Joshua Bader's Blog: How I Learned to Love the Bomb, page 4

Release Party Tonight

https://www.facebook.com/events/79185...
Free books, gift cards, and plenty of fun to be had. Two new book excerpts from Frostbite and the opportunity to ask me questions. You will only regret it if you don't come.
Hope to see everyone there.

I have been tagged

I was attacked by another author on twitter who insisted I answer these 11 questions. Normally, I would thumb my nose at such things, but I needed something to talk about other than Frostbite is releasing on Amazon. (You know it's out right? You can order it in paperback. It's awesome.)
So to distract from me checking my Amazon rank, here's 11 random questions:
1. How many cups of coffee/tea/adult beverage must you consume to effectively write?
I need the rough equivalent of 4 cups of coffee from Diet Dr. Pepper to function. Rum is an effective substitute, but creates a very different writing experience.
2. What genre best describes your personality?
Urban fantasy. It's close to what everyone else expects, but when you get too close it gets awfully twisty at the edges.
3. If you were to get rid of one state in the U.S., what would it be and why?
I'm going to defer to Larry the Cucumber on this one and go with South Dakota.
4. A penguin walks through your door right now wearing a sombrero. What does he say and why is he here?
Hello sir. Have you heard the good news of Argentina Chthulu?
5. If Tolkien and Austen were to have a Rap Battle, who would win? Why?
It's hard to imagine Tolkien losing a rap battle to any one. He's such a philologist. If he can't think of the right word that rhymes, he'll just invent something new and say its the language of Mordor or Elvish.
6. What is your honest opinion on garden gnomes?
A little bit creepy, but not the worst thing to display on your front yard. I'd like to see a garden gnome riding a flamingo, decked out for battle.
7. If you had to create a horocrux, what object would you use and where would you hide it?
My stuffed monkey. He's soft, fluffy, and adorable, which would make it really hard for anyone to destroy.
8. What footwear do you typically wear while writing?
I try to avoid shoes at home at all costs. If I am wearing footwear, it's because I suspect I'm about to leave (one more paragraph, honey) so it's my black sneakers.
9. Do you shower before you start your day or shower before bed?
Writers with 3 kids and a day job have time to shower? Seriously. I missed the memo. I get what I can, when I can.
10. If you could be any kind of sandwich, what would you be?
Peanut Butter and Jelly. I want to be a beloved classic.
11. If you’re the kind of person who actually responds to challenges when tagged on Twitter, why do you feel compelled to respond?
I feel the need for social justification for my writing and this gave me the opportunity to seek your approval.

Preorders are live on Amazon!

So you've read the Frostbite excerpt, you've listened to me talk about it for years, and you want to read it?
It doesn't come out till Tuesday, June 21, but you can pre-order your copy from Amazon right now:
https://www.amazon.com/Frostbite-Mode...
Use the power of the link and become awesome! (Seriously, my undying gratitude to everyone who does. You make this great!)

A Very Haiku Preview

The story of Frostbite
Told in measured form of lines
Five, seven, and five.

Lost his fiancée
Lives out of car, now broken.
Hungry demon lurks.

Jailed by police
For a crime committed not
By his human hands.

Lucien Valente
Pays his bail, expects return
On his investment.

Personal wizard
Trapped between Valente
And heartripping beast.

Finding fiancée
Will have to wait until he can
Escape the Frostbite.

Frostbite releases in 6 days. I hope everyone is as excited as I am. More previews to come and link to release party will be posted here soon... or its already up on my twitter @author_jbader

