No, it’s fine. I know you won’t. My fault entirely. I should have written some YA fantasy novels instead of this smutty stuff.
The funny thing is, the little tiny silver lining that keeps me doing this, is that the people who have read these books and let me know what they think– single figures, very low single figures – well, they really like them.
This reminds me of when I was in a band. We used to pull single figure crowds on a good night, but we played like maniacs every time, no matter if it was to an empty room, and we made damn sure that that the one guy sitting at the bar got to hear a really good gig even if he wasn’t particularly interested.
Same deal with these books. They’re the best I can make them. If you are the only person on the planet who reads them, you’re going to be entertained.
But don’t take my word for it. Go read something else. It’s safer that way.
Here’s the first character bio-promo for Blood:Lust Book One. Look out for a cover reveal and the name of book one coming later this month, or early April.
One of the fun parts, but also one of the big challenges of writing a contemporary novel, is naming your characters. In my opinion, my rules if you like, the names must suit the characters, not constantly distract the reader due to being silly or having way too many syllables, and not be similar to the names of famous people. Personally, I also don’t deliberately use names of people I know, because I like to credit myself with having a little bit more imagination than that.
A contemporary romance is not a fantasy novel; you can’t call an IT manager Stormfist Wonderbra, unless you’re playing purely for laughs. The names have to be contemporary and they have to follow the above set of rules.
I started writing Kissing The Scorpion when I was out of work in 2012. I spent a considerable amount of time naming the characters, particularly the main ones. None of those characters are based on people I know and none of them are deliberately named after anyone I know or have ever known.
Following my own rules, I stuck with fairly standard names, not names that would jump out as being remarkable: Dave, Kate, Stan, Sandy, Chloe, Paul, Colin, etc. Same story with the surnames: Fletcher, Hayes, Reading. I’ll admit that Nicky Fox sounds like a porn star and Bruce Jensen deliberately sounds like a rock star (because he will be, one day), but I liked those names and they add a tiny bit of colour in amongst the relatively normal ones.
I didn’t name the characters after people I know. I also didn’t name Dave after the protagonist from one of my favourite series of crime novels by James Lee Burke. Seriously, I didn’t.
Kissing The Scorpion is based in a contemporary office setting. I have worked in a lot of different offices (which were pretty much all the same really) and I have put details in the book that will hopefully be familiar to anyone else who has ever worked in an office. This does not mean that the fictional office where my fictional characters work is based on any specific real office. It isn’t. If any of it feels familiar to a reader, I’ll take that as a massive compliment because it means I’m doing at least an average job of creating a believable setting.
Finally – band names. Difficult, seriously. I won’t bore you with the number of different names I came up with for Bruce Jensen’s band, Moscow In October, before choosing that one, but it was a lot. Three at least.
There you have it, another thrilling insight into the novel writing process. Apologies to anyone who thought I’d chosen their really cool name for one of my really cool characters. I didn’t. However, if you happen to be called Stormfist Wonderbra, you have my sympathy.
Playing The Ace, the second novel in the contemporary romance series “The Truth About Kate Hayes”, has been sent to Polgarus Studio for formatting. I used Polgarus’ services for formatting Kissing The Scorpion and I can relax knowing that they’re going to do a great job on the sequel.
There’s a better than 7 billion to one chance that you haven’t read Kissing The Scorpion yet. I know you’re really keen to change that, but you might like to resist the temptation for just another few weeks until I drop the price when the sequel is released.
If you would like to preview and/or review Playing The Ace, and receive a digital copy before it is officially released, please visit the contact page on this site to find out how to get in touch.
Driving the car, training in the gym, writing a chapter or two of my latest Vampire Erotica novella… this is my current album of choice to listen to while doing pretty much anything, and easily my favourite album from 2014.
Opening with blistering, thrashy rage aimed at any dissenters who might still be missing the point, “I Sell My Kids for Rock’N’Roll” is Crucified Barbara’s raised middle finger to anyone who dares to compliment them for being ‘good for being a girl’ or mistakenly assumes that they don’t have time to write songs because they’re busy painting their nails. Taken literally, it’s a laudable backlash, but there’s a subtle layer of irony in the lyrics that works perfectly with Mia’s consistently striking vocal delivery. A great opener and a solid, rocking track with an edge of relevant humour. Also, the video completely kicks ass.
“To Kill a Man” tackles a tough subject from a hypothetical revenge perspective, questioning what it would be like to kill a man. It’s a dark, serious track and it arguably doesn’t seem appropriate to be enjoying the song just as a song, although it is damn catchy and has some rock solid bass and drums going on behind Mia’s raw soloing and intimidating vocals.
“Electric Sky” almost feels like it’s going to be a filler track, but there just aren’t any of those on this album, and it soon asserts itself as a powerful, melodic mini-anthem.
“The Ghost Inside” has appropriately haunting vocals and a grungy yet ethereal musical backdrop. Not a particularly standout track for this album but it’s really just preparing the listener for the absolutely classic track coming up next.
