of North Texas) are under a freezing rain advisory until tomorrow at 6 PM (yay), the following days should be all sun and highs in the upper sixties!

I can not even begin to tell you how much I hope that that’s true.  With Texas weather, you can never really know.  I’ve seen days where Texas decided we needed tornadoes in December.  No, Texas.  No one ever needs tornadoes.  Especially in December.

However, I would be lying if I said I didn’t prefer thunderstorms to whatever the heck we’ve had for the past week.  It’s been gray and foggy and drizzly and COLD every single day, and as much as I don’t want to admit it, it’s getting to me.  I’m not sure I’d go all the way to say I have Seasonal Affective Disorder, but it did used to bring me down a lot.  Now, I’m older (and on anti-anxiety medication), so maybe that’s helping a little.

But even if it’s not affecting me mentally, it’s starting to get to me physically.  I’ve had almost no energy this past week, and although I’ve been keeping up with the new book, somehow forcing myself to punch out words on this blog has been a nightmare!  That’s not to say I don’t love you!  I do!  That’s why I want to keep writing here as often as I can!

There have been times in the last few days I honestly thought I was getting sick, and part of me almost wanted to.  That at least would have explained the no energy and the overall feeling of yuckiness.  Last week, I was convinced I was getting sick because of how achey I felt and because of all the pressure in my sinuses.  But you know what?  I think I’m as healthy as a horse.  I really think it’s just the weather.  I got a text from my best friend yesterday.  She’s an accountant and she’s right in the middle of busy season.  She told me the all the stress combined with the weather was about to put her over the edge.  Now, being an author is not NEARLY as stressful as being an accountant (not yet, at least…), but I could totally empathize.  I told her I wasn’t sad or stressed, but I just felt sick.

I guess thinking about it, it could be a mental thing.  Just because it’s not affecting my mood, doesn’t mean my brain can’t send out some weird signal to the rest of my body saying, “Okay, you’re not sad or grouchy.  But you need to react to this weather somehow.  I know.  I’ll make you feel like crap.”  The brain is a really fascinating thing.

And now for some other things that have been on my mind recently but I haven’t mentioned because I’ve been too busy griping about how cold and gray it is even though we actually really don’t have it all that bad down here.

1) I really wish people of the world would STOP posting their injuries on Facebook.  It’s gross.  I’m sorry you busted up your knee skiing and I’m sorry you were stupid and you accidentally sliced your finger open on a wine bottle, but I really do not need to see pictures.  Just stop.  Please, stop.

2) You know what musical I really hate?  Annie.  Seriously, it is the worst musical ever.  The Disney remake is only tolerable because of it’s adult cast (Kathy Bates, Victor Garber, Audra McDonald, Kristen Chenowith).  The reason I’m bringing this up is because for some reason, people around the office where I work have decided they need to start singing “The sun’ll come out… tomorrow…” like, pretty much every day since the cold and gray first started.  It’s not bad enough that I have to endure this awful weather, now I have to suck it up while you sing one of the most annoying songs in musical theater history?

3) I mentioned before that my sister and I had a pretty good chuckle over JK Rowling announcing that she regrets Ron and Hermione ending up together.  I guess the reason it was funny to us was because we never really cared all that much about if they got together or no.  To be honest, I was still too sad after JK killed off all my favorite characters to care about who got married in the end.  Still, I knew a lot of people were really upset about it.  A few of my friends, in fact, were just beside themselves.  I really didn’t get it.  Then, completely out of the blue, my sister texts me, “Oh my gosh.  Do you know what I just saw on Twitter?  Someone just wrote, ‘For those of you who don’t understand why we’re all upset about Ron and Hermione, imagine what it would be like if Suzanne Collins suddenly said she regretted having Katniss and Peeta end up together?'”  Oh boy, that did it.  That would not be funny at all.  I think I’d be heartbroken.  I wouldn’t know what to believe in anymore.  I love Katniss and Peeta!!!  So, to all you Ron and Hermione fans out there, I, as an Everlark fan, apologize from the bottom of my heart.  I can’t imagine what that might feel like.  The good news is that they’re still canon and unless JK wants to write us more books, there’s nothing she can do about it.

Honestly though, I want more books about the Four Founders or the Marauders or the Weasleys.  Or all of the above.

4) 93 people have either reviewed or marked Cemetery Tours as to-read on GoodReads!  My goal for the end of February is to get that number up to 100!    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18470430-cemetery-tours

5) I finished Chapter 25 of the sequel last night.  I’m loving it, guys.  I really hope readers love it also.  Cemetery Tours is 28 chapters long, but I know that the sequel will be a little longer.  However, the sequel is just at 60,000 words and CT was something like 78,000.  We’ll see, though.

Again, stay warm.  Find a good book.  Light a fire.