Bret's · LiveJournal

Not long ago I had the opportunity to interview RA Salvatore and his son Geno for MonsterLibrarian.com. If you have a few minutes check it out at:

http://www.monsterlibrarian.com/interviews.htm#RA_Salvatore_and_Geno_Salvatore_Interview

Okay, I'm not dead. I just had some trouble with LiveJournal crashing my Internet Explorer a while back so I've shied away from it. Now I'm using Firefox and thing seem to be much better.

I've been reading a lot of the post, but mainly lurking (that sounds terrible, doesn't it?).

I'm also excited about my new novella that came out today...

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Druid's Daughter is now available from Purple Sword Publications.



Blurb:
Shaylee is the daughter of a drunkard, but he wasn't always that way. Once he was the tribe's druid. She knows nothing about her mother, only that her father won't talk about it with her. The village treats her as an outcast and the only comfort she finds is in a new found friend, Oran. As she comes of age she finds that she has strange new abilities that put her in touch with the world around her and the mystery of her mother and the village's attitude toward her slowly unravels.

Exerpt:
Her heart thrummed in her chest. It felt like the embarrassment Ghazi had put her through, but instead of making her want to cry she wanted to shout for joy. The boy had asked for a kiss from her! He thought she was pretty, or nice, or sweet, or something. He didn't dislike or shun her like the rest of the town. He was different. He wanted a kiss.

She didn't think she would be able to answer. She had never kissed anyone before, besides Gorm, and that didn't count. She wasn't sure if she knew how to do it right. Finally she stammered, "Oh…y…yes. Certainly. It's the least I can do. You were so brave."

She stepped forward and felt her cheeks grow warm, knowing that a stupid smile stretched her mouth from ear to ear. She forced the smile away by puckering her lips. He stared, as if waiting for something. Finally he said, "Well, ye got to close yer eyes. I can't be kissin' ye with yer eyes open. That ain't how it's done."

Her cheeks reddened at her foolishness and inexperience, but the comment didn't extinguish the flutter that she felt within her chest. "Oh, of course."

She closed her eyes. Her lips puckered, head tilted forward. She waited in silence.
__________________________

* Author: Bret Jordan
* Cover Artist: Anastasia Rabiyah
* Genre: Fantasy/Romance
* Length: Novella
* Heat Level: Sweet
* Violence
* Price: $4.00
*Purchase link: http://purplesword.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=21&zenid=64360146ca1cdcb67b7ed1f00856e6e0

Piet Lithor is an arrogant and pious priest who is only concerned for his well being and his rise to power. As the Plague story continues he grows into a flawed hero. Below is an image of the Piet towards the beginning of the book, before he finds his courage.




An earlier version of the Piet was drawn for the web version of Plague. This version of the Piet, like the final edited version of the story, is greatly improved.

I've spent the last two days working on this poor soul and I just realized that he will be the last illustration I do for 2008. Again, he is another illustration for my novel, Plague. Anyway, thank everyone for taking the time to look at my doodles.

For whatever reason I have been 'chompin' at the bit' this month about art. So, yesterday I began doodling with an illustration for my Plague story and got carried away and finished it. I got a couple of illustrations from Mr. Alex McVey and one from Mr. Tom Moran - all excellent illustrations. I feel bad because I requested them to finish their illustrations thinking I would have the story submitted by now. Rio Youers is helping me polish the story off so it will probably be a couple more months before the tale goes into the submission phase, but it should be greatly improved when Mr. Youers finishes dragging it through the coals and helps me get rid of the excess fat.





Anyway, here is my first illustration for Plague. I might get another one or two done while the book is in the final phase of its editing process.

My 9 year old daughter, who should probably be starting to figure things out, wrote Santa Clause a letter yesterday and sealed it in an envelope. It was addressed to the North Pole Village and everything. My wife and I just couldn't help ourselves so we carefully opened it and read her letter. I figured I would share it:

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Dear Santa,

This year I have tried to be as kind as I could, but Amber always tries to make me scream and it is impossible to ignore Amber. Hey, everybody messes up at least 5 times each year and you have a birthday present because my birthday was December 23. I only have 1 thing on my list this year and it's an eyeclopse night vision. I don't mind if any more gifts are brought to me, but if you bring anymore gifts just please, please don't forget the eye clops night vision.

Truly,
Natalie Jordan

P.S. Me and Amber have had our good and bad times.

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She had it covered with little sleighs, reindeer, and elves. It was cute.

BTW...Amber is her 4 year old hyper-active sister who pester's the hell out of her. I'm sure Santa will understand the conflict and bring her the eyeclopse night vision goggles. I spoke to him myself and it's a done deal. :o)

Here is a picture that I did for Ray Gunn's new book, BRUTAL. He is running a contest where artists create an image of his main characters. The winner gets an autographed copy of his book when it comes out in April. The science fiction/horror book caught my interest and I figured this would be a challenging image to hone my art on.