Blood and Sweat

8 days until Frostbite releases in paperback, but my head is pretty deep into the sequel Two Wizard Roulette. Urban fantasy with a novice wizard versus a cannibal ice demon is good stuff. Said novice wizard versus another wizard whose a little higher on the phenomenal cosmic power scale, now that's the great stuff. Add in a dash of romance, tragic back story, and backdrop that feels like a living, breathing universe, then simmer till its 300ish pages. As Emeril would say, "Bam! Perfect book."
The advice I heard most often when I started writing was to write what I knew. In fantasy of any kind, that's hard advice to follow. I don't really know any unicorns, pegasi, or demons on a first name basis.
Scratch that, rewrite, I don't really know any unicorns or pegasi on a first name basis. My demons and I don't talk much, but I sure know their names.
I suppose I could write Narnia. I know C.S. Lewis well enough, but those books, that urban fantasy series, has been done. I could write Dresden Files, because I know those, but Jim Butcher is still busy doing just that. Writing what I know doesn't seem a great approach to writing urban fantasy.
If I had to give advice to an aspiring writer of any genre, I would tell them to write what they feel. If there are times when writing on the page feels like you're dipping the quill into your veins and painting the manuscript with your blood, you are doing it right. I might not know what it is to face down a lightning bolt wielding maniac wizard, but I can feel the mixture of fear and adrenalin racing to my heart. My universe is littered with depth and back stories, because my own memories and emotions are strewn all over the place. The blood gives it life.
The second piece of advice I would give to an aspiring writer is to write until you sweat. For a steamy romance author that may mean one thing, but I mean to keep at it, to keep writing until its hard. Writing can be heavy lifting at times: keep writing anyway. If you don't finish it, it can't be read, it can't be published, it stays with you. Sweat it out and get it finished.
So that's what I've got: blood and sweat. I hope it helps you write. Even more, I hope it piques your interest in seeing what I've felt out on to the page.
I'll leave you with a brief peak at Two Wizard Roulette:
“Dear child, do you suppose that everything that is inside of you is built up in but a single lifetime? Your very bodies are stardust, forged in the supernovas of the brightest stars. How much more your souls are forged by lifetimes of loves and hates.” Malachi seemed distant then, sorrowful. “I am only beginning to understand the fullness of that truth and what I gave up.”

Twitterpated

When I first read Nightseer by Laurell K. Hamilton, it was a different era. I wanted to find the author, to tell her it was a life-changing book. It was daring, a high fantasy book that refused to play by the "normal" rules of high fantasy. It was dark and edgy with a strong female lead and an ending that satisfied, but didn't rest it's laurels on happily ever after.
Back then, if I had wanted to convey those feelings to her, I would have gone down to the local library and seen if the reference desk had a tome of celebrity contact information. If she was in there, my letter would have taken a week getting to either her publisher or her agent. There it would sit for an indefinite period of time, maybe 2,weeks, maybe 6 months, before finally finishing it's journey to the esteemed Ms. Hamilton, who may or may not read it. I knew this routine, because my entire 7th grade English class wrote a letter to a celebrity of our choosing. I don't remember who I wrote to... Michael W. Smith, perhaps? (Most of my favorite authors in 7th grade were dead.) So I knew the process, as slow and ineffective as it was.
Fast forward to 2016. One of my fellow City Owl authors has convinced me I need to be on Twitter for marketing purposes. I was less than thrilled, wondering what on Earth could be so important in 140 characters or less. But I wanted to be an author, a real author, so I did it. In the back of my head, I was thinking that marketing was what I had a publisher and an agent for.
I was on twitter less than 24 hours when I got my first tweet from Laurell Hamilton, commiserating the necessary evil of social media marketing and how while it helps sell the book, it never writes a single word of the book. I promptly fanboyed... and got a smile back from her. From there in, it was a brave new world. I shared my publisher's weekly review with her and thanked her for the inspiration and encouragement. Way faster turn around than the seventh grade model.
So now I am twitter-pated, so to speak. I'm not convinced most people really pay attention to each other on twitter, but I'm going to give it a chance. The junk tweets may outnumber the @LKHamilton s but the latter make it totally worth it.
You can follow me @author_jbader.

Frostbite Excerpt

I've been dropping a few quotes on Twitter from the book and realized most of them are coming from the same scene. Since we're sitting at 2 weeks to the day until it comes out, I thought I would share that scene with everybody. Enjoy the excerpt and thanks for the support. I can't wait till everyone can read it on June 21.

