S.M. Johnson's Blog, page 6

SM Johnson ~ Love Letters ~ Activism

Good morning, darklings, or evening, or whatever time you have wherever you are. Have some coffee. It's kind of coldish and sleeting here and not like spring at all, but coffee makes everything better.

I am a truly terrible blogger, so I thought I'd try something new, in hopes of inspiring myself to talk to you lovelies a little more regularly.

My progress report for DeVante's Children remains "progress is slow" and I hate to keep shouting "buy my other books" - when probably ya'll already have. (But in case you haven't, I DID just drop the price of Jeremiah Quick from 3.99 to 1.99, so now's a really great time to buy it at Amazon or Smashwords) (grin).

MY POINT IS... it's time to change things up, and so I'm giving myself a trite and busy A to Z challenge, starting now. I'm calling it Love Letters, because, well, yanno, the letters of the alphabet are the tools of my trade, and since I love what I do, and since I want to feel passion, I'm going to write about things that inspire passion in myself. So there. And since Alice tends to hang around above my head in my writing nook, I figure I'll change up the blog, too, and call it Alice 'n Me, and and share some fun little dragon picture and maybe even some cricket massacre videos along the way. Because Alice is a weird kid, and I adore her.

A is for Activism

So we (Alice and I) shall start this challenge off with A is for Activism. Because my darlings, I think it is time.

Time? Time for what?

Time to WAKE THE FUCK UP.

Yeah.

It's time to realize that while I, personally, have been able to do and learn a lot of really great things at my day job, the industry itself is a gigantic mess that hurts the very people I most want to help.

Sometimes the only way it seems like I can be effective is to go beyond the scope of my job, to care too much, and honestly, in what I do, caring too much might actually be a signal that it's time to do something else.

Weird, huh?

I'm not talking about writing books, here, obviously.

So anyway. I need to figure out how to position myself to work with the people I love to work with before they land in the system that I currently work in. And I don't know if that means looking to work in a different place, or volunteering somewhere, or taking a gigantic risk and starting my own kind of place, but... my eyes are wide open.

I can't bear another Leelah Alcorn, Taylor Alesana, or a single one of the SEVEN young trans suicides that have been completed so far this year, as reported by the Advocate.  I can't close my eyes to the fact that kids are dying from bullying and cruelty and being unable to find a safe space in REAL LIFE.

I can't, I can't, I can't.

I don't know what the answers are, but I'm going to look for some.

The weird, the strange, the queer, the antisocial, the trans, the quiet, the lost, the scared, the throwaways, the sensitives, the Dark, the ones who just can't figure out how to fit into mainstream society or can't figure out why they don't - I want them - I want them ALL, and I want to help them learn how to EXIST here. How to be themselves. How to be artists. How to say NO. How to survive. How to stop hurting themselves because the world hurts them enough already.

Eyes wide open and ready for action. That's activism, isn't it?



If you are a trans or gender-nonconforming person considering suicide, Trans Lifeline can be reached at 877-565-8860. LGBT youth (ages 24 and younger) can reach the Trevor Project Lifeline at 1-866-488-7386. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 can also be reached 24 hours a day by people of all ages and identities.



And hey - if you or someone you know calls one of the above numbers and gets blown off or treated less than respectfully, I wanna hear about it - in a comment here, or even better, in a quick email to devante9901@aol.com.

Thanks.

SM Johnson ~ Story formats, Series versus Serials

Good morning, Darklings, and happy Monday.
I have no idea what I'm doing, as far as any kind of blogging schedule. We're pretty random these days ("We" being me and the dragon on the window sill of my office), because of Alice's Tree.
See, I had this silk tree behind my bed for oh, about the last decade. But I'm making an effort to eliminate dust and dander from my sleeping space for migraine prevention, and the last time I let Alice run around on my bed, her eyes landed on that tree, and holy smokes, she was hell-bent to climb it. There was a decade's worth of dust on that damn tree. I'm looking at this thing, and thinking... how much of that falls on us during headboard-banging sex, seriously? Yep, gotta go. Dragged that sucker to the shower and washed it. Let it dry. Dragged it into my office where it officially became Alice's Tree.


