Jacob Devlin's Blog, page 4

2019: One-Word Theme

Happy New Year! Because we can still say this for another week or so, right? For about as long as it takes us to stop writing “2018” on our checks and homework assignments and stuff…

If you’ve been following me for a while, you might know I had tremendous optimism for 2018, but didn’t enjoy the year that much at all. Great things did happen and I will forever be grateful for the good that occurred. But looking back at 2018 is like looking at a mean lunch lady who chucks your pizza at you from across the cafeteria. Yes, she’s giving you food, and yes, it is PIZZA for goodness sake and you love it, but she’s being incredibly uncool about it and you have to get up and face her wrath every day, and it probably costs money. In fact, she probably beat you up and took it from you, then threw the pizza at you and screamed at you to “SAY THANK YOU!”

Despite all this, I still rang in 2019 with tremendous optimism, and I hope you’ll let me share some of that with you for your year to come. I spent a few hours downtown last night and watched a jazz band called the Hot Sardines play at the Fox Theater. It was so great to soak in the infectious energy, not only from the band but the people who dressed in their best “roarin’ 20’s” attire last night, like they were ready to go “roarin'” into 2019 and insist on enjoying the next trip around the sun. I also love that social media crackles with positive energy around January 1 each year, but there are always a few downers who insist that “No, the new year will NOT be any better, because time isn’t real and humans invented it.” Fair point, smarties, but isn’t it also true that we can all be a little better? We can go into the lunch room with catching mitts, for example, or bring our own pizza.

Of Wind and Thunder

Dear Friends,

The days are long, but the years are short! What can I say about 2018? It’s been a year of growth and excitement, from releasing THE HUMMINGBIRD to rebranding a series, not to mention the wonderful festivals and cons I got to take part in from Tucson to Kentucky!

The whole time, something else was in the works, and as I look ahead to 2019, this is honestly what I’m most excited about.

I want to confess that ROSES IN THE DRAGON’S DEN was the first time I wrote a book and had a “wind and thunder” moment. Did you ever see The Man Who Invented Christmas? Dan Stevens plays Charles Dickens in the time when he was struggling to write A Christmas Carol. In one of the coolest parts of the movie, he sits there spewing nonsense syllables and trying to come up with a name for his main character.

Just when he’s about to give up, his eyes light up and he breathes, “Scrooge.”

And it’s an event. Wind and thunder. The curtains flutter, the door bangs open, and there’s Mr. Scrooge, ready to engage. But it’s not until Dickens can actually name him that Scrooge takes on a life of his own and plants roots in Dickens’s mind. It’s a movie moment that gives me chills, and that was exactly what happened when I created the Rosas family: Charlie, Karina, and Uncle Diego. Finally landing on the right title was another event. The story started to sing. It took me a long time to settle on one, and the characters, voice, and even the POV changed many times over the past 2.5 years.

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But once I discovered the Rosas family, they were everywhere. Diego would speak to me from the passenger seat of a rental car when I would drive through the mountains of Dragoon. “Get a look at that! Let me tell you about some of the places I’ve been.”

I would imagine Charlie running through soccer fields and Karina sitting pretzel-style in the middle of the YA aisles at the bookstore, chin in her hands and completely lost in a book she hadn’t even taken to the register yet. And I had to tell the story of what happened when their daily routines were interrupted by something so much bigger than them.

And where did the inspiration come from? The flu. I was sick in bed watching Man Vs. Wild, and at one point I said, “I want to see a situation where Bear DOESN’T know what to do. Like what would happen if a freaking dragon showed up on camera right now?” I still don’t really know the answer to that, but I DO know what Diego Rosas would do, and that’s what I get to share with you this coming spring.

So are you ready for a preview? The manuscript is in final proofreading stages, so it’s coming to you very soon! Be sure to sign up for my official newsletter (which actually isn’t what you’re reading right now

What Stan Lee Meant to Me

As a writer, there have been a handful of creators I’ve really looked up to in different stages of my life: JK Rowling, Neil Gaiman, Sabaa Tahir, Jerry Bruckheimer, Lin-Manuel Miranda . . . people who pour their hearts and souls into a spark of an idea and nurture the flames until their blaze becomes bigger than them.