“Mister Fisher. Sit, please.” His voice fit both the outfit and the aura. I thought I heard a slight Boston accent on the r’s, more “ah” than “er”. I did as he asked, taking up residence in the booth across from him.
With gloved hand, he produced an ivory white business card and slid it across to me. In silver letters, “Lucien Valente” had been embossed in the center of the card. No phone numbers, titles, or e-mail addresses cluttered it; only his name appeared. While I inspected it, he removed the glove before grabbing a piece of toast off his plate and holding it out to me. “Take, eat.”
“Do this in remembrance of me?” I added.
“Something like that. I know many of your kind regard guest right as important. It’s not… kosher to harm someone you’ve shared a meal with.”
I nodded. “Many Arab tribes believe it makes men family until the next sunrise. Refusing to eat is almost an act of war.” I accepted the bread and took a nibble. “I hope you don’t mind if I order my own plate for the rest.”
He smiled, but said nothing until after our waitress came and left. I ordered a coffee, a tall stack of pancakes, fried eggs, and hash browns. I was on his tab, I assumed, and I was never one to skimp on a free meal. It’s like the twelfth law of wizarding, I think.
“Colin Fisher.” He rolled my name around on his tongue. “Do you know who I am?”
“Lucien Valente?” I ventured.
He nodded.
“Never heard of you before… though I must say I’m impressed so far.”
“Are you familiar with Valente International?”
I racked my brain for a moment. “Big multi-national conglomerate. Owns that coffee chain and the dollar discount stores.”
“Among other things. I like to keep my interests diversified. I also don’t care for advertising my success. Bill Gates, I’m not.”
I let out a low whistle. I had friends in environmental movements who liked to go on long rants about the evils of multinationals. The more I thought about it, the more I recalled Valente International being spoken of in a tone of voice generally reserved for topics such as Nazis or terrorists. “That Lucien Valente, huh?”
“Yes, Mister Fisher.” He paused for a sip of his coffee. I noticed he drank it black, a trait I associated with strong character and honesty, probably because it matched my own preference. “Miss Deluce seems to think I should hire you on as my personal wizard. Was that her idea or yours?”
“Hers. I didn’t know who her boss was. And Duchess didn’t strike me as someone whose opinion could be pushed around or manipulated. If she says she thought of it, she must have.”
“No,” he conceded. “She is an exceptionally stubborn secretary.” I must have cocked an eyebrow in surprise, because he responded to my body language. “Yes, secretary, executive assistant, whatever the in-fashion term is. She provides external order to my life and activities, and acts in my stead when I am otherwise engaged. I believe the archaic term suits her better: she is my seneschal.”
We sat in silence after that. My breakfast arrived and I began to eat. I could tell Lucien was waiting for something, but I didn’t have a clue what. So I attended to what I did understand: blueberry syrup atop hot golden pancakes.
I was four or five bites in when Lucien started to laugh. “I give up, Mister Fisher. I’ve had twelve other personal wizards before you. Most were con artists or one-trick ponies. Near worthless. But I think I like you.”
I had enough etiquette to swallow before replying. “Why’s that?”
“You’re not trying to impress me. No dire prophecies of doom or demonstrations of power. You don’t need to. That’s the sign of real power, isn’t it? When you don’t feel the need to show it off, it means you really have it.”
“I know a little,” I confessed. “Enough to know that I’m not the biggest fish in the sea. But my luck and love spells pack a mean punch.” My last luck spell, in fact, had accidentally killed its recipient. He won a quarter million dollars on the roulette wheel before karma straightened itself out in the form of a speeding bus. After that, I was very careful to limit my scope when I tinkered with probability. None of that seemed particularly interview relevant, however. Scratch that. It probably was interview-relevant, but I suddenly wanted to get this job and thought that anecdote might sour the deal.
*Ooo, ooo, tell him about the couple on their honeymoon you put in the nuthouse. I love that story.*

A love of reading

I would love to think that reading just happens. I picked up Encyclopedia Brown 30 years ago and never stopped. But as I sit here with my 2 year old and her Sleepy Puppy book, I'm keenly aware that's not the whole story. In a world where Netflix is an always available babysitter, it may be worth talking about how readers are made.
My mom and Dad both read to me. They were usually Bible stories, particularly at first. My memories of those sessions tend to revolve around The Hobbit and all 7 books of The Chronicles of Narnia. My dad taped our nightly reading sessions, so that I could relisten to them whenever I wanted. I must have listened to A Horse and His Boy 20 times.
In elementary school, I remember the Pizza Hut Book It! promotion, a local library summer reading contest, and Mrs. Boyd's semester long reading contest. All of them offered inexpensive prizes... but ones that were meaningful to the targeted audience. I read voraciously to win those prizes, but the habit of reading continued with me long after that.
Graduate school nearly killed the reader in me, something that I've heard from other graduate students as well. Nothing like being forced to read large volumes of non-fiction at high speed and with your future on the line to make you resent it. Fortunately, a good dose of Jim Butcher, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Tanith Lee administered slowly and for fun helped cure me of that bad taste.
My very own urban fantasy Frostbite comes out in paperback in 15 days. Whether it will be as big of a hit as Sleepy Puppy or My First Book of Numbers, I don't know. But I'm appreciative that people used similar titles to teach me to read and hope that we don't let the love of reading die out.