So. For Alice to sit in her tree and stare out the window, I have to sit in my office and pretend to be productive. Which means editing, writing, updating my reading list, and writing blog posts completely off schedule. I'm going to assume nobody minds.
I updated my reading list. There were about three books that were supposed to be "book one" of hot new serIES - only every single one of them was more like part one of a hot new serIAL.
I have feelings about this.
Not particularly positive feelings.
To me, a series is like... Lee Child's Jack Reacher, or Robert B. Parker's Spenser Tracy, Sandford's Lucas Davenport, Rice's Louis and Lestat, Hamilton's Anita Blake  - we've got characters who get into situations, or private investigators and cops with cases, right? There's a main character who does their profession or their thing, gets into situations, or takes cases, does investigations, and each book has a plot arc with a beginning and a middle and an end. In a series, there tends to be character development across books, and often a romantic subplot (or several) and all sorts of loose ends that flow from book to book and not every single one of them gets tied up into a neat and pretty bow.
But a romantic three-book series a la Fifty Shades (maybe Fifty Shades started this annoy?) where book one ends with we can't possibly stay together, and book two ends with we can't possibly stay away from each other, and book three ends with the wedding, isn't a series. 
This is a serial. It might be a trilogy, but even calling it that is a bit of a stretch. A trilogy tends to be bigger, and have multiple plot arcs - think Lord of the Rings.
And the difference is when you're reading a story in serial format, you don't expect a complete beginning, middle, and ending plot arc in each installment. You EXPECT each installment to end with a cliffhanger, because that's how this format works.
So I dunno, call me picky (I don't mind, I AM picky), but when you call a series of books a "series",  I like a comfortable and satisfying ending to each and every book. That's all. K, thx.
Have a happy week, Darklings. Oddly enough, spring seems to have arrived early here in northern Wisconsin, which is a first. And I am definitely not complaining.
Until next time... Live long and prosper. Peace out.

SM Johnson ~ Progress report

Good morning, Darklings,

I'm popping in to report that DeVante's Children (Revamped) is working out to be A-mazing. I'm so excited to share these guys with you - better (and hotter) than ever. Rewriting a first novel has been an eye-opening process, and all the better with the help of my local writer's group, picking at my characterization flaws, plot black holes, and all the other pitfalls a first-time novelist runs into.

Kill your darlings - gods, how I hate that phrase, and yet, how true it is. Sometimes the words we are in love with have to go, and yes, it's painful as hell - but cutting is part of discovering the real story.

My story meter tells that I'm 150% done with DeVante's Children, which is hysterically funny - and absolutely not true - but it also means that I've written a ton of new words and added new scenes to make up for what I'm having to cut.

DeVante himself is as reserved and cryptic as ever, Daniel as boyish, and Roderick every bit as full of spit and vinegar (and trouble) as before - all of this, but more so, and all within the confines of a nice tight story. With hotter sex. Because I'm better at this now (wink).




When it's ready for release, I promise ya'll will be the first to know.

Have a great week, darklings, and don't try to fix anything today, because mercury is in retrograde or something, and every home improvement project we've touched this weekend (and some we haven't EVEN touched), has gone to shit! Yikes!

SM Johnson ~ Alone in a crowd of two thousand

Alone in a crowd of two thousand fans... and crying. 
I would like to say that for an artist, some things never change, but I think perhaps most of us feel this way a great deal of the time - we are always, ultimately, alone.
It's not a bad thing, not at all. But we are so used to constant influx of information and media that being alone with ourselves can feel awkward and scary. Lonelier than ever.
This crying in a crowd of two thousand people? Not a bad thing. Pat Monahan made me do it. There I was, on the pool deck of the Norwegian Pearl, close enough to the large speakers to feel the music inside my skin, the beats vibrating beneath my breastbone, the notes, his voice, winding sinuously though me as if part of my blood.
This song. Here and now. Train sounds as good live as they do from the recording studio, and this amazes me, the strength of Monahan's voice (ironic, considering he would lose his voice later on this cruise), the passion, the pain. But it's not pain that brings my tears, not anymore.



