Dev Jarrett's Blog

Belief

The last time I posted anything here was in the "good old days," before Covid, before quarantining and social distancing became the norm. These days, who knows? Maybe it's tapering off and we're on the way to okay, but on the other hand, maybe it's just halftime on the road to apocalypse (and yes, I'm sure I'm not the only one writing a story to that effect).

So now we've got a new President (YES! We finally traded House of Cards for The West Wing! About goddamned time), but so many things are still so fucked up. Crazy people STILL insisting the election was somehow stolen. I wonder every day how Marjorie Taylor Green is still even allowed to walk around on her own recognizance, much less how she is still employed in a governmental office. Damn, Georgia, wake up.

I saw a post recently by fellow author Wrath James White where he laid out several of his views, a sort of declaration of himself, and I really liked that. He borrowed it from someone else, and changed it to reflect his views...and now it's my turn:

I am pro-choice. I believe in a woman's bodily autonomy. Your body. Your right.
I support LGBTQ+ rights. This should not even need to be stated.
Black Lives Fucking Matter! This should also be a given, and the fact that so many had an issue with it is indicative of how bad racism, and the denial of it's existence, is in this country.
Don't ever try to counter that with "blue lives matter"...people choose to be police officers.
Violence against people of color continues to be a huge problem in this country.
We should not still be discussing reparations for slavery because it should have been done a century ago.
Healthcare should be free to the public, and is part of our inalienable right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, as outlined by the constitution. (Just like equal rights.) It should be illegal to profit off a person's medical emergency.
Women continue to be oppressed, underpaid, raped, assaulted, and molested despite the attention brought to it by the #metoo movement, and the equal rights movement.
A trans man is a man. A trans woman is a woman. PERIOD.
The 2nd amendment is constantly misinterpreted as carte blanche for any redneck to own any gun that he wants, which is total horseshit. I support responsible gun ownership AND extensive background checks and mandatory gun safety training.
Marijuana should be legalized nationally, and non-violent marijuana convictions overturned.
I think the education system in America is completely rigged to keep the working class down. Especially obvious in these days when many children must attend virtual classrooms. (The digital divide is real, and must be fixed.) 
Trickle-down economics/supply-side economics is a stupid idea that will never work. All it does is increase the economic gap, and will eventually bankrupt this country.
The minimum wage should be raised to an actual living wage.
Democratic Socialism is not the same as Socialism or Communism, and only idiots can't see the difference.
Pineapple can go on any fucking food you want it to. Just keep it off my fucking pizza.
Music is subjective, and you are allowed to enjoy what you want.
Humor is subjective and you're allowed to laugh at what you want, but it does say something about your morals and values when you make jokes about historically oppressed people.
Religion is subjective as well. You can believe in any sky magician you want, however, it's a completely dick move to argue with other sky magician believers and say theirs is made up when you have zero proof yours isn't made up as well. Or to put down people who don't believe in any magic men in the sky.
Freedom of speech is a thing, and you can say whatever the fuck you want...but you are not free from being called a fucking moron...or from other consequences.

These are just a few of my basic beliefs.
You don't have to agree with me, as that is your right. I don't need you to agree with me, because I'm pretty solid in my beliefs.
I do reserve my right to call you an asshole, or other more colorful words if your beliefs differ from mine, especially when it comes to equal rights and basic human decency.
This is neither a disclaimer nor an excuse for any future behavior you may experience from me.

~Management

Halloween, and After

I was approached last month with the opportunity to write a guest blogpost for Halloween. Since that is far and away my favorite holiday, I was happy to do it. You can find a weird Halloween memory of mine on Meghan's House of Books here.

Meghan's House of Books can be followed on both FB and Twitter, or you can just follow the blog separately. It's a lot of fun, and she's always got some excellent content. She posts both book and film reviews, some fantastic interviews with authors, guest blog posts, and even some bonus material (some authors also provide short fiction for certain occasions--I've got a short story coming up probably sometime around Christmas). Check it out. You won't be disappointed.