As a person, there are characters I’ve grown up with, and I aspired to be just like them. I wanted Wolverine’s resilience, Captain America’s moral compass, Spider-Man’s charm and ability to bounce between his contrasting dual-lives so fluidly (but not perfectly) . . . I wanted Iron-Man’s brains and dry sense of humor. I wanted Black Widow’s sheer “badassity” and a group of friends with a bond like the Fantastic Four. These were characters my mom used to hold up to me when I was battling cancer as a little boy. As much as I didn’t want to eat, sleep, or take my medicine, the goal of growing up to be “big and strong like Wolverine” and the fact that the nurses were bringing me “Spider-Man food” trumped all fears I ever had, and the effect endured long after my recovery.

I mourn today for the loss of Stan Lee, a creator who left behind an immortal legacy. His worlds gave us an escape, and then he showed us how there’s hope in our own worlds. His characters gave us something to aspire to, and then he showed us how they’re just like you and me. His imagination gave us something to get excited about, to geek out over, and to hold in our hearts.

I’ll never forget when I saw Mr. Lee at the 2015 San Diego Comic Con . . . a tiny, ordinary-looking man with a presence that was larger than life, standing nearly ten feet away from me and providing opportunities for photo ops. Seriously, my jaw dropped. How many times had I cheered in a crowded movie theater because this man graced the movie screen in front of us for no more than five seconds? I had the money ready in my hand and I was ready to tell him everything I just wrote down . . . and then I simply couldn’t do it. I didn’t think I could say anything to him without getting choked up. But he knew his effect on the world. You don’t build an entire empire without knowing you’ve changed lives. Even being in the same room as him for a few minutes was more than I could’ve dreamed as a kid. Those who were lucky (and brave) enough to thank him often got a moving reply of, “I did it all for you, kid.”

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And now, as creators, we get to remember Mr. Lee and the wonderful vision he left for us to enjoy. I will always be inspired by his vivid imagination, colorful worlds, and flawed but phenomenal characters, and I can only hope to leave behind even the tiniest fraction of what he created.

Thank you for everything, Mr. Lee. May you rest in peace.

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NaNoWhatMo?

It’s official! NaNoWriMo starts in less than a week, which means it’s time to find your favorite writers and give them hugs or send them snacks and inspiration. Throughout the month of November, many of us are going to be bleeding out our fingertips to write the stories of our hearts. It’s National Novel Writing Month, and tens of thousands of writers across the country will be participating.

I’ve had this exact conversation with more individuals than I can remember now:

Person: “Wow, you write books? How cool! I’ve always wanted to write a book. When I have time, I will.”

Me: “Oh, hey, you should think about signing up for NaNoWriMo this year.”

Person: “NaNoWhatMo?”

Me: “NaNoWriMo! It’s a yearly event and a non-profit organization that encourages you to write a novel in a month, or at least make progress and establish a habit.”

Person: ” . . . oh. Yeah, no. I could never write a novel in a month. That’s crazy!”

A: Yes, perhaps a little. All writing is a little crazy. We sit at a keyboard or a pad of paper and manipulate 26 letters in infinite combinations with the goal of creating vivid shared hallucinations. It’s fantastic.

B: NOBODY inherently has time to write a novel. Many of the writers who have done so did not have any more time than you do. Time is a finite economy and we all make do with the little pockets we can scrounge. More on this in a blog post I made last year. The Sparknotes version: If you are waiting for that magic moment to open up when the stars will align and you’ll have ALL the inspiration and ALL the time, you will never write your novel. *puts down the megaphone and steps off soapbox*

C: Truth, homie! Writing a novel is difficult. Writing a novel in a month is SUPA HARD. It can be done, but I certainly have never done it before. In fact, I’ve never even hit the 50,000 word goal that we’re “supposed” to hit during NaNoWriMo. That’s why I use the month to taken in all the creative juices I can and attempt to make significant progress on some sort of project. I pull up my playlists, print out photos of my “fan castings” or settings, light candles that smell like Florindale Square or the ocean or the leather goods someone might find in my world, and I simply add as many words as I can. My record is probably somewhere over 30,000. Fifty K? I can only dream for now.