It is joy and hope and comfort. Resonance. Because somehow it is comforting to know that someone else has felt the same as you. That we are not alone in our joy or our pain or our hope.
"Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star, one without a permanent scar? And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?"
She left me, you know.
Best friend. Soulmate. 
I loved her so much, and she left. And I thought I would die. Wondered how I could ever possibly be okay again. It was too big, this hurt. Too empty, this hole in my chest. It left me in too many broken little pieces, and too wounded to even care about gathering them up, much less make any attempt to put them back together.
It was the closest to suicidal I've ever been.
"Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken... your best friend always sticking up for you even when I know you’re wrong..."
And then this song.I heard it on the radio.Bought the CD.Put it on the stereo, the one with the floor speakers and the sub-woofer.Full volume.
I stretched out on the floor and let it thump and flow through me, let this song get under my skin and into my heart, become part of my soul. I let it carry me forward.
I let it give me hope.
And here begins healing.
And there on that cruise ship, alone in a crowd of two thousand adoring fans just like me,  I cry, just for a minute, for hope and joy and comfort. I cry because I still miss my friend every single day, but  I am ALIVE and I am happy, and I am HERE FOR THIS amazing moment.




"Tell me, did the wind sweep you off your feet
Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day
And head back to the Milky Way?
And tell me, did Venus blow your mind,
Was it everything you wanted to find? And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?"  ~Drops of Jupiter by Train

SM Johnson has left the building...

... I am on vacation.

Have a great week, my darklings. Be strong and be safe and be loved.

SM Johnson ~ Writing when life keeps happening ~ (subtitle: The Big Shrug)

Funny thing, this life. Not as much funny ha-ha as funny-weird - ya'll know what I mean. Things start rolling along rather nicely and then... GLITCH.

It can be a roadblock, or a detour, or a wayside rest. An alternate route, a hiatus, a moment to regroup. You know what I mean - the unexpected happens.

Everyone has them - these are the bumpy cobblestones on our life's journey: the loss of a lover, the break-up with a best friend, a pregnancy with crazy hormones and the resulting infant that sucks the life out of you changes your life in wondrous and amazing ways... it's leaving a job and having to spend all your energy looking for a new one, it's the terminal illness and death of one parent, and the subsequent widowhood of another. It's learning how to deal with and coping with the status of our own health changing.

Stuff and nonsense, I call it sometimes. Mine at the moment happens to be an increase in the frequency and duration of migraine headaches, and the resulting need to try medications that make sleep feel like the best thing ever invented for the human mind and body. Which is less than productive.

I really, really, really, really wanted to release the "revamped" edition of DeVante's Children this months. And when I say really, really, really - what I mean is I wanted it with all the fierce determination of staying up late and getting up early, with eyes gritty from sleep deprivation, manic because I'd be running on pure adrenaline, astonishing you with the flair of a magician in his red satin-lined cape, filling ya'll with amazement and delight.

But so it goes, the best laid schemes o' mice an' men, and all that.

DeVante's Children still needs some work before it can become the beautiful and amazing gem that I want to present to the world in its glorified third edition, so I need to relax about my personal deadline and give myself a break. Because a very wise and wonderful and trusted friend asked me this: Do you want it done FAST or do you want it done RIGHT?

Okay, then. He knows me quite well enough to know my answer. I want it the way I want it, and if that means slowing down the release, so be it. There are a lot of great books out there to read, and I recommend ya'll go find some of them (feel free to start with my 2014 or 2015 readings lists).

This is merely a heads up post. I'm not complaining or whining or looking for sympathy. In fact, I am surrounded by people I care about a lot who are dealing with bigger and scarier nonsense.

I have a lot of great things planned for 2015. I'm just going to have a slower start than I expected. But hey, life is messy.

So what does a writer do when life intervenes? How do you write, or what can you do when you can't write? Because you can't stay awake, or you can't sit still, or you can't concentra - SQUIRREL!

#1 - EDIT.

In fits and spurts and short bursts of time, you can actually do a good bit of editing on a prior project. And sometimes editing feels like less pressure than writing new materiel.

#2 - DAYDREAM

Imagine the upcoming really intense scene, the one you really want to make sure you nail every gesture and every word exactly right. Daydream it while you wash the dishes that is the one chore that absolutely must get done today, or sorting and folding laundry so your family doesn't go to work and school naked. Memorize it. And when you do have the energy to bang it out out on the keyboard, it's right there waiting for you (like a Richard Marx song).

