Everything is permitted…  and everyone has their price. 

Zander Sin is the bad boy of rock-n-roll, known for his wealth, his temper tantrums, and his love of hedonism, but to K&R expert and newly born maran vampire Jackson Pastor, Zander Sin is something else: murderer, monster, and kidnapper. After Zander’s Whore of Babylon tour comes to Los Angeles, Jackson also learns that Zander Sin has a grudge with Jackson’s family that goes way beyond money or power, and stretches all the way back to ancient Rome. 

Zander may be on everyone’s hit list, human and supernatural alike, but when Jackson learns that Zander’s keeping his younger sister Monika prisoner, he finds himself face-to-face with the most objectionable of outcomes: being forced to help Zander Sin get what he wants. 

Even if it means Jackson may have to betray everyone he loves to do it.

* * *

The Second Book In A Series Is Just As Hard As The First.

Blood Sin is my fourth book, but my first sequel. All the previous books had been in radically different genres with no connection to each other (because sticking to one genre will never be my groove.) Blood Sin, on the other hand, is the sequel to Blood Chimera, book two in an open-ended paranormal mystery series. In some ways that’s easier, since it means that there will be familiar characters and some of the world-building is already done, but everything that’s a benefit is also a constraint, because…well…the characters are familiar and the world-building is already done. I can’t just go around changing things now, or introducing concepts which should have been present in the first book. I’m locked in.

So easier in lots of ways, but also scary.

Stare Into The Abyss Of Language And The Vocabulary Stares Back.

So the monsters in my series are called ‘grendels’ — and as you might expect that translated into reading about the epic poem ‘Beowulf.’ While doing so, I discovered the word ‘aeglaeca,’ which turns out to be a bit problematic. And sexist.

Whoa now. What?

Aeglaeca is a word used to describe Grendel’s mother, and it’s usually translated as meaning ‘monstrous.’ Grendel’s mother is a monster because it says so right there. Monster. See? Print doesn’t lie. And that’s all well and good, but the same word is also often used to describe the titular hero of the story, Beowulf.

Only then the same word is typically translated as ‘heroic.’

Same word. Used the same way. The only difference between how the word is translated into modern English seems to be the gender of the subject, and that translation is one of the main pieces of evidence used to present that Grendel’s mother is a foul bitch-beast. Turns out ‘aeglaeca’ really translates as ‘epic’ or ‘fierce’ — applicable to both heroes and villains. So everything I assumed I knew about Grendel’s mother stemmed from a bunch of scholars who just couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea that a woman could try to kick the ass of the man who killed her son without also being a literal monster.

Anyway, I ended up naming a Vegas-style floor show after it, because Blood Sin’s that kind of book.

I Have To Write Faster Than My Demons.

Blood Sin was probably the most trouble-free novel I’ve written to date. I’m pretty infamous for hitting the three-fourths mark of a book and grinding to a halt so I can go back over everything I’ve done and second guess myself in crippling ways, up to and including completely radical rewrites. That didn’t happen this time. Why?

Blood Sin was also the fastest I’ve ever written a novel, and these things are not unconnected. That probably goes against someone’s rules for writing and certainly against popular conceptions of how writing should be, but I have discovered that I do my best writing when I write fast enough to trust my instincts instead of giving my brain time to second-guess my work. How fast? At least two thousand words an hour usually does the trick for me. I can’t keep that up all day — it’s exhausting — but when you’re writing that fast, you don’t need more than a few hours a day.

My Health is an Important Part of This Process.

Around six or so years ago, long before I decided to make this writing thing a permanent part of my raison d’être, I was a freelance illustrator, which fyi, is not an easy way to earn a penny. I worked myself to the ground, spent long periods of time cramming myself into poor ergonomic contortions, and ended up doing permanent damage to my health from which I’ve yet to recover. Back problems, primarily, but also weight gain from being so sedentary, which of course made the back problems worse.

I’m still paying for it.

