Pride Promotions presents Obsidian Sun by Jon Keys and a giveaway!

Author Name: Jon Keys 

Book Name: Obsidian Sun 

Release Date: July 10, 2015

Blurb:

Differences must be put aside when vengeance becomes all-consuming.

Anan, a spellweaver of the Talac people, returns from a hunting trip to find his village decimated, his mate dead, and everyone else captured by Varas slavers. The sole survivor is Terja, a young man without the velvet that covers most Talac, marking him as a spellspinner. Since Talac magic requires both a weaver and a spinner, Anan and Terja must move beyond their ingrained mistrust. All that remains is revenge and a desperate plan to rescue their tribesmen before they are sold to Varas pleasure houses. A goal Anan and Terja are willing to die for.

With the blessing of the Talac gods, they discover new and surprising ways to complement each other’s power. But as they race through terrain full of enemies and dangerous creatures to reach their people before they pass into Varas lands, they must take drastic steps to face the overwhelming odds against them. Understanding their connection might be their only hope.

Pages or Words: 200 pages

Categories: Alternate universe, Fantasy

Excerpt:

ANAN EASED into bow range. He’d been hunting for a fingercount of days and stalking this daggerhorn since the early gray of predawn. He waited until the animal turned away before rising to a crouch. The lethally armed grazer would feed him and his mate for days. He brought his bow up slowly and drew the bowstring to his cheek.

His body convulsed with pain that felt as if he’d been stabbed with a red-hot iron blade, and his arrow shot several lengths above his quarry, which disappeared into the deep grass.

In the next instant, Anan knew. His mating-bond with Silbre had snapped. Agony filled him, sending him to his knees as the bow slipped from his numb hands. Gasping for air, he dropped forward onto his hands as waves of loss and pain overwhelmed him.

I have to find Silbre. What happened? Our mating-bond can’t be broken. Unwilling to believe the horrible truth, Anan had to find his mate.

He staggered to his feet, looping the bow over his shoulder as he took the first stumbling steps toward home. The surety of his pace came back to him, and he gained speed until he was sprinting toward the clan’s encampment. Time became irrelevant. He walked when his legs refused to run and ate when his body demanded it.

Dusk came on him stealthily, but he refused to stop. Silbre can’t be gone. We’ve been together since our adult velvet. Anan’s chest tightened at the thought of losing his mate. His mind swirled with fear, horror, and anger. If their teachers hadn’t sent him on yet another hunting trip, maybe he could have saved Silbre. No, he refused to believe he’d lost Silbre. There must be another explanation. He pushed down the rush of emotions and focused on the run as night deepened. With the rise of the moons, he picked up speed, desperate to reach home.

Anan neared the last of his endurance when he saw the familiar featherleaf trees that lined the river bend where the Kuri clan spent its summers. He topped the river embankment and dropped to his knees at the sight before him. Complete devastation. The warm morning breeze carried the scent of death. The raucous voices of carrion birds as they fought over bits of his clan reinforced his horror.

He struggled down the steep embankment to splash through the shallow river that circled most of what had been the Kuri’s summer encampment. As he waded to shore, he found the eyeless face of a childhood friend. Anan stumbled to one side and emptied his stomach. He retched again and again as he surpassed the limit of his emotional endurance until each twist of his stomach yielded nothing.

Silbre! Where’s Silbre? Anan renewed his headlong flight to find his twining mate.

He ran through the devastation, sending flocks of birds into the air. With each heartbeat his desperation grew as he ran to their tent. He has to be alive. I can’t survive without him. He rounded a pile of debris and found the familiar woven pattern of their summer lodge. His world died. Entangled in the remains, Silbre’s body bristled with a fingercount of crossbow quarrels. Varas slavers. Those are their bolts. The iron heads and spiral fletching left no doubt. But they had never come this far into Talac territory.

Anan dropped to his knees and pulled Silbre tight against him. Anan’s breath rasped between clenched teeth, his chest tight with grief as he rocked with his mate in his arms. A freshet of tears rolled over the plush hair covering his face. The dull drone from hordes of green burrowing flies and the cries of carrion birds surrounded him. But grief paralyzed Anan.