(confession)

Sometimes instead of daydreaming the NEXT scene, I end up daydreaming the first scenes of a whole new book. Not exactly productive to the current project, but hey, I'm not going to complain. And sometimes, to completely tell you the exact opposite of #1 (EDIT) writing brand new materiel in rough draft form is the least stressful form of writing.

(that's the thing with writing - most of the "rules" are completely variable)

#3 - DESIGN COVERS

Author branding, update blogs, etc. I'm pretty slow at graphic design, and it's a tedious process for me of 800 tiny tweaks in a row, so one thing that makes it a lot more fun is to load up a favorite movie or TV series and devote a whole day to graphic design. Having something to watch helps me not get too frustrated.

#4 - BRAINSTORM

...a bunch of fun tweets, or blog post ideas, marketing ideas, yanno - all of that tricky marketing stuff

#5 - BROWSE

Check out other writers in your genre - look at their cover images, fonts, book blurbs, web sites, blogs. Do they have street teams? Do they have active Facebook pages? Browse Amazon, or browse membership lists like Romance Writers of America, which usually have tons of author links. Look at how other authors brand themselves, what their author bios say... find new people to follow on Twitter, start new conversations. Look up people you admired twenty years ago and find out what they're doing today.

#6 - WORLDBUILD

If you have paranormal or psychic or sci-fi elements in your story and you've never really thought about creating hard and fast rules, it can be fun to make some lists and do some brainstorming about details and limitations. And what about religion and politics in your world. Again, something that can be done in short bursts of energy and time.

#7 - GET TO KNOW YOUR CHARACTERS

Ever write a list of "100 things" about a character? It's a fun way to get to know and develop and deepen your characters. You can go deeper than "favorite color" and "favorite food" and into "happy or unhappy childhood", loving or distant parents. Did they go to college? Did they want to? What did people write in their yearbook? What kinds of jobs did they have? If they had a pet, what would it be? If you sat in their living room and looked around, what would you see? (for a hint, look at your own, then think about your mom's living room, your best friends, someone you admire, someone you don't think is very successful). The more you know about your story people, the more alive they become.

Hope you have a fun and safe weekend, my dear Darklings. Since my February is going to be overtaken by the trip of a lifetime (did I mention I expect great things in 2015?) I'm now looking at March for release of DeVante's Children. Thanks for hanging out with me.

~SM

PS - Let me introduce our newest addition... Elliot. (Or Alice, as we are suspecting the case may be).
This is a young bearded dragon, and let me tell you, after the initial duress of getting the lighting set up correctly, this is a pretty darn enjoyable lizard and a reasonably easy pet. They're not nocturnal - and they bask WAY more than they hide (ours never hides), and are alert and quite interested in everything going on in the room.