What I’ve learned from this (besides how important diet is for my overall health and well being) is that ignoring your health is something you will absolutely regret. In some ways, the attention I now pay to my diet and exercise means I’m healthier than I’ve ever been before (especially since I’ve cut sugar out of my diet) but all it takes is one really bad back flare-up to remind me how nice it would have been if I’d done all this before it became a crippling issue. Also? It’s not easy for me to write when I’m doubled over in pain.

So don’t be me, okay?

Always Be Closing.

I work full time. I’m also a fervent gamer who enjoys table-top RPGs and MMOs. I have a lot of hobbies. And I’ve written five books in the last two years (and I’m in the middle of my sixth.) Guess what I don’t do so much anymore? (Hint: I still pay my bills.) I’ve discovered that writing books (and finishing those books) is a choice. It’s not about talent, although that certainly impacts if anyone will want to read my books later. It’s about one single thing: making writing more important than all the other activities that clamor for my free time and energy.

Writing is my BAE, my first priority, the thing I do before TV shows, video games, or hanging out with friends. When that wasn’t true? I also didn’t have any finished books. Probably some kind of connection there…

I have friends who are professional artists, and they draw all the time. ALL THE TIME. When they aren’t drawing, they are watching videos of other artists drawing or they are staring at drawn pictures of Batman pointing a finger at them and saying, “Why aren’t you drawing?”

Writing is exactly the same.

Which isn’t to say I haven’t been playing a lot of video games lately, just that I’m not making any excuses for it the way I used to do.

* * *

Jenn Lyons lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband, three cats and a lot of opinions on anything from Sumerian creation myths to the correct way to make a martini. At various points in her life, she has wanted to be an archaeologist, anthropologist, architect, diamond cutter, fashion illustrator, graphic designer, or Batman. Turning from such obvious trades, she is now a video game producer by day, and spends her evenings writing science fiction and fantasy.

Jenn Lyons: Website | Tumblr | Twitter

Blood Sin: Amazon | B&N | Kobo

I went to a really great writer’s conference in the Mythical Lands of Canada (the MLC) last week, the Surrey International Writers’ Conference. And, while there, I did these so-called “blue pencil” sessions, where I read the first few pages of a writer’s manuscript and they sit across from me, watching my face and trembling as I sharpen my knives on their shoddy craftsmanship. Except, a couple of things happened: first, I had no blue pencil, so I had to instead try to mark-up their manuscript with the blood of the innocent but of course blood isn’t blue but red so that’s disappointing; second, I did not encounter any shoddy craftsmanship. The attendees of this particular conference were operating at a higher level than I had reckoned — which is great!

That said, I found one common thread — a singular critique — that I was able to apply to each and every manuscript I encountered. That common critique is about beginning your story. Given that this month is the vaunted-slash-dreaded NaNoWriMo, a post on beginning your tale thus seemed to be appropriately fortuitous.

So, here’s the truth:

You’re probably fucking up the beginning of your story.

And the beginning of your story is the most vital part. The start of a story carries an undue burden. Imagine that your story is a pack mule, except that it is the animal’s forehead — or even it’s dopey muzzle — that is expected to carry the load. All that burden is shoved to the front of the beast, and so it is with your story.

Sure, sure, Patience is a virtue. Blah blah blah.

It is also not a virtue many readers — including myself — possess anymore.

Reason? We have scads upon plethoras upon cornucopias of entertainment choices available to us. Games, movies, television, cupcakes, religion, politics, porn whatever. Even inside the realm of books (how wonderful does that sound? A WHOLE REALM OF BOOKS) it’s not like our choices are thin on the ground. One book sucks? Ten more will gladly fill its space, barfed up by the giant book-regurgitating monster known as The Publishing Industry.

I am brutal when I read the first page of a new story.

My patience is literally that long — as long as one page. This is not a bomb with a trailing fuse, folks. This fuse is about the length of a human thumb — a short fizzle and a fast detonation. That detonation sounds less like an explosion and more like me going, NOPE, then pitching the book over my shoulder into the dumpster I always keep immediately behind me. (This is awkward when I realize that yet again I have thrown my iPad away because I was reading an e-book.)

So, by this point, I have probably exhausted your own patience by putting such a long lead on this post, but hey, screw it, this blog is free. HAPPY TO REFUND YOUR MONEY, MISTER COMPLAINYPANTS. *makes it rain with Monopoly money thrown at your head*

Ahem.