But, whether I know I can write 50,000 words or 500 words in a month, I could never pass up the opportunity to move 500 words closer to typing “THE END.” After all, I find the revision process a whole lot more fun than the first draft process, and every year I can’t wait to print out that beautifully-spiral-bound-but-terribly-written first draft so I can begin to splatter the pages with red ink and make them sing. (Oh, and nothing I’ve written in November has ever been publishable until at least June or July!)

So, if you’re thinking of taking the plunge into the writing waters “when you have the time”, why not get started this November and see if you can write half a novel? A few chapters? An outline? Even if you finish with a basic description of a main character and a random sentence that belongs somewhere in the middle, that’s something you didn’t have in October.

I’m here to tell you: You have a book inside of you, you can bring it out, and it is valuable.

You’ve got this!

Cheers,

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YA Scavenger Hunt: Fall 2018 Edition

Hello World!

And welcome once again to the YA Scavenger Hunt, Fall 2018 edition! I’m Jacob Devlin, your humble host for this leg of the race, and here are three fall-ish things you may not know about me:

My favorite fall activities are finding a new jacket, stepping on crunchy leaves, and scooping all the squishy guts out of the pumpkin so I can grub on the seeds later.
I’ll be asking you for one of the Reeses or Snickers bars in your trick-or-treat bag later.
Don’t invite me to see a scary movie with you. I have a hyperactive imagination and am a chicken. (But I do kinda wanna see Halloween . . .)

But enough about me! You’re here to find that magic number and meet a new author, aren’t you? Well, I’ve got you covered today! Somewhere on this blog post, I’ve hidden a very secret number in GOLD, because you’re currently hunting for the Gold Team! Follow the trail, add up all the numbers, and enter the sum on this site for an opportunity to win ALL the treats. Along the way, you’ll meet some cool new authors, and on somebody else’s blog, I’ve hidden a playlist and a free downloadable novelette from my CARVER universe!

Today I’m excited to introduce you to Addie Thorley, author a forthcoming release called AN AFFAIR OF POISONS. I can’t wait for you all to learn about this! First, more about Addie:

Addie Thorley spent her childhood playing soccer, riding horses, and scribbling stories. After graduating from the University of Utah with a degree in journalism, she decided “hard news” didn’t contain nearly enough magic and kissing, so she flung herself into the land of fiction and never looked back. She now lives in Princeton, New Jersey with her husband, daughter, and wolf dog. When she’s not writing she can be found galloping around the barn where she works as a horse trainer and exercise rider. AN AFFAIR OF POISONS is her debut novel.

(Jacob note: Isn’t this an awesome cover? Almost a minimalist feel, but one you could study for hours and make some guesses about what you’ll find inside!)

Synopsis:

After unwittingly helping her mother poison King Louis XIV, seventeen-year-old alchemist Mirabelle Monvoisin is forced to see her mother’s Shadow Society in a horrifying new light: they’re not heroes of the people, as they’ve always claimed to be, but murderers. Herself included. Mira tries to ease her guilt by brewing helpful curatives, but her hunger tonics and headache remedies cannot right past wrongs or save the dissenters her mother vows to purge.

Royal bastard Josse de Bourbon is more kitchen boy than fils de France. But when the Sun King and half the royal court perish at the hands of the Shadow Society, he must become the prince he was never meant to be in order to save his injured sisters and the petulant dauphin. Forced to hide in the sewers beneath the city, any hope of reclaiming Paris seems impossible—until Josse’s path collides with Mirabelle’s, and he finds a surprising ally in his sworn enemy.

