J.S. Bailey's Blog, page 9

A Chat with Abby Ryan

Do you love stories brimming with action and romance? Do you enjoy battles that pit good against evil? Do you fawn over complex characters whose gut-wrenching decisions could affect the lives of everyone in the realm? If so, pull up a chair and meet Abby Ryan, author of the YA fantasy series The Light and Dark Chronicles , which starts off with Orphan of the Shadows and continues with The Black Trinity , which releases February 5. The series chronicles the lives of the citizens of Aleunna, the...

A Chat with Tosca Lee

Good afternoon, denizens of the Internet! With us today is special guest Tosca Lee, critically-acclaimed author of Demon: A Memoir and Havah: The Story of Eve and coauthor (with novelist Ted Dekker) of The Books of Mortals trilogy. Lee's upcoming novel, Iscariot, delves into the life of Judas, the betrayer of Christ, and will be released on February 5, 2013.

So tell us a bit about Iscariot. What was it like writing it?

It took...<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>

Tell No One

I can tell no one who I am. What I am. Without being attacked by the wolves that surround me. I walk a fine line in the middle. I try not to stray. I am of one side, yet also the other, and neither group can understand, for I disagree with both as well.

Stop the name-calling. Stop the hurting. A house divided against itself cannot stand. "We are not of the same house," the wolves say, though they are.

Or aren't they?

Oh, it hurts. To see such division. To hear such hatred coming from those who c...

WHO LIKES FREE BOOKS?

Two years ago this February, I set up the page www.facebook.com/jsbaileywrites. Because authors are supposed to have Facebook pages, right? I wasn't sure what would happen. I think that in the beginning I assumed that thousands of people would be clambering to "like" this page despite the fact that I was a new author whom no one had ever heard of.

But it wasn't like that at all. The first people to join me here were friends and family. People whom I know personally. But then something began...

2012: A Year in Review

Is 2012 really almost over? It seems to have passed by so quickly, but when I look back on the past twelve months I realize that so much has happened.

So...

January

Back in 2010 I came up with an idea for a ghost story but didn't know where to go with it. After many agonizing rewrites I finally set it aside. In the first week of January I was reading Dante's Inferno when suddenly I was hit by a blast of inspiration so powerful that it burned inside of me like a raging fire that could not be que...

Just DO it!

At book signings I've often had people comment, "You're so young! How were you able to get a book published?"

I respond by telling them that nobody is going to ask someone how old they are when they submit a manuscript for publication. I've even read that it is wrong to mention one's age in a query letter, so I've never done that. There is no need for it. If the writing is good, it will stand on its own, whether the author is 15, 30, or 99 years old. Because age is just a number, right?

But for...

What are You Thankful For?

Well, it's that time of year again. Thanksgiving is just two days away, but all month long I've noticed people posting things that they are thankful for each day. It makes us stop and think. We often see terrible things on the news and it seems like there is little good left in the world. Is there anything left for which we can be thankful? Of course there is!

And so...

I am thankful for a loving and supportive family who has stayed by my side even when things have gotten rough.

I am thankful f...

What to do with Books

What to do with Books
by J. S. Bailey 

So it's your day off, and you've been sitting at the table daydreaming all morning, and before you know it, you fall asleep.
Suddenly you hear a noise like that of riffling papers. You open your eyes...
...only to see...



...a book.






Not an .epub. Not a .mobi. Not even a .pdf. A real, made-of-paper book. And you realize that it has brought its friends.




This perplexes you, because you forgot that made-of-paper books exist. You can't even remember the last ti...

Lament of a Writer

A thousand souls are trapped inside my head yearning to break free; to be seen and heard by those who want to read their stories. Like the woman who sits alone by the pool, reading her life away and hoping that someday things will change. And the woman who sings soulful tunes that bring tears to the audience's eyes, and she seems happy, but the moment she leaves she is overwhelmed with despair knowing that she will be returning home to an empty apartment and a cold bed.

Then there's the fright...

A Moment in the Life

Monday, October 8, 4:54 pm Eastern Daylight Time. Autumn has surely arrived in the land, and I huddle on the floor of the living room with a little space heater blowing its feeble warmth into the air. A clock is ticking off to my right. Marking away the seconds like the beating of a heart. Tick...tick...tick...

I sit with my laptop perched upon my legs, thinking. What shall I do? How can I share my stories with the world? I complete my daily ritual of checking Amazon sales ranks, website page...