Jamieson Wolf
Number-one bestselling author
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!
You Never Forget Your First Time – Trivia with Stephen King…
Thankfully there are people out there who understand about the obsessive nature of fans-people like me. I have several book related obsessions, but I can name them on one hand: Harry Potter, Piglet from Winnie the Pooh, the Wizard of Oz and Stephen King.
Now Stephen King and I go way back. I was twelve when I read Skeleton Crew for the first time. My cousin had given me a box of books filled with Dean Koontz, a lot of John Saul and quite a few by Stephen King.
I can still digging through that box of books that smelled of age and mildew. I came to one that had a grinning monkey on the cover, clashing cymbals. I still remember reading Skeleton Crew for a whole afternoon in my aunt’s garage. I was held spellbound.
I made it through three stories in one gulp: The Mist, Here There Be Tygers and The Monkey. No one ever forgets their first time, when they discover an amazing writers books that change their life forever. It was like that for me with Stephen King-here was a writer who got it. I’ve since read everything of King’s that I can get my hands on.
Here’s my Stephen King bookshelf. It’s filled with his novels (my pride and joy an original 1st edition of The Shinning. A little beat up, but still!), his comics (American Vampire and The Dark Tower) and his short stories that appear in magazines.
I’ve also collected books about King which is what led me to Cemetery Dance. I’ve since gotten a subscription to their magazine as well as some other volumes: Blockade Billy and The Dark Man by King himself. And Lilja’s Library: The World of Stephen King by Hans-Ake Lilja and several non-fiction books by Kevin Quigley.
So I was thrilled when the publication of The Illustrated Stephen King Trivia Book by Brian James Freeman and Bev Vincent (two of my other favorite authors) and The Illustrated Stephen King Movie Trivia Book by Brian James Freeman, Hans-Ake Lilja and Kevin Quigley were announced. I’d never seen the like.
Both volumes are illustrated by the amazing Glenn Chadbourne. I am in awe of his art and illustration. The drawings in The Dark Man were incredible and I have long yearned for one of his pieces.
When the books arrived, I was astounded by their size. I was lucky enough to get advance readers copies. They were huge! They’re over 400 pages of awesome trivia related to Stephen King and are simply wonderful for the sheer breadth of questions.
I’ve never read a trivia book before. So, over the next few months I flipped through both books and saw how many I got right. Why did it take so long? There are literally hundreds of questions and I really did tally up my score
I was happy with my score but shocked by how many I got wrong! I was astounded by the minute detail that the questions got into. I also love what they’ve done in that the movies and the books are mostly separate. Some people know King from watching The Shinning, Carrie, Children of the Corn, PetCemetery or The Dark Half. Some of us know him from reading him.
The Stephen King Trivia Book by Brian James Freeman and Bev Vincent focuses on a variety of all things King including questions about all of his novels, novellas, short stories, the Bachman books, the Dark Tower Series, non fiction; there is even chapters about King himself and a stunning introduction by Bev Vincent.
The Illustrated Stephen King Movie Trivia Book by Brian James Freeman, Hans-Ake Lilja and Kevin Quigley was likewise mind blowing. It covers questions about all of the Stephen King adaptations that have been done from 1976 to 2011. That’s a lot of movies and television viewing.
And check it out: my name is in the back of the book!
A year or two back, fans had the opportunity to submit questions that may appear in the book! I have no idea which of mine were included but I submitted a lot.
Both of these books are incredible because they helped me remember moments that are caught in time thanks to Stephen King in one way or another. The first time I read Skeleton Crew or watched Carrie and read the book. Certain moments in The Dark Tower Series or The Shinning. The countless hours I have spent reading or watching King and being constantly entertained.
That’s the best way I can describe it, but why listen to me? Get yourself a copy of each from Cemetery Dance, the books could make a great party game idea for Halloween amongst like minded King fans. Could be cool right?
Why a serial novel?
So I’ve had a few people ask me why I’m writing a serial novel.
Well, the truth is, I started my writing with them, sort of. I had written loads of poems and lots of short stories but had never felt brave enough trying my hand at writing a novel. So, when I was eighteen (seems so long ago now!) I tried my hand at some Harry Potter fan fiction and had a blast but I always thought that J K Rowling did a better job (obviously!).
I had no idea what I was doing so just decided to try my hand at it and wrote two novels, Electric Pink and Electric Blue. Then I wrote three other novels set in a different world.
They were Hope Falls, Eagle Valley and Dragons Cove. I’ve been luck enough to have those novels (after a heavy edit) published by Books We Love. While writing them, I published a chapter a day through a yahoo news group. And had a great time.
I started my novel writing with serial novels. I took a page out of Charles Dickens and Armitead Maupin’s book and just went where the story would take me. I loved the idea of writing by the seat of my pants and just letting the story that I hadn’t plotted at all, unfold as it wanted to and people would be able to follow along with me.
It also made the act of writing a novel seem a lot less frightening. I just had to tell the story until it was done and that could be at any time, right?
This year has been a challenging one for me. After being hit with a horrible episode of MS (although at the time I thought I’d had a stoke) I got better by working on one novel, perhaps my best one yet, called The Other Side of Oz. When I was done that novel (it’s going through an edit now) I wanted to get back to writing and rediscover a bit of myself.
After my MS diagnosis, I really struggled with writing. That’s why you saw a lot of poems and short stories come out of my fingers; but I wanted to find the joy in writing again. Even though Oz helped get me better, it felt as if that was someone else writing that novel. When I finished that novel, I waited a few months before trying once more.
So after The Other Side of Oz was done, I decided to pick up 69B again. I’d had the idea for it and written the first few pages a few years ago but the story had always intrigued me. I wanted to find out what happened in the novel but I also wanted to share the experience with others.
I knew that I would blog it in some way but I felt that it was the right thing to go back to basics. I mean, I haven’t had any releases except for two in January and those had been in the pipe line. Last year I had 23. If I was going to find the joy again, it was going to be about the act of writing. The only way the seemed a clear path was to do a serial novel and let the book unfold as it wanted to. Plus, writing the story with others reading it would be one heck of a motivator.
And you know what? It’s working. I haven’t had this much fun writing a novel in years (though Oz was magical for me). 69B has helped me let lose and just enjoy the act of writing. I’m getting back to my roots and have found the fun again.
So that’s what it’s all about. If you read 69B (which you can find at www.69BaNovel.wordpress.com) I hope you enjoy taking the ride with me.
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 