Jamieson Wolf
Number-one bestselling author
Some Thoughts on 69B – Download the novel for free!
I want to talk a little bit about 69B. You’ve been there, haven’t you? You know the apartment building on Carmichael Street? Yeah, that one, the scene of the murders…
69B started out as an idea. I had written the first thirty or so pages and put it aside. I had just finished writing a novel called The Other Side of Oz. I wanted to write something completely different while I waited for the novel to be edited. I stumbled upon the old manuscript and thought it would be a neat premise for a serial novel. I wanted to keep busy while I was waiting and though it would be fun.
I had no idea how long it would be, I gave myself a goal of 20, 000 words. And whereas my Oz book was magical realism, 69B would be my take on horror movies-that was the general idea. It didn’t turn out that way though. The first issue being is that people kept living.
My ordinal intent was to introduce the characters in the first part, kill most of them off in the second and let the third part be mostly about Oliver. When I began 69B, Oliver had no last name.
He was a character from two of my previous novella: 12 and 12 + 1. I wanted to find out what would happen to a guy like that. I knew that he would end up being something like Freddy meets the SAW movies. That was the intent. What came out instead was more about the characters.
My books have always been about the people that live in them. Yes, it’s about the story as a whole, but my philosophy (in reading and writing) is you have to care about the characters first. That’s true here, maybe too much. I felt kind of bad just killing these people off after just introducing them; I wanted to give some of them a fighting chance. Most of them kept living when they should have died and then the novel really took off, proving that the author doesn’t have as much control over his or her characters as first thought. Originally, I had intended to have five characters alive at the end of the novel: Shane, Justin, Rex, Barbarella, LaWanda.
Towards the middle of the novel, I thought it would be fun to see how long I could keep it going, inviting people to submit character sketches for a chance to be in the novel. I only had one person submit a character sketch and added another in myself. The interactivity didn’t pan out how I thought it would but it ended up being a blessing in disguise. The same friend that submitted the character sketch pointed out that it would be impossible to keep the novel going forever and I would eventually have to think of an ending.
So I had another idea. I would encourage interactivity another way. I would share the story. Yes, the story was free to read on the blog itself, but I’m a big lover of eBooks and I love free ones. So I offered the Acts for free download, each put up as it was done. I’m going to 69B a touch up and then offer the whole book for free as well. Why? I was writing it to have fun, so why not?
When I arrived at the beginning of Act Three, I still had no concrete idea about how to end it, but as I wrote an idea began to take shape. What if fighting against what I wanted to do, I let the characters tell me? I knew that they would prefer that good triumphed over evil. I wasn’t sure how many people would die in the end and even some of the characters I killed off worked their way back on to the pages.
A vague idea for an ending began to make itself known and I wondered how I would write it. I let go completely and let the characters tell the story they wanted, something I’m usually loathe to do. Turns out, they knew what they wanted to do all along, I just had to let them.
Did I get to every story line that I left hanging? I think so, but there might still one or two left dangling or ones that didn’t work out how I had originally intended. And that’s just how it has to be. It’s the nature of a serial novel in that it’s unpredictable, but I still had an absolute blast.
And I hope you do, too! All three Acts of 69B are now available to download in PDF format. Coming soon, the whole book in epub and mobi formats. You can download and read 69B here: www.69banovel.wordpress.com
Welcome to 69B-I hope you enjoy your stay.
The Rolulus Equation by Darren Craske
Circus conjuror and magician Cornelius Quaint is a man who wants answers and he will do anything to get them.
After defeating the Chinese warlord Cho-Zen Li and stopping his plan to assassinate Queen Victoria via a deadly plague, the warlord gave Cornelius one piece of vital information: the name of the man who killed his parents.
He knows that they were killed by the Hades Consortium but he doesn’t know why. All his life, he has been haunted by the death of his parents. Now that he knows the man’s name, he plans to hunt him down. Cornelius knows his name is Baron Remus and that he’s stationed in Rome, deep inside the Hades stronghold.
Cornelius knows that he must go to Rome and kill the man who murdered his parents.