SM Johnson ~ Leelah Alcorn's note

This is important.
Leelah Alcorn left a note in her Tumblr feed for a reason. She wanted her death to be transparent. She wanted us, all of us, to understand why she was unable to continue to live.
But. Her tumblr appears to be deactivated, and her note is no longer there, and her parents are pretending that Leelah went for a walk and accidentally got hit by a truck, and I'm not sure if her parents killed her Tumblr account or what, but I do suspect parental units have some power in this regard. 
Leelah gave up her life, but I want her words to live on.
This is Important.
This is what I want people to think about (not necessarily my Darklings, because I think you guys know and have known the answers all your lives).
But Everyone Else.
Do parents own their children?
Do they?
Is it true that "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it" ?
Is it okay to lock your nine year old in a bathroom and let him die? To starve your middle schooler down to 18 pounds? To keep your disabled child's body in a refrigerator for your five year old to find a year later?
Oh sure, physical abuse is cut and dried, right? It's measurable in inches and pounds, severity of bruises, number of broken bones, how many lacerations on the back of a child's legs.
 Is it okay to brainwash your child through seclusion, social isolation, and "therapy" because you don't like the way they think or feel? Because you don't believe them when they say, "I figured it out, I'm transgender!" or maybe you believe them, but you think it's "wrong", because what? Your bible or your church says it's wrong? Where the fuck is your BRAIN, your ability to think for yourself?
Leelah was told that "God doesn't make mistakes". What an interesting phrase that is, and so many ways it can be translated. I would tell Leelah's mother - "God ain't between your kid's legs, that's biology, and biology DOES make mistakes. Ever hear of extra chromosomes, conjoined twins, missing limbs, extra digits? Biology makes LOTS of mistakes."
I don't believe in God. But if I did, I would probably agree that God doesn't make mistakes. Not one single gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender, or queer person is a mistake. They are born this way, they are perfect as the people they are, as living breathing human beings who are hurting no one by pursuing their version and vision of happiness.
No one has the right to tell someone else how to think or how to feel. Parents who attempt this are BULLIES, and this is emotional abuse, which is less easy to measure but every bit as damaging as physical abuse.
Parents don't own their children. Their job is to care for, nurture, and love those children, to support and teach them as they grow, to foster confidence, independence, and creativity. To hold them up when the world wants to knock them down. It's okay to teach them that certain situations are best met with certain behaviors, it's a great thing to teach kids manners, compassion, and respect. 
It's not okay to tell a kid, "It's not okay to be you."
Never. Never say that.
I'm sad that Leelah heard "it gets better" but didn't believe it would ever get better for her. I'm heartbroken that she wasn't able to find transgender mentors who could give her hope that someday her insides and her outsides would match enough to allow her joy. I'm sad that she didn't give herself a chance.
But now. In the spirit of Leelah, I'm posting her words.
Leelah’s Note:
If you are reading this, it means that I have committed suicide and obviously failed to delete this post from my queue.Please don’t be sad, it’s for the better. The life I would’ve lived isn’t worth living in… because I’m transgender. I could go into detail explaining why I feel that way, but this note is probably going to be lengthy enough as it is. To put it simply, I feel like a girl trapped in a boy’s body, and I’ve felt that way ever since I was 4. I never knew there was a word for that feeling, nor was it possible for a boy to become a girl, so I never told anyone and I just continued to do traditionally “boyish” things to try to fit in.
When I was 14, I learned what transgender meant and cried of happiness. After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I am wrong. If you are reading this, parents, please don’t tell this to your kids. Even if you are Christian or are against transgender people don’t ever say that to someone, especially your kid. That won’t do anything but make them hate them self. That’s exactly what it did to me.
My mom started taking me to a therapist, but would only take me to christian therapists, (who were all very biased) so I never actually got the therapy I needed to cure me of my depression. I only got more christians telling me that I was selfish and wrong and that I should look to God for help.
When I was 16 I realized that my parents would never come around, and that I would have to wait until I was 18 to start any sort of transitioning treatment, which absolutely broke my heart. The longer you wait, the harder it is to transition. I felt hopeless, that I was just going to look like a man in drag for the rest of my life. On my 16th birthday, when I didn’t receive consent from my parents to start transitioning, I cried myself to sleep.
I formed a sort of a “f*** you” attitude towards my parents and came out as gay at school, thinking that maybe if I eased into coming out as trans it would be less of a shock. Although the reaction from my friends was positive, my parents were pissed. They felt like I was attacking their image, and that I was an embarrassment to them. They wanted me to be their perfect little straight christian boy, and that’s obviously not what I wanted.
So they took me out of public school, took away my laptop and phone, and forbid me of getting on any sort of social media, completely isolating me from my friends. This was probably the part of my life when I was the most depressed, and I’m surprised I didn’t kill myself. I was completely alone for 5 months. No friends, no support, no love. Just my parent’s disappointment and the cruelty of loneliness.
At the end of the school year, my parents finally came around and gave me my phone and let me back on social media. I was excited, I finally had my friends back. They were extremely excited to see me and talk to me, but only at first. Eventually they realized they didn’t actually give a s**t about me, and I felt even lonelier than I did before. The only friends I thought I had only liked me because they saw me five times a week.
After a summer of having almost no friends plus the weight of having to think about college, save money for moving out, keep my grades up, go to church each week and feel like s**t because everyone there is against everything I live for, I have decided I’ve had enough. I’m never going to transition successfully, even when I move out. I’m never going to be happy with the way I look or sound. I’m never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me. I’m never going to find a man who loves me. I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out. I’m sad enough already, I don’t need my life to get any worse. People say “it gets better” but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse.
That’s the gist of it, that’s why I feel like killing myself. Sorry if that’s not a good enough reason for you, it’s good enough for me. As for my will, I want 100% of the things that I legally own to be sold and the money (plus my money in the bank) to be given to trans civil rights movements and support groups, I don’t give a s**t which one. The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say “that’s f***ed up” and fix it. Fix society. Please.
Goodbye,
(Leelah) Josh Alcorn