“Don’t Call On Me” is my favourite track from In The Red, definitely in my top 3 CB tracks from any album. Swapping between soaring high notes over a moderate tempo, and flat-out hard rock riffing, it is a virtually flawless track that perfectly showcases the band, not wasting a single second of its 4 minute run time.
The title track crashes in with down ‘n’ dirty guitar and pounding drums, clearly asserting that there’s no intention to ease back on the power or the pace. It’s worth noting that there isn’t a ballad on this album, nothing that comes anywhere near the restraint and fragility of “Count Me In” (from The Midnight Chase), and that is significant because the message here is obvious: Crucified Barbara don’t need to include ballads when their hard rocking tracks are so varied and of such consistently high quality.
“Lunatic #1”. I’m completely guessing, but I reckon this is a song from one bandmate to another. If I’m wrong, that’s fine, because I doubt I’m the only person who interprets lyrics from their own perspective and likes them just that little bit more for doing so. Another cracking track to add to the list.
“Shadows” delivers yet more riff driven foot-tapping goodness, with sweet distorted guitars and a frenetic solo, unleashing the kind of dusty floorboards roadhouse rock that is never going to quit.
“Finders Keepers”. I’ll admit it took a few listens before I started to like this track. The prominent use of the cliché ‘finders keepers, losers weepers’ initially grated, but the catchy rhythm and deceptively dark attitude (‘you will die alone’) won me over in the end. Now it’s another one I really look forward to hearing every time I play this album.
“Do You Want Me”. In a word, ‘yes’. Another unconventional love song, another reason to love this band. Mia pins up a list of reasons why you shouldn’t want her, then hits you with the question as if the choice was ever yours to make. It’s like Pat Benatar with balls, although that conjures up a pretty bizarre image.
“Follow the stream”. Before I listened to this track for the first time, I saw the title and thought ‘Ballad’. It isn’t. The last track on any album needs to serve one specific purpose – it has to make you want to immediately replay the whole album from the start. Guess what, that’s exactly what “Follow The Stream” does. Every time.
Congratulations to the band for winning the P3 Guld category Rock/Metal of the Year 2014 for this album. I can’t wait to see how they top In The Red, although I’m sure they will.
If I can maintain some kind of schedule and resist being completely distracted by the new series of vampire erotica that I’m working on (more about that very soon, I promise) it could even be published before the end of March 2015.
For now, maybe if you send an email to the address mentioned on the contacts page and tell me how much you’d like to read KTS but you’re afraid it might be crap and not worth your money (you’d be surprised, but this approach has been tried…successfully), I’ll send you a mobi or epub file. Serial spammers – don’t bother, I get enough shit from you every day already.
You need to understand that not only am I a hypocrite, but that I view hypocrisy as a charming and hugely positive character trait. That doesn’t really have a heck of a lot to do with this blog post, but I felt the need to share it.
I really love the cover of Kissing The Scorpion. I worked on it with a very talented guy, a good friend of mine, and the result is incredibly close to how I imagined the cover would look, long before the book itself was even half finished.
When I say I worked on it with him, my contribution was pretty much choosing a font and asking questions such as, “What if we moved that up about half an inch?” Not exactly a massive contribution, but I’m not an artist. My 7 year old son can draw better pictures of zombie robots than I can. And I try, I really do.
One of the things I’ve decided for the forthcoming books in the series (The Truth About Kate Hayes), after seeing how the cover of Kissing The Scorpion turned out, is that the main image on each front cover is going to be a piece of tattoo art, specifically a tattoo worn by a character from each book.
The cover art for book 2 (Playing The Ace) is currently in some kind of limbo where I approached an artist, asked him to do a design, paid a deposit, and have subsequently heard very little about how the work is progressing. I’m sure I’ll hear something, eventually, bit it’s not a perfect situation as I was planning on publishing the book on Valentine’s day next year (2015) and that is starting to get close, at least in terms of my publishing schedule.
As book 3 (Painting The Dragon) is already written, at least past the first draft stage, I thought I’d get the cover art sorted out sooner rather than later. I found a great custom tattoo design site – www.tattoodo.com – which uses the motivating concept of competition to give you exactly the design you want, or your money back if you don’t get what you want.
It’s a consistently fresh, exciting and very quick way to get the cover design that you really want. Watching each design evolve from a rough sketch, with frequently entertaining comment-box discussions with the artists, is a source of fun that I hadn’t imagined. The only downside is that only one artist can win each contest and I will probably end up torn and emotional when it’s finally time to decide. Of course, you have to weigh that feeling of being judge, jury and executioner against the very personal karma balancing feelings that you get when the book you spent two years on, the one that you know is pretty frickin’ awesome, still has sales in single figures a whole month after it was released. Not everyone is a winner – deal with it.
Now, before you all race off to that site (other custom tattoo sites are available) to get your book cover art designed, I need to point out that it isn’t a cheap option. There are plenty of book cover artists out there (on the internet and elsewhere) who will produce a full cover design for less than the cost of a gold rated competition prize at tattoodo. Of course, you might not even end up using the design you get from one of those artists because it is amateurish photoshopped clip-art crap that still looks appalling after six months and a thousand revisions.
Do what all your potential readers do: pay your money (or not) and make your choice.
J W Tapper 