Madame Destine, his former governess and the closest thing he has to a mother, begs him not to go. A physic and clairvoyant, she has seen that learning the truth will destroy Cornelius. She aims to watch over him at any cost. She knows that whatever he learns in Rome will be the death of him.
Once again, Cornelius Quaint becomes involved in a plot that involves saving the world in a race against time. All in a day’s work for the immortal conjuror…
I always think the newest Cornelius Quaint book in the series is my favourite, until the next book comes out and blows me away. That is no less true with the Romulus Equation, by far the best book yet in the Cornelius Quaint series. Craske always manages to surpass himself with each book and deliver a thrilling and riveting adventure.
Part of the reason the Quaint books are so awesome is because they work on so many levels: mythology, magic, mystery, thrills, chills and spills. The books are fast and furious reads, mostly because you won’t want to stop reading.
The other reason the books are so incredible is because of the characters. Quaint, Destine, Prometheus. All of them are so real, so alive on the pages, that you can’t help but fall in love with them. This is due to Craske’s masterful skill as an author.
The Romulus Equation takes the series to whole new levels, however, as Quaint delves into his past and changes his future. We also see a side of the conjurer that we haven’t seen before. He has always been willing to do what he could to protect his own neck. The Romulus Equation marks the first time that Quaint sets out to kill someone, to get his revenge.
This new Quaint is a little tougher, but no less charming and there’s no shortage of one liners either. Even though Quaint is on a mission of murder, you can’t help but wish for his success even though it could cost him everything. Takes a brave man to do that.
I’m always amazed at Craske’s skill. Just when you think the story is going in one direction, it goes in a completely different one. However, in The Romulus Equation, all bets are off. My advice to you is to get reading and hold on tight.
It’s going to be on heck of a ride!
FREE! Blood and Ink – Short Stories
So what is Blood and Ink?
Well, the blurb on the back of the book reads thusly:
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
Ernest Hemmingway
Every writer knows that there is more than ink that goes into a story. Many would argue that there is also sweat and tears encased in words.
In words, there are hopes and dreams, wants and desires. But there is also blood.
Blood and Ink is a collection of 12 stories that takes an intimate look at the craft of
writing, each following the theme of blood and ink.
Each story follows a different writer or reader as they experience the power of
the written word.
And what it can take from us.
However, the story behind the collection is a little more complicated. When I started writing the short stories, I had no idea they would become a collection.
I thought I was writing a one off short story and I was very happy with it, but I thought I was done-but the collection wasn’t done with me.
I was intrigued by the first short story and wanted to delve deeper. At the time, my boyfriend was studying a lot of different philosophers as part of his university courses and the theories of those philosophers inspired more stories.
Almost all of the stories have a quote at the beginning and that quote is the inspiration for each story, the seed it came from. I wrote stories that touched on Leccan, Barthes, the stream of unconsciousness and the Panopticon. Each story was different, but focused on the same thing: the power that words have over us, either as writer or reader.
During the writing of the collection, my good friend Sharon read a draft and said she was reminded of the quote by Enerst Hemmingway: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” She had just given me a title.
The collection took over a year to write and it remains my favorite of all my short story collections. And it’s a thrill to be sharing it all with you.
Starting today, October 19th and going to the 23rd, the collection is free to download. And you can download your copy here:
You can download it on your Kindle, your iPad, iPod Touch or your Android device.
It’s the collection I worked the hardest on as I tried to make sense of philosophies and ideas that were new to me; and like the best kind of stories, they grew out of a small seed, only to cover the pages with words.
I truly hope you enjoy Blood and Ink and if you read it, why not leave a review? Or let me know what you think? I hope you have as much fun reading the stories as I did writing them.
Me and Mr Carrington by Alexandra Brown
Georgie Hart has it all-almost.
She’s the new supervisor in Women’s Accessories at Carrington’s and is in love with the dashing Tom, who she teasingly calls Mr. Carrington. The only problem is she isn’t too sure if they’re actually an item.
Sure, they’ve been hot and flirty but there has been no conversation about where they stand. Georgie was wooed from the first moment she saw him but has begun to have doubts about his sincerity.
