Chatting with New Blood: Author Julie Jones
Posted: June 22, 2024 Filed under: Book Release, Book Review, Books, Chatting with New Blood, Debut novel, Fiction, Interview, weird western, Western Paranormal, Writing | Tags: Blood Follows Blood, Book Reveiw, Chatting with New Blood, Ginny Sutton, Julie Jones, Kaye Lynne Booth, weird western, Writing to be Read 7 Comments
Today I’m chatting with author Julie Jones about her author journey thus far, as she releases her debut novel, Blood Follows Blood: The Legend of Ginny Sutton. I’ve worked with Julie in the past, and she has stories in both the Visions and Midnight Roost anthologies from WordCrafter Press, so I know she is a top notch writer who knows how to craft a good story. She is a promising new author and I welcome her here today.
When she asked if I’d like to review her first novel, I was happy to oblige and to invite her to be the first guest on this new blog series, where I’ll be interviewing new authors and reviewing their books. I’m pleased to have her as my guest for this first segment.
So let’s learn a little more about Julie, and then we’ll get into the interview.
About the Author
Julie Jones is an award-winning writer from northeast Oklahoma and author of the Legend of Ginny Sutton, a weird western series debuting in June 2024 with the first book titled Blood Follows Blood.In May 2020, she won the Best Horror Story award from the Oklahoma Writers Federation for Camelot, a chilling ghost story set in the once-impressive and now demolished Camelot Hotel in Tulsa, OK. Julie’s short stories can be found in anthologies published by WordCrafter Press and WordFire Press, as well as her own collection Chain Reaction available on Amazon.
Interview
Hi Julie. I am thrilled to have you as my guest today. Thank you for agreeing to chat with me.
Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your author journey to this point.
I’ve been fascinated with reading and storytelling as long as I can remember. I wrote poems and stories as a child and loved thinking up my own Weird Al-style parodies of favorite songs. In high school I was an accomplished student journalist and did well in creative writing and English classes throughout my education. Once my kids reached the age they no longer needed me quite as much, I wondered if I still had any chops. I found a short-term creative writing class at my local technology center and loved it so much I attended two more times. The third class resulted in a long-term writing group, and we published three books together. I learned a lot from that talented group and that’s where I met my editor, Aarika Copeland. In 2020 I entered the Oklahoma Writers Federation short story contest and won the horror category. The honor gave me a fresh boost and I decided to pursue writing even more seriously. Since then, I’ve attended the Superstars Writing Seminar in Colorado Springs three times and had several short stories published. Now I’ve got a novel series of my own!
You’ created a strong female protagonist who is believable and relatable. How wàs the character of Ginny developed?
In early 2022 I stumbled across an open anthology call for weird western stories. The description tickled my fancy and some brainstorming birthed Ginny Sutton. The story was ultimately rejected, but Ginny wouldn’t let me alone. She insisted on spinning yarns about her dead brother-in-law and sharing her heartbreaking backstory. I recognized the spark of true inspiration and began writing down all of Ginny’s adventures. Along the way I tried to put not only my best, but also the broken parts of myself into the story. Some readers will identify most with Ginny’s brokenness and flaws, while some will identify with her strength and determination. Both are valid. Ginny is me, and my mother, and my best friends, and every strong, capable woman I’ve ever known. By the way, the original short story is now chapter four of Blood Follows Blood.
You’ve written a kind of genre mash-up. I love that. Did you chose the genre or did the story dictate it? Why weird western?
It makes more sense to me now than it did when I decided to do it, as odd as that sounds. At the time it just struck me as a lot of fun, so I bought popular books in the genre and read them, then read their reviews. The insights were valuable, but the main thing I figured out was that I needed to do it my way. That meant throwing everything I love into the pot, stirring it all together, and hopefully serving a delicious, satisfying story to my reader. Setting it in the old West made perfect sense once I considered that all my favorite stories, books, songs, and movies feature characters who are self-reliant, personally responsible, capable, mostly moral, and believe in justice. The West encapsulates all those ideals, and to me it made sense to take the quintessential American mythos and marry it with everything that has shaped me as a person.
In your bio, you claim that your fiction is on the weird and creepy side. With your stories in two WordCrafter anthologies, I can verify the truth in that. You’re an average Jane, or maybe an average Julie, but you write all these strange stories. Where do your story ideas come from?