What I mean is, you’re probably asking:

So, how exactly am I fucking up the beginning of my story?

I will not count the ways.

But rather, I will offer you a metaphor that hopefully will clarify the work that the beginning of your book must do, and further will hopefully obviate the sins you have committed. You monster.

It’s like this:

You, the writer, are leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.

You are walking backward from the reader, trying to get the reader to creep toward you.

You never quite want them to catch you.

Instead, you want them to follow you through the dark forest — this tangled labyrinth — that is your novel, your story, the architecture of the tale you’re trying to tell.

If you leave too many breadcrumbs — meaning, you just dump a cup of them on the ground — the reader will stop right there. They’ll hover over the spot like a starving duck and they’ll just peck at the ground. Which sounds fine (hey, the reader is fed and fat and happy, quack quack), but it means the reader isn’t progressing. A fat belly means a bored duck.

If you leave too few breadcrumbs — meaning, you space them out too far apart, you’re too spare with these little crusty boulders of secret delight — then the reader will follow along but suddenly get lost. In the dark forest they will not be able to see the next breadcrumb. They will then spin around in the shadows, looking for a way forward, and they will not find one. Confused and lonely, they will most likely be eaten by a grue.

In both instances, the reader will put down the book.

(Always assume that the reader is looking for a reason to go do something else. They want to put down your book and go read another one. Or go eat some Cheezits or play a video game or go fuck a houseplant — whatever leisure time activity one prefers when nobody else is watching.)

It is your job to entice the reader forward. To tease and tantalize — story is, in this way, a kind of seduction. (And here I note that breadcrumbs are about the least tantalizing thing in the world, and if someone were to try to seduce me with breadcrumbs I’d probably grumpily urinate on the ground like an offended bear and go trundling off in the other direction. So perhaps this metaphor is better if we imagine Elliott trying to urge E.T. forward with a trail of Reese’s Pieces. Me, I’d probably follow a trail of little bourbon bottles, but I’d get too drunk by the middle of the forest and would probably end up sleeping in the woods, soiled in my own tears and whiskey-sweat. This digression has gone on long enough, I suspect, so we’ll just stick with “breadcrumbs.”)

You’re trying to ensure that the reader is interested in taking the next step, but never precisely satisfied when she gets there. You want the reader to want more. To need more. To continue following you into the maze, driven by the hunger you have stoked.

Now, later on in the book, you can start changing your pace. You can move more quickly, or more slowly, expecting the reader to keep up. You can leave more breadcrumbs here, and fewer there — because by then, the reader is already in the maze. They’re invested in the untangling of the narrative. With a good, balanced opening, you are literally buying story credit that you can spend later on riskier, bolder maneuvers inside the tale. (Though even there, you can overspend — but that is a conversation for another day.)

So, practically speaking, what are these breadcrumbs?

What are their narrative equivalent?

Assume that they’re shaped like little question marks and exclamation points.

Question marks are, as noted, questions — who is this person? What is wrong? Is this a conspiracy? Who are those strange creatures? What is that robot doing to that chicken? As I am wont to say: the question mark is shaped like a hook for a reason. Set the hook right and it embeds in the cheek of the reader and pulls her along.

But a story — particularly the opening — can’t just be questions. It’s not a fucking interview or an essay test. You also have to balance it out with answers, because answers lend us context. Except here, the answers cannot be wishy-washy. The context given cannot be soft-hearted. Answers must be bold, compelling, interesting. This is why they are exclamation points rather than question marks — you’re excitedly declaring things! This is sturm and drang — truth and consequence. Someone dies! An explosion! Doom! Event! Not mere happenstance or coincidence but holy shitcookies, look at this thing and this other thing and that robot and that chicken!

Exposition is too talky. It gives away too much. It’s why we cannot begin a story with backstory, or with explanation — it’s all answers, and it’s all milquetoast.

But we also cannot begin with a void of context, either, because then we’re lost.

Too many breadcrumbs.

Or too few.

