As you can see I haven't had a blog post in quite a while. Don't worry, I'm not dead. However, much about my life has changed the past few months.
For starters, my wife and I have moved to Washington, D.C. As much as I would like to say that I won a seat in the Senate and can now sit on my butt and do nothing for the country whilst making tons of money, that is not the case. My wife has begun a new career working for an archaeology magazine and she is quite happy.
My life, though, is in a state of flux. Doctoral programs are no longer in my immediate future, if ever, and I find myself in the Capitol looking for a new life to live. I have spent over a decade with my heart in the academic world and now that I am out of it I feel quite lost. So until I come across an exciting new career, I am devoting myself whole-hardheartedly to my stories.
With that said, I have some exciting things planned for the future. Hopefully, with so much time on my hands, I can finish Shadowstalker- Book Two of the Moonshadow Legacy. I'm also working on more artwork and trying to develop my own style. Once Shadowstalker is complete I'm going to work on a bunch of companion pieces and side stories. I might even try my hand at creating a web comic. All I can do is set goals for myself and complete them. If I do that, then I consider myself a success.
J.D.
Monday, May 18, 2015
Monday, February 2, 2015
New Year, New Blog
So it's 2015, it's February, and the groundhog said we have six more weeks of Winter. Well enough about that.
Now that The Jane Austen Code is finally complete and out in the world for purchase and reading pleasures of all kinds, I've decided to sit down, reassess my life, and start a new blog. New Year, new book out, fresh starts and all that. So for the first post of said new blog, I'm going to do something extremely creative and write about myself.
Hello, my name is John and I write stuff.
I'm not going to write an autobiography so don't worry. I'm not going to tell you about my wonderful childhood in Ohio and how the late 80's and early 90's was pretty much the best time in the history of the world to be a kid. For the record though, we had the best cartoons, affordable toys with actual die-cast metal parts, and video games that were simple and elegant. I will admit that the music and fashion wasn't the greatest, but I digress.
To make a long story shot, being a novelist was not my #1 dream as a kid and it's not really now. I was, and still am, obsessed with stories, however. I watched every cartoon I could, every movie, had my mom read me books until I could read. If I had the toys associated with the cartoons I would dive right into the worlds created and have my own adventures. Yeah folks, that's pre-literacy fanfiction right there. When I was older I began to create my own fantasy worlds and stories with my friends. In middle school my best friend and I began our plans to create an epic fantasy series together and I have every intention of making that adolescent pipe-dream a reality eventually.
My #1 dream was to be a globe-trotting professor/archaeologist like Indiana Jones. I would also like to thank Uncle Scrooge McDuck for instilling in me a love for history, a sense of adventure, business integrity, and a strong wish to be able to literally swim around in my success. As I grew older my life-goal was to follow in the footsteps of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, titans in both the realm of academics and the epic world of fantasy writers.
Since graduating from high school, I have devoted my life and finances to achieving that goal and was blessed enough to happen upon a lovely girl who shared my passions and life-goals as well who would eventually become my wife. As for the ongoing tally of currently useless pieces of paper on my wall, I have a Bachelors degree in Religion, a Masters in Biblical Studies, and a Masters in Roman Archaeology. I'm pretty sure that will come as no surprise to anyone who has read either of my books. My wife has the same degrees with the exception that her Bachelors is in Classics. Right now we are both currently in the process of applying to doctoral programs. Sounds awesome right? Yeah...
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have chosen any other life. I love the route we took. However, it was a mighty expensive route. Unfortunately, a life of academia means a lot of Student Loans. As a child when you watch Indian Jones or hear about how you can go on to become anything you want to be and live the American Dream, what they don't tell you is that there will be a gigantic pile of Student Loan debt- and you sure can't swim around in it. Oh, and they also don't tell you that if you have two masters in the Humanities and no PhD, you are basically unemployable. Even though you are qualified to teach, hardly any college will hire you full time and no other business will hire you because you obviously do not plan on staying there. Multiply that by 2 and it's basically a recipe for a horrible situation. If only I'd married a doctor or a pharmacist right?
So instead of sitting around being poor and crying about it, I decided to pursue dream #2 while I wait to get into a doctoral program. My first novel, Moonshadow, is the first entry in a planned series that is steeped in my love of fantasy, particular the works of Tolkien- my hero. I have grande delusions for the Moonshadow Legacy and hope to tell many stories from that world over various media outlets. My second novel was supposed to be book two of that series, Shadowstalker, but while traipsing around the graveyard where Jane Austen's sister and mother are buried I was inspired to write The Jane Austen Code. While my heart is with Mooshadow, the Code is steeped in many of the things I like to study academically and I really enjoyed the research I put into it.