On paper I’m more boring than drying paint but I’ve always loved the weird and macabre, the fantastical and futuristic. I grew up in a town of less than 1,500 people before the internet existed, so books were my escape. I don’t know how many of my classmates spent their summers on the Ringworld with Louis Wu and His Motley Crew or fled Emond’s Field with the Dragon Reborn, but I did. I suppose slice-of-life stories or standard fiction doesn’t appeal to me as much because I live in those worlds already. Take me somewhere impossible to ride along with incredible people doing amazing things. That’s what I want to read.
This tale begins with the story already in motion. Instead of giving us background or introducing the character, you just slam us right into an action scene, then fill us in on the rest as the story unfolds with little exposition, works for this story quite well. But I have to ask, how did you decide that that was where your story needed to begin?
I once received the advice, “In late, out early.” Meaning, don’t bore the reader with things like Ginny walking across the high desert lugging her saddlebags and worrying about water. Start with the inciting action and backfill, then end the story when it’s over, not five pages of exposition later. That piece of advice dovetailed nicely with my journalism training where I first learned the importance of snappy introductory sentences and paragraphs that hook the reader. I decided to lean into the classic pulp novel feel with this series and structure each chapter like its own episode. I wasn’t sure if it would work at first, but feedback has been positive. There’s a lot of action and Ginny endures quite a bit, so I wanted to give readers plenty of points along the way where they could break from the story if they wanted or binge if it was just too compelling to stop. But each chapter purposely has my twist on the classic pulp episodic feel.
What was the best part of writing this Blood Follows Blood? Why?
Discovering the story along the way and brainstorming creative ways to connect the events was by far my favorite part. I also crammed so many hidden easter eggs into this book (and its sequels) that I’ve now forgotten them all. Some are obscure and only other fans of that particular thing will recognize it, and some are just for me that nobody knows, but they were all fun to include. I love every weird thing in this book, and figuring out how to connect it all together was one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever done.
What was the most difficult part of the book to write? Why?
Editing was tough, and I have to give recognition to Aarika here. I tend to write blunt-force style and things like emotional cues and sensory details run sparse. She did a lot to highlight where I needed to add those things and challenged my thinking on some of Ginny’s desires and motivations. At one point I realized time and distances weren’t working out and had to fix that, but because everything in this book is so interconnected, it was a job to make sure I caught all the ripples downstream of every change.
What is the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever been given?
This is tough because I’ve been honored to meet and visit with many incredible authors. I wish I could remember who told me “In late, out early” but I don’t. The very best thing a writer can do is finish the story. All the other advice that’s given to authors can be addressed once the first draft is done, but if someone is new to the craft, just finish the story. And one more thing, why is the most important question you can ask yourself about your story and your characters. Why was Ginny out in the high desert? Why did Jim’s corpse walk into her camp? Why does she hate him so much? Stories are built on this word.
It’s been a pleasure to have you as my guest today. Please tell readers where they can find out more about you and about Blood Follows Blood: The Legend of Ginny Sutton.
Thanks so much for your time! I’d love for everyone to follow me on Facebook and/or Instagram, and over on my website is a signup form for my monthly newsletter. Readers will want to definitely check it out, as subscribers get early news, chances at secret giveaways, and every newsletter ends with a picture of my dog!
https://www.facebook.com/JulieJonesWriter/
https://www.instagram.com/jjoneswriter
About Blood Follows Blood
How many times does a woman have to kill the same outlaw?
Broken and alone, Ginny Sutton roams the West. After hunting down and killing Jim Puckett—her former brother-in-law and notorious leader of the Mad Dogs gang—Ginny believes justice has finally been served. Until he walks into camp hellbent on claiming her soul.Plunged into a waking nightmare of possessed posses, thirsty vampires, stubborn corpses, and every other manner of supernatural evil her enemies can raise against her, Ginny is forced to embrace one universal truth:
HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY
All she wants is peace. But the fates have other plans for her, and more than ever her survival depends on grit, wit, and an open heart.Will Ginny survive her bloody path to absolution?
Saddle up for a wild ride into the weird west where the myths are real and body count matters!
My Review
Blood Follows Blood: The Legend of Ginny, by Julie Jones is a captivating weird western that will keep you thinking, “What else could possibly happen?” And, “How much can one girl take?”
This story has so much nonstop action that it makes the reader tired, but Ginny Sutton takes it all in stride. I guess when you live in a world where nothing stays dead, battling supernatural beings wouldn’t make you bat an eye, and deals with the devil would come as no surprise.
For five long years Ginny Sutton had been is a woman haunted by her past and out for revenge, chasing Jim Puckett half-way over the mountains and back. When she finally decided to give it up and go back home to Oklahoma, she caught up with him and chased him some more, hunting him down like the mangey dog he was. But now, Jim won’t stay dead, and the devil’s got a price on her head.