Anyone who might be interested in entering the contest can look at the rules at Ray Gunn's Blog

According to the Science Fiction Book Club, these are the 50 most significant SF & Fantasy Books of 1953-2002. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you hated, italicize the ones you couldn't get through, asterisks for the ones you loved.
1. *The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien*
2. *The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov*
3. *Dune by Frank Herbert*
4. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
6. Neuromancer by William Gibson
7. Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
8. *Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick*
9. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom by Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight by James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
17. Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway by Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
28. *I Am Legend by Richard Matheson*
29. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
31. Little, Big by John Crowley
32. Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement
35. More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man by Cordwainer Smith (utter pants)
37. On the Beach by Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld by Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-5 by Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
46. *Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein*
47. Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock
48. *The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks*
49. Timescape by Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer

Here is the latest cover that I've done. It's probably the most gruesome picture I've done to date and it's streight out of the mind of Mr. Jim Kelley who is the one of the editors of The Devil's Food Anthology. If any of you writers out there got a story where monsters use folks as SPAM then send it Mr. Kelley's way. You can find all the submission guidelines at The Devil's Food Submission Guidelines .

Okay, I haven't posted in like...forever so I figured I would go ahead and do it before everyone began to think I had croaked. I don't really have any good excuses for not posting, other than I haven't had any new things going on so I didn't have anything 'post-worthy' to post.

I guess I will start with the thing that is at the forefront at the moment, Plague. I have completely finished the online version and the second draft - actually about the tenth draft if you count all the mini-rereads I did on the first draft. Anyway, going through the second draft I cringe to the point of vomiting as I look at all the typos and grammar mistakes that fell through the cracks on the online version. As much as I hate to do it I am leaving them there. The online version is the first draft and the first draft it will remain, but at times I feel that I am going through that dream where you are in high school and suddenly realize you aren't wearing anything - you folks know which dream I'm talking about so don't act like I'm the only one that has had it.

Other good news is that Rio Youers will be helping me with the final draft prior to submission. I don't know how many of you have read his stories, but the guy is incredible. If you get a chance pick up his new book, Everdead. It's a vampire story, but one that is quickly surpassing Anne Rice's as my all time favorite vampire book - though his vampires are nothing like hers. Heck, it was good enough that Peter Straub did a blurb on it Anyway, check Rio out at www.rioyouers.com.

Finally, in the Plague department, my illustrators have turned in their drawings and they look fantastic! Well, with Alex McVey and Tom Moran doing the illustration I couldn't go wrong, and they really outdid themselves.

I also have started a new hobbie - just in case I already didn't have enough. Robotics. I picked up a microprocessor, some infrared range finders, a few servos and some software and I'm busilly pulling my hair out while I try and figure this stuff out. I absolutely hate this hobby, until my robot does something I programmed it to do like track my hand back and forth. Yeah, it doesn't sound like much, but I'm awefully easy to entertain.

Oh, I also burned myself up a few weeks ago. I would have forgotten about that one, but my wife won't let me. She was burning leaves in a 55 gallon drum in the backyard and doing it all wrong. She had stuffed the barrel with leaves and just lit it. Well, after the first layer became ash it smothered the rest of the fire. Of coarse I had to tell her that it wouldn't work like that and why - lack of oxygen and all that stuff. So, I burn it down about 3/4 of the way and it's getting hard to keep it lit due to all the ash mixed with the burnable leaves. So, I get a genius idea. I will get some kerosene (BECAUSE IT BURNS SLOWLY) and soak the rest of the ash/leaves with it then light it and seel it SLOWLY burn. I missed something. The hot ash vaporized the kerosene in the drum. Anyway, I reach into the barrel with my lit match, you can't just drop it in because it will go out. I was almost halfway into the barrel with my arm and my face was over the opening when the fumes caught. I learned a lesson. Kerosene does burn quickly when done properly. I remember seeing a friggin fireball before I turned and jumped out of the way. It was too late though, the damage was done. My hair was singed, my hand was a red pulp, and my face looked like I had spent the day at the beach.

Now, I can usually take pain pretty well, but my hand felt like I had it in a bee hive. My wife told me that I should go to the doctor, but being a hard-ass I said no. Then I started thinking, it was the day before Thanksgiving and if I didn't go then I wouldn't be able to go until at least Friday, unless I wanted to go to the emergency room. I gave in. Anyway, a little Vicoden, some sort of white cream and now I'm all better - well, the hair is still growing back, but other than that.

On the illustration/cover front I'm not doing anything.

Okay, that just about catches everyone up. If you didn't bother to read all the way through this post I certainly understand. It was a long one and more or less unimportant.