Which brings me to why I chose to go the route of Independent Publishing. When I first set out to write Moonshadow I put a lot of research into the publishing business and the current state of it. When I finished my manuscript I even tried the traditional route of sending out query letters to agents and what not. After months of rejections I said screw it. I pour my heart and soul into creating worlds and writing stories. I put hours and hours of research into it as well before I even begin to write. I do not need elitist corporate jerks telling me my stories aren't good enough and that I'm not marketable. This is the entity that told J.K. Rowling that stories about a wizard school would never sell...Your worldview is invalid. So, I decided to do all of the work myself. I wrote the books, I created the covers, painted pictures, whatever needs to be done. The interwebz has made it possible for people to find their audience if they put in the time and effort. I might not become the next J.K Rowling or Stephanie Meyer, but someone out there might read my books and like them and that's just fine with me. I don't need to become a millionaire, (it'd be nice though, just saying) but if I can just make enough money from my books to pay off my Student Loans and be able to keep pursuing my dreams, I will be happy.
The Jane Austen Code is now available in both Kindle and Paperback at Amazon and the CreateSpace Store
Now that The Jane Austen Code is finally complete and out in the world for purchase and reading pleasures of all kinds, I've decided to sit down, reassess my life, and start a new blog. New Year, new book out, fresh starts and all that. So for the first post of said new blog, I'm going to do something extremely creative and write about myself.
Hello, my name is John and I write stuff.
I'm not going to write an autobiography so don't worry. I'm not going to tell you about my wonderful childhood in Ohio and how the late 80's and early 90's was pretty much the best time in the history of the world to be a kid. For the record though, we had the best cartoons, affordable toys with actual die-cast metal parts, and video games that were simple and elegant. I will admit that the music and fashion wasn't the greatest, but I digress.
To make a long story shot, being a novelist was not my #1 dream as a kid and it's not really now. I was, and still am, obsessed with stories, however. I watched every cartoon I could, every movie, had my mom read me books until I could read. If I had the toys associated with the cartoons I would dive right into the worlds created and have my own adventures. Yeah folks, that's pre-literacy fanfiction right there. When I was older I began to create my own fantasy worlds and stories with my friends. In middle school my best friend and I began our plans to create an epic fantasy series together and I have every intention of making that adolescent pipe-dream a reality eventually.
My #1 dream was to be a globe-trotting professor/archaeologist like Indiana Jones. I would also like to thank Uncle Scrooge McDuck for instilling in me a love for history, a sense of adventure, business integrity, and a strong wish to be able to literally swim around in my success. As I grew older my life-goal was to follow in the footsteps of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, titans in both the realm of academics and the epic world of fantasy writers.
Since graduating from high school, I have devoted my life and finances to achieving that goal and was blessed enough to happen upon a lovely girl who shared my passions and life-goals as well who would eventually become my wife. As for the ongoing tally of currently useless pieces of paper on my wall, I have a Bachelors degree in Religion, a Masters in Biblical Studies, and a Masters in Roman Archaeology. I'm pretty sure that will come as no surprise to anyone who has read either of my books. My wife has the same degrees with the exception that her Bachelors is in Classics. Right now we are both currently in the process of applying to doctoral programs. Sounds awesome right? Yeah...
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have chosen any other life. I love the route we took. However, it was a mighty expensive route. Unfortunately, a life of academia means a lot of Student Loans. As a child when you watch Indian Jones or hear about how you can go on to become anything you want to be and live the American Dream, what they don't tell you is that there will be a gigantic pile of Student Loan debt- and you sure can't swim around in it. Oh, and they also don't tell you that if you have two masters in the Humanities and no PhD, you are basically unemployable. Even though you are qualified to teach, hardly any college will hire you full time and no other business will hire you because you obviously do not plan on staying there. Multiply that by 2 and it's basically a recipe for a horrible situation. If only I'd married a doctor or a pharmacist right?
So instead of sitting around being poor and crying about it, I decided to pursue dream #2 while I wait to get into a doctoral program. My first novel, Moonshadow, is the first entry in a planned series that is steeped in my love of fantasy, particular the works of Tolkien- my hero. I have grande delusions for the Moonshadow Legacy and hope to tell many stories from that world over various media outlets. My second novel was supposed to be book two of that series, Shadowstalker, but while traipsing around the graveyard where Jane Austen's sister and mother are buried I was inspired to write The Jane Austen Code. While my heart is with Mooshadow, the Code is steeped in many of the things I like to study academically and I really enjoyed the research I put into it.
Which brings me to why I chose to go the route of Independent Publishing. When I first set out to write Moonshadow I put a lot of research into the publishing business and the current state of it. When I finished my manuscript I even tried the traditional route of sending out query letters to agents and what not. After months of rejections I said screw it. I pour my heart and soul into creating worlds and writing stories. I put hours and hours of research into it as well before I even begin to write. I do not need elitist corporate jerks telling me my stories aren't good enough and that I'm not marketable. This is the entity that told J.K. Rowling that stories about a wizard school would never sell...Your worldview is invalid. So, I decided to do all of the work myself. I wrote the books, I created the covers, painted pictures, whatever needs to be done. The interwebz has made it possible for people to find their audience if they put in the time and effort. I might not become the next J.K Rowling or Stephanie Meyer, but someone out there might read my books and like them and that's just fine with me. I don't need to become a millionaire, (it'd be nice though, just saying) but if I can just make enough money from my books to pay off my Student Loans and be able to keep pursuing my dreams, I will be happy.
Well that's that. Until next time,
J.D.
Moonshadow is now available on Kindle devices and apps with a paperback version coming soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)