Chronology

I'm still working my way through Book 2 of the Modern Knights series, just about the halfway point. Two Wizard Roulette is turning into quite the thrill ride. That being said, my brain revolted at work today and started composing the opening scenes of Book 3, The Faceless.
Does any one else write things out of order? To me, the later material helps pull the current narrative along by providing a destination for the story to arrive at. The whole series started that way. The first book I wrote with Colin Fisher will also eventually be the last in the Modern Knights series. I fell so in love with the character that I went back and wrote his origin story, Frostbite. The finale, Borderline, may change to match the facts as I write my way towards it... and I think the whole collection is richer for the layered timeline. It helps to know both where I've been and where I'm going.
Colin's journey begins in Frostbite in 19 days. I look forward to sharing it with all of you.

A Matter of Perspective

Frostbite previews and pre-orders are rapidly approaching with the paperback releasing on Amazon on June 21 and the ebooks releasing on July 5. In the meantime, though, I thought I would return to a favorite short story of mine. I hope you all enjoy.

"I think it might have been a car dealership," Bellandra sounded quite confident in her statement. The old man on whose shoulder she perched knew better than to trust her on matters of ancient human archaelogy. "I bet they sold a lot of SVUs."

"You mean SUVs. SVU was a television show that suffered from recurring plot syndrome." He paused to consider the buiding,"That ivy-covered husk of a building? I don't think so. Where is the sprawling lot for their inventory? The garage for their detail work? The altar for their human sacrifices to the gods of capitalism? No, this most certainly used to be a donut shop, Bel." Malachi crossed his arms and nodded, almost able to taste white frosting and rainbow sprinkles across his tongue.

The purple skinned pixie flattened out her wings, the air vibrating across his left eardrum. It reminded Malachi of a fat late summer dragonfly buzzing by. Bel could be irritated by his correction all she wanted; it did not magically transform the ruins from a pastry palace to Al's Deep Discount Auto.

The two of them had been playing their guessing game for most of the day. Bel had yet to guess a single ruin correctly. In her defense, the warm, wet Georgia climate had helped the vegetation and rot to reclaim downtown Atlanta faster than other cities the duo had visited. What few clues to identity remained were being rapidly obfuscated by the newly emerging rainforest.

Frustration never lasted long on the face of his blue-haired, white-attenaed companion. "What was a donut, Reverend?"

"Hey now, what did I tell you? I can't be a preacher without a flock, now can I?"

The fairy clapped her hands together excitedly. "Oo, I can be your flock, I can be your flock!"

Malachi mulled over the offer. "Quite fitting, I suppose... a strange congregation for a mad pastor. Very well, then... I am restored as a sinecure. Now what was it you wanted to know?"

"Donuts!"

"Ah yes, donuts. A simple pleasure for simpler times. People would take fluffy pastry bread, fry it in oil, inject it with cream, lather it in chocolate, and smother it in powdered sugar and sprinkles. This was back when people could still appreciate edible hedonism. Before pleasure had to carry risk of deadly viruses or mind-wrenching psychoactive chemicals. Had a rough week? Eat a donut. Don't want to be awake this early in the morning? Eat a donut. Wife cheating on you? Donut, donut, donut.

Man and pixie stared out again at the tall brick structure, its edges gradually rumbling into dust. Even Bel knew what had happened at the End. Mankind's desires devolved, regressed: donuts and french fries gave way to marijuana and "free" love. In the blink of an eye, even those weren't strong enough for the addicts and it was soon cocaine and fetish, then meth and pedophilia. The Internet was the death knell of civilization. The high pinnacle of technology allowed instant gratification to man's lowest impulses, accelerating the already rapid dehumanizing process.

The riots came fast and brutal. The bestials wanted to marry goats and chickens. The pedophiles wanted to adopt children. The druggies demanded legalization, while the legalists called for the wrath of God upon all of the above. The pimps, cannibals, sadists, cloners, masochists, rapists, wackos, weirdos, commies, racers, skaters... everyone wanted what they wanted and they wanted it now. A well known preacher of the End times had devouted lengthy sermons to every vice known to man, except of course for his own wicked predilictions. That in the end was what did it: "They" wanted everyone to accept their own favorite vice, but refused to recognize anyone else's as legitimate.