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2891267/Transgender-teenager-leaves-heartbreaking-suicide-note-blaming-Christian-parents-walking-tractor-trailer-highway.html#ixzz3NgWlHUKZ
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SM Johnson ~ Hurtling into 2015

Yay! Happy New Year!

I love love love love a new year. Always have, always will. For some reason I always feel hopeful on New Year's Eve, and it's like, okay, survived the ass-kicking from last year, now I'm ready to start over again, and hope that this time I win. (yeah, silly, right?) But somehow it always feel like a clean slate.

What's new for 2015?

Well, well, well well well well, well.

Vampires. (Heh).

I expect to release "revamped" editions of my vampire books.

January 2015, look for  DeVante's Children, book 1 of the Vampire DeVante books.

"Gay people are perverts." That's what eighteen year old Daniel Winthrop hears as his father kicks him out of the house. And even though Daniel knows his dad is being unreasonable, he has plenty of questions himself about being gay.
When Daniel's first lover, Roderick, claims to be a vampire and attacks Daniel with such cruelty there could be no other explanation, Daniel realizes there are stranger things in the world than men who love men. Roderick insists that he loves Daniel, but refuses to change him, and Daniel learns his first lesson as an adult – where there is love there can also be pain.

Enter Roderick's creator, DeVante, whose personal code of ethics doesn’t allow enslaving mortals for either love or blood. DeVante reveals that Roderick’s vampire blood is poison to Daniel.
When Daniel’s half-sister gets kidnapped, he enlists the talents of his new blood-drinking friends to find her. When he brings her home, he expects to become the family hero, but discovers sometimes you really can’t go home again.
Now Daniel must figure out who he is, what he wants, and if he’s willing to kill to survive.


Also in January 2015, DeVante's Curse, Katarina's Castle 


Bonus story in the Vampire DeVante series.




In a cold, cold castle, far away from the Colombian rainforest, lives the vampire Katarina with her servent Felix, an orphan named Ernesto, and a great burning pit. From this comes DeVante, a vampire with an intractable personal code and an emotional separation from all things human.











March 2015, watch for DeVante's Coven, book 2 of the Vampire DeVante books.



When Roderick abandons new vampire Daniel to the care of his sire, DeVante, Daniel flounders under DeVante's attitude of benevolent neglect, and wonders how much autonomy DeVante will actually allow. Yearning for guidance and supervision, Daniel pursues Reed, a mortal man, and finds himself ensnared in a relationship rich with elements of BDSM.
Meanwhile, Roderick has fled to Las Vegas, where he saves the life of a young man named Tony by changing him to vampire. But when Tony wakes up, he doesn't act like a fledgling vampire should. And when the sun rises and Roderick sleeps his vampire sleep, Tony walks out into the daylight and goes home, where he accidentally changes his roommate Lily to vampire. Roderick wakes to find that he now has two brand new fledglings, neither of whom he can control. He panics and does the only thing can think to do; bring them to DeVante in San Francisco.
Vampires, mortals, and Tony, (who's something else altogether), are all beholden to DeVante for protection, though each has a special talent. DeVante begins to suspect that an outside force has brought all these children to him for some nefarious purpose, but before he can put the pieces together, the whole group is snatched and held for ransom. Can the members of DeVante's little coven can combine their talents to save themselves, in spite of their differences? And if they can, is that the definition of family?




So. There you have it, all my big news.