I was impressed with the craftsmanship of this debut novel. Jones has done her research, setting the perfect tone for the tale, with a strong female protagonist I couldn’t help but like.
A delightfully dark, weird western tale that you won’t want to put down. “Bravo!” to Miss Jones. I give Blood Follows Blood five quills.
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If you are an author releasing a debut novel, and you’d like to be a guest on “Chatting with New Blood”, please drop me a line at kayebooth@yahoo.com.
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This segment of “Chatting with New Blood” is sponsored by The D.I.Y. Author and WordCrafter Press.
Being an author involves not only writing, but often, the publishing and marketing of the book.
In this writer’s reference guide, multi-genre author and independent publisher, Kaye Lynne Booth shares her knowledge and experiences and the tools, books, references and sites to help you learn the business of being an author.
Topics Include:
Becoming Prolific
Writing Tools
Outlining
Making Quality a Priority
Publishing Models & Trends
Marketing Your Book
Book Covers & Blurbs
Book Events—In Person & Virtual
And more…
Get your copy today: https://books2read.com/The-DIY-Author
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Join us for a Midnight Roost
Posted: October 10, 2023 Filed under: Anthology, Blog Tour, Book Promotion, Book Release, Books, Dark Fantasy, Dark Humor, Fairy Tales, Fiction, Horror, Mythology and Legend, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Stories, WordCrafter Press | Tags: Anthology, Book Release, C.R. Johansson, Chris Barili, Christa Planko, Dark fiction, Denise Aparo, DL Mullan, Isabel Grey, Joseph Carrabis, Julie Jones, Kaye Lynne Booth, Keith J. Hoskins, M J Mallon, Michaele Jordan, Midnight Roost, Patty Fletcher, Paul Kane, Rebecca M. Senese, Robert Kostanczuk, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, Sonia Pipkin, WordCrafter Press, Writing to be Read, Zack Ellafy 10 Comments
It’s coming! Midnight Roost: Weird and Creepy Stories to be released October 17, 2023 and is available for pre-order now!
About the Midnight Roost
20 authors bring your nightmares to life in 23 stories of ghosts, paranormal phenomenon, and the horror from the dark crevasses of their minds. Stories of stalkers, both human and supernatural, possession and occult rituals, alien visitations of the strange kind, and ghostly tales that will give you goosebumps. These are the tales that will make you fear the dark. Read them at the Midnight Roost… if you dare.
Preorder Link: https://books2read.com/u/318L0l
The Contributing Authors
- Zack Ellafy – “House on the Plains”
- Chris Barili – “Shaken”
- Joseph Carrabis – “The Beach”, “Blood Magic”, and “Binky”
- DL Mullan – “Mangled”
- Christa Planko – “The Easterville Glass Ghost”
- Paul Kane – “The White Lady”
- Sonia Pipkin – “Once Upon a Time”
- C.R. Johansson – “She Shed Galleria”
- Roberta Eaton Cheadle – “The Behemoth”
- Patty Fletcher – “Casualties of War”
- Keith J. Hoskins – “Teddy”
- Denise Aparo – “The Pines”
- Julie Jones – “Night of Terror”
- Isabel Grey – “Rabbits Can’t See Pink Firework” and “Red Door House” (Winning story in 2023 WordCrafter Short Fiction Contest
- Rebecca M. Senese – “Take Two”
- Mario Acevedo – “Immediate Intervention”
- Kaye Lynne Booth – “Melina”
- Michaele Jordan – “Afterward”
- Robert Kostanczuk – “A Visitor Comes to the Window”
- M J Mallon – “The Cull”
Upcoming Book Blog Tour
To celebrate the release of this wonderfully weird and creepy anthology, join us for the WordCrafter Midnight Roost Book Blog Tour October 16-23, starting right here on Writing to be Read. Meet the contributing authors, find out about the inspirations behind the stories, read excerpts, meet the characters, listen to readings from the stories, and get chances to win a free digital copy of Midnight Roost at each stop.
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Want exclusive content? Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. She won’t flood your inbox, she NEVER sells her list, and you might get a freebie occasionally. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, just for joining.
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Writer’s Corner: Great Beginnings
Posted: December 19, 2022 Filed under: Anthology, Beginnings, Books, Excerpt, Fiction, Short Fiction, Stories, WordCrafter Press, Writer's Corner, Writing | Tags: Excerpts, Julie Jones, Kaye Lynne Booth, Leah Cutter, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, Story beginnings, Visions, Writer's Corner, Writing to be Read 2 Comments
Some opening lines are so well known as that the story can be identified just by them and nothing more.