After a year and a half worth of work I FINALLY finished the first draft of Plague on Friday! I can't even begin to tell you how good that felt, knowing that I had started and finished a 70k story. There were times when I was afraid that I would have to leave the characters hanging, and I did for a while, but now I know how the story ends.







With that being done, I decided to get back to art today. I was still geared for Plague, so I figured I would put together a cover that I can use for promo and avatars and such. When it was all said and done, I liked it enough that I would be happy to use it as the actual cover, but that will be up to the publisher as soon as I finish the rewrite of the working copy and submit it. I've got a lot of character development I want to add, along with cleaning things up and improving on some weak points in the story. I figure it will be ready between now and Halloween, but I also thought the first draft would be completed months ago. Grrrrrrrr.



Anyway, I want to thank everyone for your support and if you have read Plague I hope that you liked it.



Oh, BTW...the story isn't posted on line in its first draft form yet. I'm still putting up two installments a week. I think it will be about 12 weeks before the whole thing is available online.



Finally, I have to appologize for my lack of being here lately. Every time I tried to come to LiveJournal for a few days it kept crashing my IE. Then when I did make it over I was just too busy to leave any good comments, but I was reading most of the posts...I was just in 'Lurker' mode. ;o)

It has been another busy weekend around the Jordan household...

Last week my old job, where I worked for 13 years, called me wanting me to do some side work for them programming. The money was waaaaaay too good to turn down, so I agreed. So, that was added to my list of stuff to work on this weekend.

I didn't work on it Saturday because I told my 9 and 4 year old that I would take them to an alligator farm about 45 minutes from the house. We had a good time there and saw many alligators, crocodiles, alligator snapping turtles, huge tortoises, boa constrictors, and even a baby raccoon. It was cool because the establishment let the kids hold and pet the critters...well, the baby alligators, snakes, and raccoon, not the adult alligators or the snapping turtles. It was fun.

Sunday was when I went to work and programmed as much as I could until they get me more information. Around 2 pm I stopped to call in to my Blogtalk Radio interview with the Mortal Vampire. If you would care to listen it is on the main page of my website, along with my AngelLesa interview, at www.bretjordan.com . When I finished that I got to work on my Black Ink Horror illustration. I started it last Monday and was determined to finish it over the weekend. It was close, but I got it done.

Today I'm hoping to do just a little more programming, figured some other stuff I can work on today, and hopefully get another installment of Plague done.

I've been a busy fellow this weekend. First I finished planting the shrubs for my wife. Well, there isn't much to tell there, it was just work. Next I worked on my latest illustration for Black Ink Horror for a story entitled A Tale of Terror by Jason Hauser. It was a fun illustration to to in that I loved the story. It was full of subtle horror, and I hope my illustration captures the mood of that particular tale.

Next is an illustration that I did for LoveYouDivine for a retelling of the poem T'was the Night Before Christmas... by JJ Giles. Again, it was fun to do.

These two illustrations are sort of going from one extreme in genres to another. LOL

On September 19, 2008 Sinister Landscapes will be available.

It's an anthology of Gothic Tales to be published by Pixie Dust Press. Witihin it's pages is my short story called Ghost in the Hardware. It's about an adventurous 'High Tech' ghost hunter who captures more than he bargains for.

Here is the info from the back of the book:

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Churchyards, cemeteries, manors, and foggy streets are breeding grounds for specters of all walks. Ghosts, goblins, witches, and demons lurk in these dangerous places, stalking from the darkest corners. Mysterious noises, rattling chains, strange occurrences, and eerie shadows. These are just some of the spine-tingling oddities we encounter when we dare tread upon forbidden soil. Brace yourself readers. Sinister Landscapes takes you back to the roots of horror through eighteen gothic tales told by a new crop of authors that go straight for the throat. Featuring the genre's newest and finest voices with a foreword by award-winning and bestselling author Andrea Dean Van Scoyoc, including:

Thad Linson

Sarah Wilson Basore

Eric Enck

Jessica Lynne Gardner

Ryan B. Clark

Brandon Ford

Jeani Rector

David Boyle

Gordon Anthony Bean

Bret Jordan

Alan Draven

Stéphanie J

T. G. Reaper

R. Vance

Jeff Ezell

Charlotte Emma Gledson

Charlie Glover

Frank E. Bittinger

Here is the next illustration for Twas the Night Before Christmas. I originally had another idea in mind, but just couldn't get it captured on paper like I wanted. I'm still getting use to the new subject matter. I'm having fun, but it's a lot different than illustrating monsters. Reminds me of the trouble I had when I illustrated a children's book. Fun, but also frustrating because cute and pretty illustrations just don't seem to come naturally for me. Just got to keep practicing.