She’s a deadly poisoner. He’s a bastard prince. Together, they form a tenuous pact to unite the commoners and former nobility against the Shadow Society. But can a rebellion built on mistrust ever hope to succeed?

(Jacob Note: Wow! Shadow societies, roguish royals, poisons and cures? Sign me up to read this! Page Street Publishing will release AN AFFAIR OF POISONS on February 26, 2019, and you can preorder it in several formats including Kindle, Paperback, and audio!)

As a preview, Addie shared the aesthetic below, featuring characters from her book . . . and DESSERT!

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(Jacob note: I’ve never had a croquembouche before, but now that I’ve seen this photo, I’ll take 12 please.)

Did you get the secret number? If not, you’re quite warm right now! Remember to write it down, add ’em all up, and enter the giveaway for grand prize!

But just for stopping by today, below are some opportunities to win a $10 Amazon card and a signed set of character trading cards!

ENTER JACOB’S GIVEAWAY HERE!

Interview with Avon Van Hassel

Hey all!

One of the cool things about being an author is getting to cheer on my friends and celebrate their accomplishments. Today, I’m excited to share a little bit about up and coming author Avon Van Hassel, who is writing a series that all you CARVER fans would love! She’ll be revealing her covers on social media today, and you’ll be able to find her books on Amazon as well. Here is my interview with AVH in celebration of her BEANSELLER series!



1. MAGIC BEANS and GOLDEN reimagine fairy tales (both well-known and yet to be discovered by Disneyophiles) from untold perspectives! What are some of the fairy tales your readers can expect to see in your stories?

Magic Beans centres around the man who sold Jack the beans that would become the beanstalk, so obviously, that one will be very prominent. Golden focuses more on the back story of the magic golden harp that Jack finds on the giants’ cloud, but also looks at the Princess and the Pea, the Golden Goose, the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg, and Goose Girl. The Grimms had a thing for geese, it seems. There are also other, subtler references, as almost everyone is either a fairy tale character or based on real-life historical figures. Let’s see how many you can guess

San Diego Comic Con Recap: 2018!

Hey Friends,

If you’ve been keeping up with anything “pop culture” this week, be it through Entertainment Weekly, the Conan show, or even just your Facebook timeline, I’m sure you know my favorite “holiday” just ended: San Diego Comic Con!

Every year has had its share of amazing memories, and it’s hard to pick a favorite moment since I started going in 2015. This year, I don’t even know if I can pick a favorite day! As always, I left feeling both exhausted and rejuvenated. My body is tired, but my heart and mind are filled with love for the power of creativity–love for a yearly phenomenon in which thousands of people of all ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and life stories come together to share a creative passion. Maybe that’s for books, film, graphic arts, or any of the various rabbit holes of SDCC that I probably haven’t even explored: gaming, tech, cosplay, the scientific panels, etc.

Here are some of the highlights from my fourth year at SDCC.

Wednesday

“Preview day”! I wasn’t a badge holder for Preview Day, but as a volunteer, I got to work the Art Show! I wasn’t allowed to snap photos for obvious reasons, but there was at least one artist whose work I was sure I’d seen before, and it was fun getting to help him unload his van and carry his paintings to the Marriott. There was also an interesting man who made wooden robot figurines and spent most of his time talking to them. I guess all of us creative types are strange in our own ways?

When I finished my shift, I walked around San Diego a bit and scoped out the off-sites and wraps they were setting up for the weekend!