The decision to leave my small press publisher did not come quickly or easily. I adore Sven Davisson and Rebel Satori Press, and he's been nothing but lovely to me. But these books are in need of some updating, some rewriting, and a new look, and honestly, since I've learned how to publish ebooks myself, I really like being in control of *everything* - but mostly being in control of release dates and timing. I HATE TO WAIT. Which means.... as soon as I have a book or story ready, I want to hit publish right the heck NOW NOW NOW. Srsly. Ask my beta readers, lol. I'm always like, "Yeah, um, you don't have to drop everything and read this, but would you pretty please drop everything and read this?"

Okay, here we go, hurtling into 2015.

Happy New Year, darklings. I hope ya'll feel like it starts with a clean slate.

SM Johnson ~ Happy whatever you celebrate (and an awesome new book)

Oh my darklings, it has been a while since I've shared with you. December always seems like a stressful month, and yet it always flies by so dang fast. So much holiday, and so much coordinating and shopping and baking and tradition.

It's strange around here these days in December, a combination of bowing to and/or living up to old traditions at the same time that we try to create a new kind of holiday celebration for our personal little family.

You see... we are not Christmas people. For quite a few years I suffered from ulcers between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and honestly, once my father passed away in December 2007, I really felt a whole lot more stress than joy  in decorating for the holidays and pretending to be a good little Christian.

Because I'm not a good little Christian. I'm an atheist. Or, probably more correctly, an agnostic atheist. As in... I don't know if gods are real or not, and therefore I am unable to believe in them.

I did my time as a born again Christian, back in high school, when I was involved in a church-run youth group that had great youth leaders, and I enjoyed the sense of camaraderie and fellowship. I liked and respected the PEOPLE, and I adored the praise and status of being "born again" - being invited up to the stage at Christian rock concerts and showered with hugs and presents because I'd accepted Jesus Christ into my heart as my personal savior. It was all such a rush that I'd make sure I sinned plenty before the next  concert so I could do it all over again. I was born again and again and again - serially Saved.

And then one day I was embarrassed to realize I was a hypocrite.  I was up on that stage, accepting a bible from a person so happy for my "saving" that he was GLOWING, and I realized THIS was akin to a drug. I knew I was going to go out to the parking lot in a few minutes and light up a smoke. And I was going to get into my car and blast my secular music, Motley Crue. And I knew I was going to have premarital sex with my boyfriend over the upcoming weekend... but I also knew that it didn't matter - I could be as bad as I wanted to be, and so long as I confessed my badness and made myself feel sorry for oh, a minute and a half or so, I would automatically be forgiven. And when I was forgive, I'd get a brand new new pristine slate.

The realist in me took a step back. I was forgiven if I smoked. I was forgiven if I listened to forbidden music. I was forgiven if I had sex outside of holy matrimony. I would be forgiven if I lied, stole, or murdered someone. Were child rapists forgiven as easily as I was? Well shit. There's something wrong with this belief system... no one actually GETS PUNISHED FOR ANYTHING. No matter how terrible their crime, all they had to do for redemption was ASK and BELIEVE.

Huh.

Interesting.

And that was when it hit me - I didn't believe. Not only did I not believe RIGHT THEN, but I had never been able to believe. As a four year old forced to attend Catholic mass every week, I did not believe. I have never had one molecule of that thing called FAITH that allows people KNOW in their hearts that there is a GOD or a JESUS or a HEAVEN.

This isn't a rant. And this is definitely not me telling anyone else what to believe - it's just me explaining why I find the holidays stressful. There's just so much GOD everywhere, and so much we're happy because of Jesus, and so much goodwill and charity in the name of the holiday season. And I think people should be kind and filled with goodwill and charity all year long, honestly. I don't think donating to the Salvation Army in December is a get out of hell free card, yanno?

So here's what happened last year: Our fake tree and decorations got snowed into the shed and were not available for annoying me. (Prior years I have managed to put the tree up the weekend before Christmas, and take it down and put it away the day after. No one who lives here ever helps for more than eight minutes). So. I put up a wreath. I said that since we are not religious, and since ten-year-old Sprite no longer believes in Santa, we would celebrate winter solstice. And to make it fun, we would each get to open one present every day between winter solstice and Christmas Day, so long as we could explain what we did that day that was kind or good or helpful to someone else.

