Status update...
Been editing The Misery Jar, prior to me handing it over to the vultures known as copyeditors. As helpful as copyediting is, I almost can't help but to feel fucked knowing that literary agents don't want to see a word, let alone a page, until a copyeditor has plunged his hands into your work. So, I am folding. But I am proud of this book. I am proud of the fact that despite my reserves while writing it, writing about vampires like everyone else, I brought something new, a new twist, a new look, a new story. Not the Euro-trash in the trench coat lurking dark alleys looking for young, virgin mistresses to allure or love-bound pretty boys with fangs and a boring history written by housewives wet for bad boys with a tender side. I can't say I created a monster, but I can say I created "monsters".
This isn't Interview With A Vampire. This isn't Twilight. And this isn't True Blood. This is something I feel needs to be spoken about. There is no love here. There is no question about what needs to be done by the characters when the time calls for it. There is very little reserve about blood. The conflict here is not about some lovelorn identity. It is about survival. Simply put, this is a book about coming to grips with who one is a person without molding to the identity others may wish you to have. The Misery Jar is exactly what it sounds like…misery. It was such when I delve into it, having to open up a can of worms within myself to establish these morbid characters of villains and anti-heroes. And now that I'm coming out on the other side, looking towards the light, I can say I will never write about another vampire as long as I live. One of the things that made me appreciate this book is the fact that I sort of hired my own personal cover artist in Bevin Blake who did a marvelous job on an unfinished piece of art I last saw when I was in St Louis. She is someone I am going to work with one a lot of my future projects.
The next book, which I will be writing next year is called The Hard-Hearted Gourmandism and is a thriller/black comedy novella, focused around Idi Amin as the Grim Reaper. That is all I can say about it without spilling the beans, so to speak.
-JC Whitfield xXxX