 My wife and I have always had the neighborhood Halloween house, no matter where we lived. Halloween means "Come party at my house!"  In Hawaii, one year we had a dungeon theme, complete with a working guillotine. In Arizona, we had giant spiders and human-sized spider treats hanging in the carport. Last year, in South Carolina, we had a Pet Sematary. This year, we had a witches' Sabbat. And as any good Puritan will tell you, witches are consorts to the devil--so I was him.

​Next year? Who knows? But you can bet it'll be a blast.

MUSCLE THROUGH

Writing...it's not easy all the time. Sometimes the words flow like water. Sometimes it's a huge, thundering flood of action and description, the poetry within the prose crashing down the mountainside like an avalanche, and WOE UNTO THOSE WHO FALL BENEATH, drowned in verbs and adjectives, smothered by emotion and violence.

But other times...damn. If it's not the constant lure of distraction, of checking inboxes and the socials, or watching in paralyzed terror as our world slides into the Reality TV abyss that it's becoming, it's just hard.

I'm not a believer in writer's block as a thing in itself, but I know we all get bogged down. For me, when it happens, it usually happens about a hundred and fifty pages into a new novel. Not a wall, or a block, but a time when it's difficult to make those daily writing goals. It doesn't last long, usually, but when it does, you've got to keep at it. Keep working. It'll click, eventually.

You can do all kinds of things...

You can can work on something else entirely, even if it's something as small as a blog entry (WHO? ME?), or something as large as the story after the current WIP.

You can work on what's coming next, even if you're one of those seat-of-the-pants folks (*looks around...yeah, that's me, too).

You can force it. You can sit there, and just fucking muscle through the hard parts. Any clunky crap that needs to get cut will get cut in the first...or second...or eleventy-fifth rewrite (*hears a ghostly echo of Little Richard at an awards show, saying, "It's STILL me!").

Either way, the name of the game is perseverance, just like it always is. You keep digging till it's all dug out. You keep writing until you reach the end. You keep editing until it's actually what you mean to say. You keep submitting until you fucking get published.

And then you do it again, because the more you do, the better you get.

Till next time...keep reading, keep writing, and keep taking care of each other.

Previously...

It's been...wait, seriously? Holy shit. It's been THREE ENTIRE YEARS since my last post? My, how things have changed.

Maybe I need a narrator to give a voiceover to catch everyone up.

PREVIOUSLY, ON DEV JARRETT THEATER...

   ...I lived in Kansas, a soldier stationed at Fort Riley.
   ...I had a book coming out called Casualties .

It was a very different time. I was a very different person.  

...AND TODAY...

     I'm a civilian, living in South Carolina. I won't go into all of the fine print, but a military move was in there, a job change, and some other things. Being a civilian is fantastic, and do I even need to bring up the difference between Kansas and South Carolina? I looked at the weather for Manhattan, KS. A couple of days ago, the high was 12 degrees, and the low was 1 degree. And windchill? Don't go there. The wind is ALWAYS blowing in Kansas. Conversely, in South Carolina, we've got flowers blooming. Took this photo just the other day in the backyard:      Casualties , the book I was so pleased to present, is still available, as are the other three that I've written (covers below, all available on Amazon). Nothing new has been published, but I've been writing. Tons. Let's put it this way. When you're playing a game, your obstacles (whether they're puzzles, or floating Medusa heads*, or whatever) are more difficult when you level-up. You've got to keep grinding, because even though you've leveled up, so has everything else. Now in my writing, I've leveled up. I now have an amazing agent.
     I'm currently represented by Barbara Poelle of the Irene Goodman Literary Agency. Pretty great, right? She's looking over my most recent work right now.
     (* What can I say? I'm an old-school fan of Castlevania)
     That brings us up to speed for now. More to follow soon. Take care of each other, and keep reading.
--Dev

That's enough time off...BACK TO WORK!

Happy New Year. I've taken a couple of weeks to spend holiday time with my family, but now it's time to get back in the saddle. I've got lots of news, and I'm excited to share it.