His sorrow merged with anger, and he screamed toward the implacable sky. “Why have you let this happen? Why did you cut his threads so short?”

Anan dropped his chin against his chest and sobbed. He rocked his mate slowly, tracing the tips of his fingers along the swirls of a spellweaver created in the short tan and brown hair covering Silbre’s face while he fought to ignore the fatal wounds. Anan’s throat tightened as more tears rolled down his cheeks. He lowered Silbre gently, as if he were sleeping.

The aftermath of the attack must be dealt with. He had no choice. He steeled himself to the carnage around him and struggled to understand. How did the Varas unravel the protective web that surrounded the village? Especially those of the Kuri clan, who have some of the most skilled spellweavers of the Talac people. Even if they had broken the spell, a warning would have been felt, and people would have boiled out like stingers from their nest. Something in the web of Anan’s reality shifted as he wondered how the Varas were able to decimate a Talac village.

Anan called on his spell vision and tried to trace any threads, but they were gone. If there were survivors, they were no longer connected to the village weaving. He began moving in a haze of disbelief.

All the people he’d grown up with were gone. Saritua who taught him his first weavings, Trebea who knew the perfect day to harvest wood for bows that wouldn’t wrack in the fall rains—gone. He’d never hear Poza talking with her imaginary friends as she toddled from one rug to another pretending at grownup, or her wonder when the spring gliders migrated across the savanna.

He’d seen the carrion birds pecking the flesh from their lifeless bodies. The horrors no longer registered, as his surroundings became part of an unending cascade of atrocities. At some point he would break and mourn. But not now; he was too numb, too overwhelmed. The bits of his being that weren’t focused on what he had to accomplish in this moment hid in the corner of his mind, gibbering in near madness. Silbre couldn’t come to the rescue this time. The task fell on his shoulders. There was no one else.

Screaming birds took off and revealed the burned arms of a spellspinner. With this final revelation, the last warp threads of Anan’s reality snapped. All the Kuri spinners would be dead. When spellspinners in battle ripped the matama from the attackers, they condemned themselves to death. Akhir gave their attackers a painful end, but the backlash left the spellspinners burned and dead. He moved closer and saw the velvetless skin that marked them from birth as spellspinners. But the curse, or gift, of akhir created the final separation between the Talac spinners and weavers.

Anan’s questionable skill at spellweaving didn’t matter any longer. Without a spinner, there was no one to take the deathspinner eggs and harvest silk for the matama threads he needed for his weavings. Only the spinners knew how to combine matama with silk harvested from the most feared animals of the savanna. Without spun threads, Anan’s years of training didn’t matter.

Lucid thought came to an end with yet another gruesome discovery. His mind rebelled, and the final threads of his former life broke one by one. He locked away his emotions to sort through them when he could take the luxury.

Anan recognized the end of his second day when the sun’s deep red orb rested on the treetops, covering his world in the color of fresh blood. Darkness would come soon and with it the possibility of larger predators. With the clan spell webbing gone, nothing would keep them out.

He knew his duty. He must gather the dead and perform the most sacred of weavings. He would create the final unraveling ceremony for most of the village.

Anan struggled to his feet and began his task. Taking Silbre first, he carried his mate’s body to the center of the camp. He ran the back of his fingers over his twining’s face, the cold ache of loss constricting around his chest until his breath came in gasps and tears rolled down his cheeks again.

Hesitant at first, Anan carried the remains of each member of his clan and laid them side by side. Lastly he moved to the spellspinners’ tents. He understood their importance in the clan, but their aloof manner and vanity over their birthmark velvetless skin had been reason enough for him to avoid them in the past. But his duty was to the village, and his personal disdain had no place. Following the sense of duty hammered into him by his parents, he afforded the spellspinners the same reverence as the other lost.

As he moved toward the final dwelling, and its content, he couldn’t help but note the remains of Varas attackers littering the encampment. Some resembled colorless grubs, the sign of a spellspinner calling akhir. The pale Varas bodies also meant there would be a burned spellspinner close by. Akhir extracted a horrible toll. Only in the legends of First Spinner and First Weaver did anyone survive calling akhir.