We entice with mystery, conflict, drama. Every compelling character is a breadcrumb. So are the actions of those characters. Great writing is a breadcrumb all its own (though not nearly enough of one). On page one I should be seeing the willingness to have things happen and to ask questions. Set the hook with mystery. Reel it in with great event driven by strong characters.

What’s your seduction? How will you compel readers forward? What will seduce them on page one to read to page ten, and then to 20, and then to 50, 100, and all the way to the end?

How will you get readers lost in the maze of your fiction?

1. The first draft is for you. Subsequent drafts are for everybody else. So, write this one the way you want to. Do what thou wilt. Be selfish. Grab at the story with greedy paws.

2. ABI: Always Be Interesting. Not just to others — write what interests you.

3. If you feel yourself getting bored, change the story so that you aren’t. Motivate yourself through chaos, unpredictability, and interest. If your own interest in the story hits a wall: blow shit up. Go cuckoo bananapants. Surprise yourself.

4. It’s easier to write your word count earlier in the day than later. Early means it’s out of the way. Later means you’re racing against the clock. Racing against the clock makes for good fiction (OH MY GOD THE SQUIRREL IS GOING TO EXPLODE IF WE DON’T JIBBER THE JABBER IN TIME). It makes for unpleasant writing, however.

5. Be kind. Share. Talk. Engage in the community. Offer your own tips. Be the best version of yourself in the process and write the song that lives in the glitter-shellacked eerily-vibrating Music Box you call a ‘heart.’

6. Characters are everything. Focus on them. Characters make plot by doing things and saying things. Do not staple plot to the story. The plot grows inside the story based on the actions of interested and interesting characters. Story lives in how characters address (and fail to address) their problems. Plot is skeleton, not exoskeleton.

7. Give less of a shit. Relax. Ease off the stress stick, cowpoke. You’re not Superman saving a busload of precious orphans. You’re writing a novel. You can still give a shit — but set aside the baggage and expectations. You’re not Humanity’s Last Chance.

8. Don’t compare yourself to anybody else. You do you. Let them do them.

9. Don’t cheat on your story with another story. Don’t go porking another manuscript behind the WORDSHED. (See, it’s like woodshed — oh, hell, never mind.) Got another idea for a story? Of course you do. The test of a writer is staying on track. You’re committed. Married. Don’t cheat. Put a ring on it. Those other ideas can have their day: write down a quick logline or synopsis, then shut the notebook and get back to work.

10. Of course it’s work. Expect it to be. Let it be work.

11. Of course it feels like you’re lost. We all feel that way. You’re not alone. Nobody knows what the fuck they’re doing. We’re all pretending. We’re all our own imaginary friends lost in a realm of our own devising. It’s what makes this thing so weird and so exciting. Fuck it. Keep going.

12. Don’t worry about being original. Originality is overrated. The one thing that’s unique about your story is that you’re the one writing it. Your voice is the original thing.

13. You don’t chase your voice. You are your voice. Your voice is the way you speak, the way you think, the ideas you have. Your voice is the thing you find when you stop looking for it.

14. Need a throughline? An invisible thread on which to hang your tale? Consider theme. Theme is the argument your story is making. Theme is what your work is about. It’s what you’re trying to say. It’s what you believe. It’s what the story is telling people. Theme is a strand of spider silk. It can connect everything — the grand unification argument of storytelling.

15. Concentrate more on things happening in the story. Worry less about what happened. Stories are most engaging in the present and suggestive of the future. The past is useful, but can fast become a boat anchor or a full colostomy bag hanging too-heavy on the hip. The story is people saying things and people doing things. Explanations, expositions, backstory, internal monologuing: don’t be a narrative hoarder. Let go of as many details as you can.

16. Write down only those things that carry you — and the reader — to the next part of the story. Anything else is just gum sticking your boot (and theirs) to the sidewalk.

17. The three shits easy plot generator: characters want shit, so they do shit to get what they want, and then shit happens in the process. Motivation. Action. Consequence.

18. Every character believes herself to be the main character. Every character is the hero of her own story. That includes antagonists. That includes supporting characters. This belief held by all characters puts characters in contention with one another. And plot is created from the result.