First, I'm going to be interviewed by the amazing, multitalented Dr. Briar Lee Mitchell tomorrow evening at 7PM EST. It'll run live while we're talking, but it'll be available afterwards, as well. Here's the url to get to it: http://artistfirst.com/briarlee.htm

I think the majority of the interview will discuss my upcoming book, Casualties . It's going to be published by Permuted Press on February 16th, and will not only be available via ebook through Amazon--it'll also be available in beautiful glorious paperback (TA-DA!). If your local bookstore, indie or otherwise, doesn't have it on the shelf, ask for it, and they'll get it. Here's a peek at the cover.

Pretty cool. When I showed it off, I was asked, "Is it the cover of a novel, a book about witchcraft, or an 80s hard rock album cover?"

Not an album cover.

Not witchcraft.

That star is actually representative of a star at the top of a hill on Fort Huachuca, Arizona. When asked by the publisher about the cover art, I sent them a link to a Youtube video clip that showed the star on the hilltop. They took some artistic liberties, of course, but I love it. When I find the person who designed it--I owe them a drink or two.

In a nutshell, this is Casualties :

When Sergeant First Class Chris Williams was in Afghanistan, he fought every day against the insurgent forces lurking behind every rock. Today, he’s back home, and he and his family are moving to a new Army post.
 
“Desert people sure love their ghosts.”
 
Then the nightmares begin. At first, Chris wonders why nightmares would continue to plague him, but soon, he realizes the reason. He and his family are not alone in their house. An evil older than Fort Huachuca, older than time itself, lives here.
 
But what can they do? They are already casualties of life, crippled by both a crumbling marriage and growing paranoia. Can Chris and Molly save their family—and possibly the world—from the evil already living under their own roof?

So come on by Briar's page and listen to the interview, then grab the book when it comes out.

“Advice” Does Not Equal “Rules”

     (A few months back, I was asked to guest post on a blog for the relaunch of the "Darkness Dwells" podcast. They're good folks. Drop by and check them out here. Cool thing is, they attached a picture they thought fitting to my post--Neil Gaiman giving writing advice. Very flattering. Leaving out the introductory "I'm Dev Jarrett..." paragraph, here's the post. Enjoy.)

                                                          “Advice” Does Not Equal “Rules”
 
                                                                           by Dev Jarrett

     Novice writers, like all artists, are often given stupid advice. “You want to sell books, then...” “...write what you know.” “...you need a strong hook at the beginning.” “...give your readers a character with whom they can identify.” There are at least a hundred others, and most of them come from respected sources. You can find lists of them everywhere, and all those lists claim to be definitive.
 
     “Write what you know.” We hear this most often, right? And yes, to a degree, we all do it. How many Stephen King stories are about writers? Too damned many, but that’s what he knows. My first two novels? Set in small towns in Georgia. That’s where I’m from. Casualties has a main character who is a soldier. In my day job, I’m a soldier. So superficially, yes, we all write what we know.
 
     But do we? Really? And I’m not talking about the standard “I don’t know ghosts and monsters, so I’m not writing what I know.”
 
     It’s deeper than that. The very nature of fiction is that it’s made up. We don’t know any of it until it happens in the story, and that’s true for even the most assiduous outliner—it’s Schrodinger’s cat, but with story growth. It’s not just the two possibilities of alive and dead, but an infinitely larger set of potentialities. Simultaneously, this happens, and this happens, and this happens, and this happens, etc., etc., infinity. It’s not until the writer actually writes what happens next in the story that all those other possible outcomes collapse. So in a narrative sense, writers are creating new realities from nothing except our own varied experience. We’re building the airplane while it’s in the air. We’re making up new things for others to “know.”
 
     “You need a strong hook at the beginning.” I know we’re in the 21st century, and attention spans are getting shorter and shorter all the time because there is simply so much to see, and everyone with an internet connection can find just about anything they can think of. But do you really need an opening chapter that resembles nothing so much as an opening scene from some Jerry Bruckheimer police procedural TV show? It’s interesting seeing how many writers have grown (or shrunk?) in that direction, just based on what the public wants.
 