He grabbed the wrists of a spinner and found the touch of bare skin against his palms… odd. Anan had never touched a spinner before. There had never been a reason to do so. They didn’t encourage contact. After steeling himself, he squatted to gather the last of the bodies, when he heard a moan.

Anan spun, knife in hand. When he realized the sound didn’t come from attacking Varas, he sheathed his knife and waited, listening for signs of life. A few heartbeats later another barely audible sound leaked from the wreckage. Anan dug through a pile of tent cloth and found a storage cache. Another groan drifted from inside the partially exposed opening, followed by rustling as if a mouse ran across a stretched kuri-skin drum.

Anan eased himself forward, peering into the opening. At first he could see nothing but darkness, but then two brilliant blue eyes peered up at him.

He waited, recognizing the color of a spellspinner’s eyes. How did this spinner survive? Why did he hide? Compassion returned to Anan. Regardless of how this spinner survived, he is also Talac.

“You hurt?” Even to Anan’s own ears, his words sounded brittle and desolate of emotion. He waited for a response, but when none came, he reached inside.

“Here. Let me help.”

Smooth skin slid under Anan’s palms, the first time he’d touched a living spinner. Surprise raced through his system when he found the contact… pleasant. As he helped the slender figure, he recognized this spinner, but not for a reason he might have hoped. The spinner standing before him was the most reclusive. He always avoided contact with any of the Talac who were normal. Who were velveted.

He studied Anan with the suspicion of a young night-hunter, complete with the twitch of his nose. He took the offered hand and scrambled up the side of the cache.

The tension between them grew as their gazes locked. This isn’t about my feelings for the spinners. I must perform the unraveling. He waited a moment, took in a breath, and calmed himself.

“Can you walk?”

The spinner wiped a grimy arm over his forehead, leaving streaks of filth as he tucked his dark hair behind his ears. An instant later he nodded silently.

“I’m Anan.”

This time the young man trembled. “Terja. I am a spinner.”

Anan’s brow lifted. “Yes. I see you.” He considered asking the questions swirling through his mind, but waited.

Terja shuddered again and turned his head slowly. He seemed lost, but Anan granted him time to adjust and waited until the spinner’s focus returned. “Where is everyone?”

“Dead. Or taken as Varas slaves. I found only a few bodies from Kuri our age.”

Terja’s eye’s widened. “Slavers? The screams. I heard… it was….” He stared at Anan.

Anan wondered if this spinner still functioned or if the trauma had overwhelmed Terja. Regardless, he continued. “Varas slavers attacked the village. Everyone is either dead or captured. I don’t know why the web didn’t sound an alert. The herds are scattered. All the Talac clans are in jeopardy.”

“Our kuri and herdweavers? Gone?” Terja’s voice broke at the news.

Anan stared at him. The herds were the least of his concerns. The herdweavers had either died fighting or were captured. But he knew they hadn’t deserted the kuri. They took their role as guardians seriously. But he needed to finish his task, and Terja acted too overwhelmed to help.

Though he moved toward the nearest body, Anan couldn’t stop staring at Terja. The irrelevant question wiped out the last of his restraint. “Why were you hiding? The Varas attacked. Why’d you do nothing?”

Tears flooded from Terja’s eyes. With his breath coming in gasps, he tried to explain. “I tried. Had my staff. People dying. Father put me—” Terja broke into inconsolable sobbing. Anan knew he would get no more information from the spinner.

“At nightfall we’re doing an unraveling for the dead. You’re helping.”

Terja looked shaken, as if it had never occurred to him a spellweaver would address him in that manner. He began to speak, but when Anan glared at him, Terja pressed his lips tightly together.

Anan motioned to the body of one of the older spinners, and Terja moved to stand at its feet. He clamped his eyes shut as he groped for the ankles, shuddering when the tips of his fingers made contact, and hesitated. Anan allowed him what time he could, but before he had to jar him into motion, Terja clenched his teeth and grabbed the dead man’s ankles.