Los Angelos was the first to go; the initial cause of the riot was a labor disagreement over whether the company should cover recreational drugs in the union's health plan. New York and Paris followed shortly over a corrupt political party and a sin tax on prostitution, respectively. One by one, cities became war zones; the enemy often former neighbors from down the street. People fled or died. Those that fled found conditions no better elsewhere and were ill-prepared to survive wilderness living. The technology age quickly gave way to the ever present stone age.

Reverend Malachi brushed a green tendril from his well worn gray leather duster. Genetically engineered variants of Kudzu were going to force him to cut his Atlanta tour short. Belandra stared at the rubble across the street in awe. Malachi gave the building another look, noting a large cursive "C" on a red background behind the mass of mossy vegetation. At least, he thought it was a C, though "O" or even "Q" were not out of the question. The building had been tall, very tall for a donut shop. Maybe his longing for sugar and frosting was overriding his anthropological judgment.

"Do you think I could fly all the way up to the top? I bet the view up there is great."

"If you want. Just watch out for the kudzu. It's feeling a little frisky today." He knew she would lose interest mid-flight, but had learned that pointing out Bel's short attention span was a good recipe for a sulking fairy.

As man retreated into obscurity, other creatures, long rumored extinct, returned to the world. Bel and the pixies were one such race. Fae, hobglots, sluagh, dwarves, chattawomps, kobolds... magic was taking hold of the land again. It had never left, of course, just slumbered, a short nap through science's brief reign. Sometimes they helped humanity adjust to the strange old world. More often, the returners helped man inch his way closer to extinction. Mutually beneficial pairings like Belandra and Malachi were the exception, not the rule.

Malachi felt the pixie's tiny narrow feet land on his shoulder, but when he turned to look, Belandra was nowhere in sight. Instead, a young man in a red vest, white dress shirt, and forced smile stood behind him. The grin was most surely fake, the kind one pulls out of the closet to put on in the morning with the rest of the work uniform. His shiny red nametag proclaimed him to be "Kyle".

Kyle's hand tapped Malachi again before retreating. "Sir, can I help you? Are you lost?"

"Why, yes, yes, you can help me. Could you tell me what that building was?" Malachi gestured at the tower of crumbling cement and rapidly growing vines.

Kyle looked a touch nervous, but answered promptly. "That is the World of Coca Cola museum, a part of the Coca Cola International headquarters."

"I see. DId they used to..." Malachi caught his tense and shifted appropriately, "I mean, do they make donuts there, per chance?"

"Donuts... no, sir. They make soft drinks."

"Soft drinks? Like water and sugar?"

"Yes, sir." Kyle was clearly not enjoying the conversation.

"Did you hear that, Bel? I was half right, at least. They made donuts you could dirnk."

"Sir, are you okay?"

Malachi shook his head. "No, I haven't been okay in a long time, son. But I can I'm making you uncomfortable. Why don't I do us both a favor and just move along? I've rested on this bench long enough already."

Malachi stood and brushed back an overeager tendril of vine from his duster. When he removed his sunglasses, carefully folding them into his breast pocket, the jungle foliage around him shimmered away, leaving behind only normal bench, city,and nervous looking employee. Malachi smiled and nodded at him, then wandered off towards the distant bus stop.

A soft pixie voice whsipered into the cup of his ear. "Shouldn't we tell him? Can't we tell them the disaster that's almost upon them?"

Malachi glanced back at Kyle, before shaking his head and continuing on. "It wouldn't do any good, Bel. People don't want to know the future. I know I sure don't. But the vision isn't always the same. Maybe it won't be moral degeneration."

Bel sighed. "No, it could be terrorists with nukes, an escaped super virus, or a giant meteor. But in all of your visions, people get wiped out. We should tell them."

Malachi chuckled. "They wouldn't believe me, darling Bel. They'd lock me up as a crazy old hobo. But they don't all end that badly. There is one hope..." Malachi's voice trailed off in to the noise of approaching traffic.

"Do you really think we can find him?"

"If we can't, you better learn to cook kudzu soup."