     If you compare the first chapter of Terry Brooks’s The Sword of Shannara with any the opening chapters of his work in the last five years, they’re completely different in style and pace. Some might even go so far as to say that Sword wouldn’t sell today. I disagree, simply based on the beauty of the writing. Similarly, the opening chapters of Justin Cronin’s The Passage were a poignant and heart-wrenching introduction to the main character. No explosions. No dead bodies. No play-on-words douchebaggery by emotionally wooden cops wearing shades. Just good writing. There are others, where the story and the writing is simply fantastic from the start. Stephen King’s Pet Sematary is one. The real terror doesn’t really take hold of the reader until the reader is already deeply emotionally invested in the Creed family, and then the bottom falls out.
 
     “Give your readers a character with whom they can identify.” Again, the safe, fall-back criticism of that one is similar to the first reaction to Write what you know. “How can anyone identify with a bounty hunter of cyborgs, or a sentient zombie who’s a forensics specialist?” That’s a question that can best be addressed with how well an author can suspend disbelief. The two authors referenced above, Philip K. Dick and Nikki Hopeman, do it very well. They establish those points of commonality between us and their characters, and build out from there.
 
     We can take that truism deeper, too. Some main characters are just unlikeable assholes. I’m sure there are many examples of this, but the first one to come to my mind is Atlanta Burns, from the Chuck Wendig novel of the same name. I recently read the book because I like Miriam Black, one of Wendig’s other characters. I was a little disappointed because Atlanta Burns—even though she’s a defender of those who are bullied—is not likeable at all. Maybe that’s simply a function of my perspective, but in my opinion, she’s as bad as the villains in the book, only different.
 
     So, yeah. Whether it’s writing, filmmaking, or sculpting with instant mashed potatoes: create bravely, and create honestly, and if you don’t follow all the advice you get, it’s really okay. Artists break the rules every day. And any advice you ever get about writing, including this rambling blog of mine, take with a grain of salt.

PTSD is pretty fucked up.

      For those of you who may not know, I'm a career soldier. I went over my twenty year-mark in service almost two years ago. In all that time I've been to a lot of different places, and some of them have not been pretty.
      On my last trip to Afghanistan, back in 2011, stuff happened. Bad stuff. Roadside bomb stuff. I ended up coming home sooner than I expected, on a stretcher, with both bones in my lower left leg reduced to gravel.
     Doctors were able to make sure I kept my leg, and I'm thankful for that. Sure it still hurts, every damned day, but I function. Like the stupid insurance commercial says: it's what you do.
     Ask any career soldier and he or she will tell you the same thing. Tough shit that you're hurt. You want to keep going, doing the job, then just fucking do it.
     Bones heal, mostly. The scars on my leg are not terribly obtrusive. I don't even have to use a cane (maybe later, but not yet). You get past it.

     BUT...
     In your head, sometimes it's hard to get past it. The nightmares, the blinding headaches, the unexplained hyperawareness, it gets goddamned old after a while.

     I wanted to explore that in a story, so I wrote Casualties .

     Something evil is about to be born on Fort Huachuca, Arizona. The only people who can stop it are Sergeant First Class Chris Williams, who is plagued every night by terrible memories of his time in Afghanistan, and his wife Molly, a woman who has to confront the idea every day that the man she married is not the same man who came back from the war in Afghanistan.

     How can a family already strained and fractured by war hope to thwart the birth of a demon on Earth?

     Casualties is my third novel, and it's the first one that will not only be available for purchase in virtual bookstores online, but will also be available through actual brick-and-mortar bookstores. It's due out on February 16, 2016. It's not available for any sort of preorder yet--maybe by January--but when it is, I'll make sure to let folks know.

      I love writing, and all the stories are important, but this one...well, this one's important for a different reason.

     Get ready. Casualties is coming, PTSD and all.

     I think you're gonna like it.

"I'll see you on the Dark Side of the Moon"

     When Loveless came out in 2013, I decided to publish a companion playlist. There were songs on that list that brought together the whole experience of "being out on the lake" in the summer, at least for me. It was easy.

     The book that's coming in February, Casualties , was also easy. I've already done the playlist for that.