He opened his eyes and glared at Anan, but Anan was far past being affected by anything so minor as the anger of a young spellspinner. With Terja’s help, the last bodies were gathered. Exhausted mentally and physically, he still refused to allow Terja to perform any of the ceremony.

“We need to make a final check. It’s close to nightfall. I don’t want to leave—” Anan stopped and swallowed hard to regain his control. “I want to be certain we’ve taken care of everyone. We can go opposite directions and meet back here. Hopefully, there’s nothing to find.”

Anan waited for Terja’s nod, then started through the encampment. Hesitant at first, he covered the area with speed and resolve. I don’t know how many more victims I can deal with before my mind snaps like a weak warp thread. As he worked through the smoldering remains, he began to think they’d recovered all the bodies.

He returned to the center of the encampment and found Terja hadn’t arrived. Anan moved to locate the spinner. Close to the spinner’s lodges, Anan found him, crumpled into the dust, holding the body of a small child.

His heart cracked when Terja’s eyes met his, tears running down his red cheeks. He held the broken body like a precious jewel, cradling the kit who was long past the issues of this world. The spinner ran his fingers over the deep brown velvet covering the kit’s face as if he were sleeping. He reached down to touch Terja’s shoulder.

“He’s gone, Terja. Add him to the ceremony so his strands can rejoin the others in the Great Weaving.”

Past reason now, Terja’s sobs echoed across the scene of desolation. The darkness flowed over the pair, its edges seeming to ripple in response to Terja’s grief. “You don’t understand!” he yelled, his face contorted with anger. “Akra and I were friends. His father died when a longtooth pack attacked him. We broke fast together each morning. Why would they kill a kit?”

Anan hardened. “You know why. Akra was nothing more than an animal to them. They don’t follow the teachings of First Twining, and we are nothing more than mating slaves to feed their addiction.”

“Akra was a sweet kit. Just a toddler.”

Anan squeezed his shoulder. “Come. It’s time.”

He forced Terja into motion. They came to the central area, and Terja turned to Anan. “Clean him. Please. I know it will take some of the spinnings you have, but please. I cannot stand to think he’s going to the Great Weaving like this. He worried so much about how he looked.”

“Terja….”

“Please. I’ll replace the spinning. The spell panels on your kilt are close to full. You have enough matama to do this.” Terja turned ashen. “Please. This will be the last thing I ask of you.”

Anan sighed and ran his hand over the complex matama patterns stored on his kilt. Although his state of exhaustion diminished his focus to the point where he had to touch the threads. He deftly created the weaving in the air from the matama stored in his kilt panels. Soon he had the simple weave completed. Once he did, Anan struggled through the ritual steps drummed into him to release the spell and clean the lifeless body. The small weaving dissipated, and Anan let his vision slip away.

The kit before them now could have been sleeping. Anan normally would have refused to use a spellweaving on someone beyond its reach, but he admitted, if only to himself, this final visage of the kit was much preferable to the blood- and gore-splattered toddler that had lain before him a short time earlier. He stared at the kit, then at Terja.

“It’s time to do the unraveling.”

Sales Links: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=6624

About the author:

Jon Keys’s earliest memories revolve around books. Either read to him or making up stories based on the illustrations, these were places his active mind occupied. As he got older the selection expanded beyond Mother Goose and Dr. Suess to the world of westerns, science fiction and fantasy. His world filled with dragon riders, mind speaking horses and comic book heroes in hot uniforms.

A voracious reader for half a century, Jon recently began creating his own creations of fiction. The first writing was his attempt at showing rural characters in a more sympathetic light. Now he has moved into some of the writing he lost himself in for so many years…fantasy. Jon has worked as a ranch hand, teacher, computer tech, roughneck, designer, retail clerk, welder, artist, and, yes, pool boy; with interests ranging from kayaking and hunting to drawing and cooking, he uses this range of life experiences to create written works that draw the reader in and wrap them in a good story.