Those doubts are thrown into a sharper focus when Georgie begins to wonder if it was her she came to see in Italy or if she was merely a convenience. Those doubts are thrown into a tail spin when she overhears two customers talking about Tom’s upcoming nuptials to someone who isn’t Georgie!
However, this is a Carrington’s novella and nothing is as it seems. By the end of the book, you’ll be cheering at the delicious twist that changes everything…
I absolutely loved this novella. When Alexandra Brown announced its publication date, I was thrilled. I kept wishing for October to move faster so the novella would be published. Thankfully, it lived up to all of my expectations and then some.
See, I’ve read her gorgeous debut novel, Cupcakes at Carrington’s, three times already and it only came out in January of this year. It’s a book that manages to be romantic, laugh out loud hilarious and absolutely brilliant all at once. It’s hard to believe that Brown is a first time author, so great is her skill on the printed page.
What I love most about Cupcakes at Carrington’s and now Me and Mr. Carrington is Georgie. She’s the every woman and she manages to be lovable and endearing at the same time. Georgie is what you’d get it you combine Becky Bloomwood and Bridget Jones; but Georgie’s character all comes down to Alexandra’s brilliance.
Even more than that, she writes fantastic secondary characters (Eddie!) and seeing them again in Me and Mister Carrington is like coming home. It’s not only a book you’ll love, but the characters within the pages will find their way into your heart.
It takes a very talented author to do this and Alexandra Brown succeeds on every level. I can’t wait to see what Georgie will get up to in Christmas at Carrington’s.
Even better, readers are given an early Christmas present as Me and Mr. Carrington has an excerpt from Christmas at Carrington’s to wet your appetite for the November release! I’ll have to read Me and Mr. Carrington a few more times while I wait.
Do yourself a favour and get yourself a copy of Cupcakes at Carrington’s and Me and Mr. Carrington. Carrington’s is one store you won’t ever want to leave.
Welcome to Hope Falls…
When I first wrote the HopeFalls trilogy, I was watching a lot of soap operas.
I had watched Days of Our Lives for the past two years and loved every minute of it. I even made a page in my scrapbook that focused on the serial killer storyline, I kid you not! I lived with those characters every day.
I thought it would be a fun set up for a novel, the world of soap operas. Not the show itself, but the actors inside of the show, what their lives were like, what drove them. But then I thought of Soap Dish and how the way these actors behaved in “real life” was a heck of a lot more full of soap than when they were acting.
That’s the idea when I wrote HopeFalls, EagleValley and Dragon’s Cove. I let the story grow out of the characters and used every soap opera cliché that I could think of. There are people that come back from the dead, the horrible secrets, betrayal, long lost family members and difficult choices no one should have to make in real life.
Also a constant sense of danger because I prefer the night time soaps more like Twin Peaks or even Dallas, 90210, Part of Five. And a lot of Dark Shadows thrown in. I just had fun and revelled in the world, never expecting I would explore the world of soap operas in four novels and one (unfinished, sigh!) screenplay. It’s was the seed that created my novel The Raven’s Curse.
It’s also the perfect series for Halloween. There are tons of mysterious things going on in HopeFalls. Come and take a visit, won’t you? It’s going to turn cold this October and you’ll want something to heat up the night.
Check out the books here:
HopeFalls: Season One
EagleValley: HopeFalls Season Two
Dragon’s Cove: HopeFalls Season Three
And here’s the coolest part: my awesome publisher, Books We Love, is giving Dragon’s Cove: Hope Falls Season Three away for free between October 25th to 29th, 2013. You can discover the story of Miriam, Derrick, Susan and Erin. They want answers and are willing to do anything to get them.
Sweet!
Buy Little Yellow Magnet from Amazon and Kobo!
Jamieson Wolf has written a compelling story about navigating multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy. His story will touch your heart, make you cry, then laugh, and inspire you. A touching memoir with a bit of magic…and tarot! ~ Theresa Reed, author of The Tarot Coloring Book
Jamieson Wolf 