  

Thursday

The real “day one”! I actually spent a lot of time retracing some of those off-sites once they opened, and there were a lot of really great ones this year. The Good Place was one of my favorites. You start with a questionnaire about your morals: Yes, I have spoiled a movie for someone before (sorry…); No, I have NEVER reheated fish in an office microwave, how could you even accuse me of such a thing?! Based on my answers, I got to move into The Good Place where a merry-go-round, a super chipper mailman, a cupcake lady, and a bunch of other “neighbors” were there to welcome us to their neighborhood. Among them was a lady who told me she was supposed to go to the Bad Place and she needed my help keeping her secret, and if she could just see my phone, she needed to take a photo of me to commemorate my time in The Good Place. When I got that phone back, I had 8 selfies just like this:

And then they all started fighting and it turns out we weren’t supposed to be in The Good Place at all, so we had to leave before the Architect came to kick us out. Darn.

Amazon also promoted the heck out of the upcoming Jack Ryan show, with two huge building wraps and a HUGE off-site I only scraped the surface of. Seriously, they brought their A-game, with a huge escape room where you could win a Fire stick just for participating, an “analyst physical training” course where 100 people a day completed a VR obstacle course that ended in them zip-lining out of a helicopter, and a bazaar where if you completed a puzzle, they’d give you a cool bag and a sweet water bottle. They also gave out free ice cream, water bottles, and fruit. So yeah, they really want you to watch Jack Ryan, and because John Krasinski is awesome, I was already planning on watching it anyway!

Oh! And John Barrowman from Arrow and Doctor Who signed an autograph for me! Super nice guy!

Friday

Friday was so much fun! This was the day I saw a very dedicated group of cosplayers dressed like the Scooby-Doo gang, and overheard this candid conversation:

Fred: *yawns* “So what do you guys think? Do we wanna do Ghost Busters first?”
Daphne: “Sure! That’s a thing we want to do, right?”
Shaggy: “I’m gonna check out the taco food truck. I’ll meet you there.”

I also got to be in the “Marvel Group Hug.” Full disclosure, group physical contact with a bunch of strangers sounded terrible to me, but I saw “free shirt!” on the sign and registered right away. It turns out this Group Hug wasn’t a physical embrace but a simple discussion with about 10 other people and a Marvel rep so we could sort out all of our “feels” about Infinity War. We discussed that “I don’t wanna go” scene, the fate of the Guardians, Bearded Cap vs. Non-Bearded Cap, and then the rep gave us donuts and shirts and showed us a deleted scene from the movie. Yay! I also had to sign a bunch of releases and sit by cameras and stuff, so watch for me on the Blu-Ray extras! (Just kidding–I don’t know what Marvel Studios is doing with the footage!)

I also saw a few panels in Ballroom 20 that day: Sissy Spacek and Bill Skaarsgard for Castle Rock, a new Stephen King show coming to Hulu, and the “Warriors of Prime Time” panel featuring Benedict Wong, Jay Hernandez, Santiago Cabrera, and a few others.

Saturday

Three highlights from Saturday:

The Manifest premiere and panel featuring Josh Dallas and Melissa Roxburgh. The pilot was amazing, and this is a show I’m going to get really into this fall! I have a feeling it’s going to resonate with LOST fans.
I played a 15-minute demo of Kingdom Hearts III, specifically the intro to the Toy Story world! I confess the controls felt a little weird at times and felt very demo-ish (it was also XBox which I’m not used to), but the magic was all about diving back into this universe and dusting off those memories of the first time I played Kingdom Hearts as a 5th grader. I’m 27 now, and the dude next to me looked like my physician and had to have been at least 40. We’ve been waiting all our lives to start bashing Heartless again!
I made it into Hall H for two panels! The first was all about “Women Who Kick Ass,” featuring Chloe Bennett, Amandla Stenberg, Regina King, Jodie Whitaker, and Camila Mendez, and the following panel was all about Deadpool 2 and the “super duper extended cut” they’ll be releasing soon. Seeing Ryan Reynolds was probably the highlight this year!