  

Where to find the author:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jon.keys.773

Twitter:  @Jon4Keys

Website: http://jonkeys.com/

Goodreads Link:

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press

Cover Artist: Paul Richmond

Tour Dates & Stops: July 10, 2015

Parker Williams, BFD Book Blog, Full Moon Dreaming, Havan Fellows, Jessie G. Books, Kimi-Chan, Decadent Delights, It’s Raining Men, Michael Mandrake, Velvet Panic, Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words, My Fiction Nook, Molly Lolly, Andrew Q. Gordon, Bayou Book Junkie, Wicked Faerie's Tales and Reviews, The Fuzzy, Fluffy World of Chris T. Kat, MM Good Book Reviews, Fangirl Moments and My Two Cents, Wake Up Your Wild Side, Dawn’s Reading Nook, Amanda C. Stone, Inked Rainbow Reads, Just Love Romance

  

Rafflecopter Prize: E-copy of  ‘Home Grown’ by Jon Keys

Rafflecopter Code:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Welcome Jon Keys - Home Grown

Hi MA, thanks for letting me visit! I’m excited about the release of Home Grown from Dreamspinner Press. Home Grown is all about conflicting worlds and how sometimes they don’t matter. But the characters in the novella are pretty hard-core foodies. So as part of the blog tour, I’m going to talk about some of the food from Home Grown as well as share recipes. Food and hot guys, what could be better!

To begin the tour, here is the first recipe. Wilted Lettuce Salad. Tart and tangy, great with fresh harvested leaf lettuce and of course it has bacon in it. I never said these were low cal recipes. J

Wilted Lettuce Salad.

 Ingredients

• 4 strips of bacon
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 to 3 green onions, including tops, sliced thin
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 8 to 10 cups leaf lettuce, torn

Directions

• Cook the bacon in a large skillet until very crisp. Remove and let drain on paper towels.
• Add vinegar, onions, sugar, salt and pepper, to the hot drippings. Stir until sugar is dissolved.
• Put the lettuce in a large bowl and immediately pour hot dressing over. Toss lightly. Serve right away. 

~ Jon ~

Blurb

Peter Stevens believes nothing tastes better than a vine-ripened tomato tended by a farmer’s hands. The craving for heirloom tomatoes leads him to his local farmers’ market and his favorite vendor, Ethan Hart. As Peter becomes a regular customer, the two find they have more in common than a love of good food. Just as Ethan begins to relax, Peter's ex, Jay, appears and is all the things Ethan is not. A perfect storm of mistakes and poor choices, as well as Ethan’s haunted past, has him ready to admit defeat. With the guidance of friends and a goat far too smart for her own good, Ethan realizes he needs to have a tender hand and patience to grow a home for Peter.

Excerpt from Home Grown.

Ethan’s stomach fluttered, his anticipation building as he scanned the early morning farmer’s market crowd. Stop it. Peter will show up when he shows up. Ethan snapped his attention back to the present when the small gray-haired woman who ran the booth beside him tucked herself under his arm and hugged him tight.

“Morning, good-looking.”

“Morning, Maggie. How are things going?” Ethan kissed the top of her head and returned her embrace.

“Not bad, not bad. I’ve put out all the soaps. I hope everyone feels dirty today and stocks up.”

Ethan chuckled at the image of mud people gathering around Maggie’s stall. “Well, my customers can be clean. But I think business today will be good. The late season tomatoes are finally ripe, and I’ve had lots of people asking about them.”

 “Including Peter?”

Heat crept up Ethan’s cheeks. “Peter? I don’t know. Probably. You know he has a thing for my tomatoes.”

“Uh-huh, yeah. I might have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night. Admit it to Auntie Maggie, you have the hots for the boy, and I think he has a thing for more than your tomatoes.”

Ethan brushed off her speculation with a wave of his hand. “Maggie, you’re crazy. That man’s some kinda high-powered muckety-muck downtown. He’d never know I lived in Wisconsin if I didn’t have the best tomatoes in the market.”

Ethan studied the forming crowd, their sounds echoing through the building. “It looks like it’s getting busy, I’d better check to make sure I got everything from the truck.”