     I had a difficult time coming up with a playlist for Dark Crescent . On the one hand, Bud listens primarily to classic rock. Nothing wrong with that, but most classic rock doesn’t lend itself thematically to the story.

     On the other hand, Nita listens to country music—not anything new...more along the lines of Patsy Cline. I know it because I know her character, but it never comes up in the book. Would it have added something?

Who knows?

     On the other other hand, I don’t listen to much that lends itself to Quentin’s state of mind. I look at song titles by deathmetal bands like Cannibal Corpse and some of that may fit there, but ugh. I couldn’t listen past the first few bars of “Meat Hook Sodomy,” and for that, I'm kinda glad.

     As always, your mileage may vary, and this is really just a starting point. The songs I picked do have a certain lyric or voice that speaks to me.

 

Doctor My Eyes (Jackson Browne)

Let it Bleed (Rolling Stones)

Mother (The Police)

Black Hole Sun (Soundgarden)

Closer (Nine Inch Nails)

Close My Eyes Forever (Ozzy Osbourne and Lita Ford)

Nasty Habits (Oingo Boingo)

The Future is Now (The Offspring)

(Don't Fear) The Reaper (Blue Öyster Cult)

Bad Moon Rising (Creedence Clearwater Revival)

Learn to Live (Darius Rucker)

Brain Damage (Pink Floyd)

In Your Eyes (Peter Gabriel)

The Things We Do For Love (10cc)

Read the book and see for yourself. Whatever music resonates with your mind-movie of the story should probably be added to this list. I'd love to see what you hear when you read it.

Come and get it!

Today's the day. Release day. I've been counting down the months, weeks, days, and even hours until I could say " Dark Crescent is now available for purchase!"

Awesome, right? EVERYONE AT THE NOVEL RELEASE PARTY WILL RECEIVE MONEY, BOOZE, POWER, AND ALL THE STRANGE CHEESES THEY CARE TO EAT!

Wait, what? The invitations didn't go out?

Me? Dammit, I thought you had 'em.

Instead, here's a look at real life. This week, my eldest daughter Virginia is getting married to her fiance, Cody. They're fantastic kids, and they've been working on what they've got for much longer than it took to write Dark Crescent . This is their week.

Today is still mine, though.

I reminded my wife this morning that today was the release date, and she said, "Excellent! I'm so proud! But for now, take out the trash, then go buy some jalapenos. I'll make a pot of chili the way you like it tonight." You might think it's no big deal, but none of you have ever had Jennie's chili. It'd make a rich man beg. NO, you can't have the recipe. Don't even ask.

Other than chili and beer tonight, my celebrations are consisting of creating and proofreading a series of blog posts, chipping away at my current Work In Progress, and helping the kids get ready for their wedding. I've got a guest blog post showing up on the 12th over at the Darkness Dwells website.  Come by and check it out.

The booze and strange cheeses? That is actually occurring, but tomorrow. It's just happening with the bride and groom taking center stage, not the father of the bride and his weird imagination. I'll stand in the background and be the proud poppa, and if my mind wanders, you can be sure that it's only traveling as far as the next story.

Get Dark Crescent . Click the cover art, then purchase. I'm extremely stoked about my new novel, and I know when you read it, you'll love it, too.

Talk to you soon,
Dev

The future is in the eye of the beholder...

It's finally here. The horror novel you've been waiting for.

Dark Crescent .
    
      "Dark Crescent kept me turning pages until the early morning hours. A creepy and interesting premise and a killer read." --Nate Kenyon, author of Sparrow Rock and Day One

     When Bud wakes from a head injury with the ability to see people's deaths hours before they occur, he is assaulted with terrible visions of tragic individual futures.

     One vision tells him of a savage murder that will take place, and when he steps in to change that future, he manages to thwart the killing.

     In a frustrated rage, the murderer now focuses on a new target: Bud.

     Bud must do all he can to save himself and the woman he loves from a knife-wielding maniac bent on brutal payback.

     Click on the cover and go preorder it. Dark Crescent will be published June 9th.

      Come and get it.