Overall

There’s tons of great programming on Sunday as well, but I had to catch an early flight and opt out of the last day! I don’t even think I’ve scratched the surface of everything that happened this weekend! I didn’t even mention that I was signed up for a scavenger hunt and placed around 17 out of 120 participants. There were close to 200 tasks, ranging from easy to hard to embarrassing:

Easy: “Pose with a Deadpool cosplayer!” (This is actually kind of hard once you start looking for them… otherwise they’re everywhere.)
Slightly harder: “Get arrested by a Stormtrooper.”
Hard: “Kill Jon Snow.” (He actually wasn’t that big of a cosplay this year!)
Embarrassing: “Start a rousing sing-a-long of the “500 Miles” song.” “Take an awkward prom photo in front of the convention center!”
Impossible: “Spot a celebrity in a hotel elevator. Take a selfie with them.”

Would do the hunt again, hands-down!

This isn’t the rest of the photos, but I think this assortment summarizes SDCC 2018 quite nicely. Until next year!

The Hummingbird v. 2.0: Cover Reveal #3!

Hey friends!

I’ll cut right to the fun stuff: You’ve already seen the first two covers for the new and improved Carver Trilogy, and all week long I’ve been itching to release the third and final cover! I’m just going to drop it right here for ya:

Here we have a glimpse of Neverland, pirate ships, a dragon, some of the towers from Avoria’s Citadel, and perhaps my favorite element of this cover: We finally have a look at Enzo himself!

The books themselves are in formatting, and once that step is complete, I’ll be working to hard to get these live and ready for your hands. I have a feeling they’re going to look pretty awesome in person, especially when you put them all together!

This week to celebrate the release of all three covers, I’m giving away a $5 Amazon credit to one random winner. Entry is simple:

Follow my Facebook page.
Add ROSES IN THE DRAGON’S DEN, my upcoming February release, to your Goodreads list.
Comment on this blog post and tell me what your favorite fairy tale retelling is, or any fairy tale/myth that you would like to see retold in the future! Or, just tell me what you think of these covers!!

I will choose a winner in a week!

Happy reading!

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The Unseen v. 2.0: Cover #2!

I had an exciting challenge writing THE UNSEEN.

In addition to the fact that I’d never written a sequel before and needed to raise the stakes, my biggest challenge had to do with the setting and tone of the book. While the first book takes place in an original town filled with familiar characters, book two is set primarily in a place we’ve all heard of: Wonderland!

Playing with a familiar territory is even scarier than playing in uncharted waters. The struggle an author faces is: How do I do something brand new while also being faithful to what Wonderland represents? Whimsy, madness, a little darkness, wonder . . .

So it makes me so happy to see that this new cover captures all of that beautifully!

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I think this one, like the first cover, really does a great job of capturing the soul of this series. I look at this and I can clearly imagine Enzo and Rosana’s arrival in Wondertown, the epic struggle in the plains, and for the first time on a cover, we’re getting a symbol for Clocher de Pierre, the bell tower itself!

And how ’bout that little silhouette of the King of Hearts staring out at us from underneath? Yikes . . . that guy’s trouble.

As promised, I’m going to give out the first set of character cards to someone who shared the first cover, and this time I need to congratulate Jeanette Neff! Congrats Jeanette!

I’ll give you all another shot this week if you didn’t win! This time all you have to do is enter THIS RAFFLECOPTER, and Lady Fortune will do the rest!

What do you think of the cover?! What do you think we’ll see on the third and final reveal next Tuesday for THE HUMMINGBIRD?

Happy reading, book lovers!

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The Carver v. 2.0: Cover Reveal #1!

Good morning, friends!

I know I’ve been promising you all an update on the new branding and re-release of THE CARVER for a couple months now, and I was going to hold off until I closed the sales for the old cover and made my Make A Wish donation, but well, I just couldn’t hold it any longer! How ’bout now?

Things I love about this cover:

The way the New York skyline bleeds into The Woodlands, signifying that we’re in our own backyard and an uncharted one at the same time, that this story spans entire worlds near and far.
That tiny silhouette against the Empire State Building.
The strange dark blue pattern, signaling that this is not an everyday story and that something dark and epic is about to go down…
The new font, dark enough to be mysterious; whimsical enough to say, “But don’t take this too seriously