He embraced her again and trotted out the side door to his pickup. I’m not ready to talk to anyone about my feelings about Peter.

eBook Link: 

Dreamspinner

Amazon

Bio:

Jon Keys’ earliest memories revolve around books; with the first ones he can recall reading himself being “The Warlord of Mars” and anything with Tarzan. (The local library wasn’t particularly up to date.) But as puberty set in he started sneaking his mother’s romance magazines and added the world of romance and erotica to his mix of science fiction, fantasy, and comic books.

A voracious reader for almost half a century, Jon has only recently begun creating his own flights of fiction for the entertainment of others. Born in the Southwest and now living in the Midwest, Jon has worked as a ranch hand, teacher, computer tech, roughneck, designer, retail clerk, welder, artist, and, yes, pool boy; with interests ranging from kayaking and hunting to painting and cooking, he draws from a wide range of life experiences to create written works that draw the reader in and wrap them in a good story.

Blog ~ Facebook ~ Twitter

Just Another Manic Monday - Crossfire by Jon Keys (Men in Uniform anthology from Torquere Press.)

 Hey M.A.! Thanks for letting me visit! I’m really excited to guest on your site today. I’m thrilled about the release of Crossfire as part of the Men in Uniform anthology from Torquere Press.

Blurb:

Rick Anthis, a forty-five year old veteran of the Colorado State Police, and his husband, Gabriel Thorkelson, a deputy sheriff in a nearby county, enjoy the peace of their suburban Boulder home. Until three gunshots rip through the tranquil neighborhood and Rick witnesses the kidnapping of his buddy, eight year old Jacob.

The clues are sparse until Gabe reminds Rick of something Jacob had said. Rick has a starting point. He and his CSI team locate the remote hideout, only to find the the kidnappers are gone, and Gabe is missing too.

Excerpt from Crossfire.

Rick dried the last dish and handed it to Gabriel to put away. Gabriel settled the last plate into the white cabinets. He loved their house and the quiet, older neighborhood it was in. He hoped Mark and Rachel could work out their issues, keeping Jacob in the forefront.

Rick put his hand around Gabriel's slender waist. He's as sexy as he was in college. Damn just being next to him makes me randy. Releasing Gabriel, Rick folded the dishtowel carefully and laid it beside the sink. "Supper was great. You're a damn fine cook."

Gabriel snickered and spun to pop Rick with a wet towel. "It should taste good. Your mother gave me herbs from her garden the last time we visited."

"Mom's just trying to fatten me up. I'm kind of skinny for a forty-three year old Greek man."

The towel snapped against Rick's butt again and he grabbed at it. Gabriel danced away, his face lit with delight. "Where does that leave me?"

Rick swept Gabriel up and kissed him. "It leaves you in my arms, just where you should be."

Rick paused as he remembered the note in his pocket. Leaving his hand on the small of Gabriel's back he reached in his shirt pocket and fished out a small piece of yellow paper. He gripped it between two fingers and dangled the sheet in front of Gabriel.

"Speaking of, I found another note in my lunch."

Gabriel studied the symbols on the page as if he'd never seen them. "Huh, what do you think that means?"

Rick smiled. "I know what it's meant the last dozen times I found one in my lunch."

"Really? And what was that?"

"It meant I was going to be exhausted the whole next day."

"You don't say. Let me see that." Gabriel took the paper from Rick's hand and appeared to study the content. "Looks like Native American symbols. Hmm, maybe 'bear' and 'hunt'." He smiled at Rick with a glimmer in his eyes. "Are we going on a bear hunt this fall?" Gabriel reached up and tugged on the short hair coming from the top of Rick's T-shirt. The slight touch shifted his libido into high gear.

He nuzzled his face against Gabriel's throat and sighed at the spicy fragrance that curled through his nostrils. Rick slid his hand under Gabriel's shirt; the rub of his chest hair on Rick's palm ignited his desire. "What's the sign for otter? Because I think I need to hunt one of those little furry things." I still can't believe Mom gave Gabe my Eagle Scout pictogram project.

eBook Link: 

Torquere Press

Bio:

Jon Keys’ earliest memories revolve around books; with the first ones he can recall reading himself being “The Warlord of Mars” and anything with Tarzan. (The local library wasn’t particularly up to date.) But as puberty set in he started sneaking his mother’s romance magazines and added the world of romance and erotica to his mix of science fiction, fantasy, and comic books.