19. Yes, it’s hard. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be awesome. Stop being afraid of difficult things.

20. Protect your writing time. Someone wants to take that away from you, you gotta do the Gandalf jam. Plant your feet. Slam your staff (note: not a euphemism for a penis) against the ground. THOU SHALT NOT PASS. Or, THOU SHALT NOT TAKE AWAY THE TIME I HAVE RESERVED FOR THIS TASK I CONSIDER IMPORTANT SO EAT A GIANT CHRISTMAS STOCKING CRAMMED WITH MIDDLE FINGERS YOU JERKY MCJERKERSON.

21. Consider the story’s stakes. What can be won or lost by the characters? The story is the characters betting on something. What happens if they bet too big? What happens if they lose the bet? How do the stakes of different characters oppose each other?

22. You are your own muse. You make your own motherfucking magic.

23. It’s okay if you fail as long as you learn something from it.

24. It’s also totally okay if NaNoWriMo isn’t for you. It wasn’t really for me. It’s not for a lot of people. Sometimes it fits. Sometimes it’s trying to headbutt a square peg into a circle hole. Sometimes it feels like you’re trying to cram an end-table up an asshole. Just because it isn’t for you doesn’t mean novel-writing isn’t for you. Draw your own map if the one you have in your hand doesn’t take you to the pirate’s treasure.

25. Fuck ’em if they don’t believe in you. Your book isn’t a precious fairy. It needs nobody’s faith to fly. It doesn’t even need your faith right now. It just needs you to do the work. So: do the work.

* * *

30 Days in the Word Mines: a series of daily tips, tricks, and thoughts to get you writing that story that squirms inside your viscera and longs to escape.

Amazon | B&N | Buy from terribleminds | 8-book bundle

It is once again that time of the year — the Goodreads Best Books of the Year awards have returned to the Web for 2014. They of course contain a lot of really rad books (Annihilation! The Girl With All The Gifts! Cibola Burn!) Alongside some great authors (Marko Kloos, John Scalzi, Jonathan Maberry, Scott Sigler, Laini Taylor, Laurie Halse Anderson, Stephanie Perkins, Richard Kadrey, Ann Leckie!).

For my mileage, it’s also missing some super-good books, too.

Where is Kameron Hurley’s Mirror Empire?

Or Lauren Beukes’ Broken Monsters?

Or Cherie Priest’s Maplecroft?

So, this is also your annual reminder that during this first round (which runs until November 8th), you can write in candidates across the many categories.

And this can also serve as your annual shameless tap-dancing by me where I casually elbow you in the throat and remind you that, hey, I might have some books that are eligible for said write-ins, including The Cormorant, and Blightborn. No pressure, of course. Except the pressure that reminds you that I actually physically die if I don’t get onto the Goodreads Awards every year, and my resurrection is always an ugly, viscera-caked mess, and nobody wants that. NOBODY.

*stares*

What I mean is, go vote for cool books.

Because yay, books.

*rises from the gore pit, screaming*

In which I pose two writing-related questions (with various related sub-queries).

First: what are your strengths when writing? What do you feel that you do well? Why do you do it well? How would you tell others that have trouble doing what you believe you do well?

Second: what are your weaknesses? What gives you difficulty? Why do you think that is? How can you improve this thing that gives you the shivering shits and the fretful fits?

(Writing can be about the language, but I’m also including storytelling in all this.)

I ask these things in part just to evaluate what we do, and how we do it.

I also ask because maybe, just maybe, you can help each other.

Community, and all that.

*hands out straitjackets and thorazine*

*locks the asylum doors*

DISCUSS.

The fine folks who run National Novel Writing Month asked me to do a pep talk.

They liked it well enough to make it the lead piece kicking off the month.

So, here goes:

Imagine being allowed to do something you’re not supposed to do.

Imagine you’re given the keys to a mud-bogging Bronco, or a dune buggy, or a Lamborghini. And then, you’re pointed toward a field. A soccer field outside a high school, or maybe just a wide open grassland. Nobody there. No kids playing. No animals frolicking.

In fact, right now, nobody is here to see you at all…

Read the rest at NaNoWriMo.org.