This year, I suggested selling the tree, and was met with resistance. Until I said there will be no tree if there is no help putting up and decorating the tree. And then I got, "Wait, can't we do what we did last year?"

So. Yay!

I spent Solstice weekend building the ebook for  Hero's Torch by my good friend and totally kick ass author, 19. I read his stuff before we were friends. And yeah, was all like, omg omg omg, I have to know this person. And these stories must exist. So *happy dance* here's another one.

Fear and faith are indivisible on the Republic of Earth. Privacy is nonexistent, creativity is a crime, and intelligence is a heresy.

Leander Schaiden has spent his young life in a battle against the Church, seeking any freedom he can steal. 
The Septarch is immortal and all-powerful, far beyond the control of the Republic. 
Leander considers him a tale told to frighten children. 
Leander is wrong.

Buy ebook from Smashwords

Buy ebook or paperback from Amazon




I will have news about my next new book the very next time I write. Which, hopefully, will be more like next WEEK rather than next MONTH.

No matter what you celebrate, I hope you're having an enjoyable holiday season. And if you're not, well, it'll all be over soon, and we'll see what sort of wonderfulness comes our way in 2015.

Have a fun and safe weekend, my darklings!

SM Johnson ~ A heathen Thanksgiving

Good morning, Darklings,

I hope you have good food and good company or good holiday pay on your agenda for this Thanksgiving Day.

I admit that I'm a bit of a heathen, in that I don't embrace Christian holidays or white anglo-saxon holidays or whatever.

But I'm not one to ever complain about good food, especially good food that does not have to be cooked by me. And so I celebrate Thanksgiving and the fact that my husband really likes to cook. For today's menu we will be having turkey and stuffing, (oh crap, I think we forgot cranberry sauce, this is terrible! Fcuk. What am I going to use for jelly on my turkey sandwich on Friday?) and mashed potatoes and gravy and candied sweet potatoes and jell-o salad and chips and dip (and did I mention ham?) and pumpkin pie. And five guests plus the three of us equals a whole lot of food for eight people!

I have a lot to be thankful for.

I have a part-time job and a lot of time to write. I am moving from 12-hour shifts back to 8-hour shifts. I won't ever have to work another night shift ever again - unless I choose to. (Yay!)

My books are selling like crazy. Wait! What? Yeah. I know. I'm startled and pleased and tickled beyond belief. You guys, readers, are the greatest.

The puppy seems to be completely potty trained. ("the puppy" is 9 months old, so I feel pretty confident in making this declaration).

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The cranky old cat has survived the addition of the puppy to the household. Whew.



Nanowrimo is coming to a close, and while I didn't write 50,000 BRAND NEW words, I did write a heck of a lot of new words, and got the structure for Julian out of the World figured out. The scope of the story turned out a bit bigger and a lot different than I expected. So seeing some real progress on that project is fantastic.

I supposed this one is going to sell about as well as Jeremiah Quick, which is to say NOT AT ALL, but sometimes, as a writer, it's important to follow my heart and just write that story that's nagging at me that most people probably won't like or approve of or whatever. The thing is - I write the stuff that I want to read, and what I want to read is sometimes way too dark for most people. Ah well. It's not fun if you never give your imagination the freedom to really roam.  So bear with me.

(And PS - the Jeremiah glyph has already worked its magic - someone random unexpectedly flipped through the paperback proof and KNEW Jeremiah, back in the day, and might have some stories to tell me about him that I have never heard before - ta-da! I'm a magician).

As far as the Dungeon series - you guys rock so hard and are so awesome. I've received quite a few direct requests and suggestions via reviews that there should be more books.

So I've given the muse permission to explore what might happen to deepen the connection between  Zach and Thomas, and also... which boys might take a vacation to Minnesota, and how might that go? And hey, remember Maddox-call-me-Doc? They call him Doc because he brings home the weepy boys, right? Fixes them up and turns then loose. But what if... what if... a weepy boy doesn't want to be turned loose? What if he won't go? Hmmm..... there are so many possibilities....

Peace out.

I hope ya'll have a nice day tomorrow, that everyone has somewhere warm to be, and no one goes hungry. Safe weekend travels, darlings.

~SM