A voracious reader for almost half a century, Jon has only recently begun creating his own flights of fiction for the entertainment of others. Born in the Southwest and now living in the Midwest, Jon has worked as a ranch hand, teacher, computer tech, roughneck, designer, retail clerk, welder, artist, and, yes, pool boy; with interests ranging from kayaking and hunting to painting and cooking, he draws from a wide range of life experiences to create written works that draw the reader in and wrap them in a good story.

You can find me at:

E-mail: jon.keys@ymail.com

Blog: http://jonkeys.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jon.keys.773

Twitter: @Jon4Keys

Now for the interview with Jon!

How do you come up with the titles to your books?

Lists, lots of word association lists. I don’t think I’ve ever had a title at the beginning of planning a manuscript, and only a few times have I had a title before I started writing. But here’s my method. I put down any word that might be descriptive of the story. Anything. No editing at this point. Then start putting them together. At that point it doesn’t matter how ridiculous they sound together, I put them down. Once I have the a few listed, I’ll delete some before I add more. Some are just dumb, and that’s okay. I think you have to get the bad ideas out before you can get to the good stuff. Sometimes it takes a few weeks with adding new ones and deleting old ones that I don’t like any more until I get to a title I like. “Crossfire” is a good example. It took me a couple of weeks to come up with the title.

What is the hardest part about writing for you?

Editing. Hands down that’s the hardest part. I’m sure the poor people who beta read for me think I’m lazy, but I just don’t see the little details. My brain fills them in nicely for me. Head hopping? What’s head hopping? But I’m slowly getting better. I do specific passes for each thing. A POV pass, a plot pass, a character voice pass, an animated body part pass. Really, it's a little sad. But I love, love, love telling the story.

Are you working on anything at the present you would like to tell us about?

Oh, far too many projects probably! I have another short story coming out in July, “Showstring”, about two very different guys who meet and fall for each other at the state fair. Then in September my first novella should be released. “Home Grown” is a foodie romance with a perfect storm of things going wrong for the poor guys. In February my first novel is coming out. “Drawing the Devil” is about a budding romance between a champion bull rider and one of the rodeo clowns.

Things still in the works include my NaNoWriMo project for last year. It’s my first fantasy story, and is a rescue drama set in the Iron Age. I’m hoping to start it looking for a home by the end of summer. I also have another couple of short stories that I’m developing. Apparently I need tons of things happening!

What do you like to do when you are not writing?

Read and watch TV, I guess those are givens. I also love to garden, so I have a large vegetable garden and love to plant perennials around the house. I do some biking and kayaking during the warm months and usually cross-country ski during the winter.

How do you do research for your books?

Google and Wikipedia are my buddy’s when I start. A lot of my stories are based on subjects I know quite a bit about. Law enforcement isn’t one of those. For Crossfire I questioned people who knew a lot more about it than I did. It took some creative juggling and perhaps a little suspension of belief, but hopefully everyone will enjoy it.

What are your favorite TV shows?

Big Bang Theory! No question about it. I’ve known all those people in real life and I’ve known more than one Sheldon. One of the funniest ones for me is actually Sheldon’s mother. Oh my gosh! Most of my friend’s mothers were exactly like her.

A close second is Faceoff on the SciFi channel. I’m addicted. I love to see what designs they come up with, and if I agree with the judges or not.

What group did you hang out with in high school?

I went to a tiny high school, we had to do double duty. LOL I was part of the Vo-Ag group (ie. farm kids) and I guess one of the smart kids (don’t be too impressed, like I said…small school.) If there’s been something like an AV group, I would probably have been part of that too, but they didn’t. Oh, I was also one of the art students. Never one of the cool kids or the jocks though. Cool I’ve never mastered, and the sports I would have done, our school didn’t offer.

~ Jon ~