- “Call me Ishmeal.” – Herman Melville, Moby Dick, 1851
- “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859
- “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” – George Orwell, 1984, 1949
Memorable opening lines like these are strokes of brilliance on the part of the authors, perhaps with a little luck and a bit of literary magic mixed in. But for the common author, the trick is to find the best opening possible, especially with the growing numbers of books and authors that are out there competing for readers. We need to find words that will make our work shine above the rest, words that will catch readers attention and draw them into the story, words that will be unique and memorable.
The beginning of a story can serve many purposes, only one of which is giving us a place to start. The opening sentences of paragraphs also need to draw readers’ interest, stirring questions that will make them want to read further, but they can also introduce the characters or offer a senseof place and time with vivid descriptions of setting. All my life I’ve heard about how important the opening lines of a story are, but it never really took root until I compiled five short fiction anthologies over the past two years.
My regular readers will remember that I sat on the editorial team for the Gilded Glass anthology and compiled a volume of Weird Tales to earn my M.A. in publishing. For new readers, who don’t know the story, we had over 600 submissions to comb through for Gilded Glass, and toward the end of the initial readings, if the beginning didn’t grab me right away, it was gone. There were just too many submissions to waste time on ones that I couldn’t engage with from the very beginning. This was rather painful for me, believe it or not, because I knew there were probably some good stories in there that just needed to be reworked a bit to become gems, and I didn’t have the time, or energy to find them.
On the other side of things, there were so many really good stories submitted that there was no way we could include them all, so many of the stories I truly loved didn’t make it into the anthology, and I felt it was a shame to have to turn them all away, so I kept a list of stories that I had fallen in love with, and after the final selection for Gilded Glass were made, I invited each author to have their stories included in a WordCrafter Press anthology. Not all of the authors accepted my offer, but enough did that I had material for three anthologies, and Once Upon an Ever After, Refracted Reflections, and the Visions anthologies were born.
Although I’ve strayed a bit in telling you all this, my point was that many of the stories included in those three anthologies got there because they had beginnings that were good enough to make me continue reading. Let me share with you three of my favorite story beginnings from the Visions anthology.
“I followed the two men down the beach for over an hour before I realized they were kidnapping me. I noticed howm far we’d strayed when the sun touched its reflection on the Carribean horizon, forming a perfect figure eight that shot rays of gold in all directions. The failing light and my primitive camera meant an end to the day’s photo shoot, so I decided to let them take me.
Julie Jones – “Tourist Trap”
“Tourist Trap” is one of my favorites because it not only does a great job of giving me a sense of place with its setting description, but also leaves me with several questions, which now must be answered because my curiosity has been picqued. The nonchallant delivery of the words gives the impression that our character is not concerned by what most people would consider to be unusual, and maybe even alarming, circumstances. Why? Come on. Be honest. Now that you’ve read the above paragraph, don’t you just need to read more?
“He came toward her. His body moved lithely and confidentely, muscles rippling under tight-fitting jeans and white T-shirt. Thick, black hair covered his well-shaped head with its tawny skin and lightly stubbled jaw.
She peeped at his eyes. Those mysterious eyes she’d heard about. Her stomach dropped, lips numbed, and a strange ringing started in her ears.His eyes shone amber in the late afternon sun, like a predator before the kill. Even if she hadn’t known who and what he was, those awful eyes with their many sides like a diamond, would have filled her with terror.”
Roberta Eaton Cheadle – “The Bite”
This visceral opening comes from the winning story from the 2022 WordCrafter Short Fiction Contest, “The Bite”, which is feaatured in the anthology. It sets the tone for the story, while offering hints about the characters, and stirring up just enough questions to make readers want to know more. Cheadle describes some very unusual eyes, and hints that this character is more than what he appears to be here. Who is this guy?
“I was staring out across the darkness of space, ignoring my hunger and isolation, when an alarm blared, startling me out of my meditations. I pulled my thoughts from where they’d wandered, sinking once again into my real-time brain, just as I pulled in my two-dozen tentacles in toward my body. Instead of presenting a sprawling mass, I was now a streamlined bullet.”
Leah Cutter – “The Survivor”
The opening for “The Survivor” offers up a lot of information about the setting and situation, and enough about the character to make readers curious, and make them want to read more. Who is this lone character in space? Obviously not a human. Why is the alarm blaring? Has Cutter picqued your curiosity as much as she did mine?
It wouldn’t be fair to use the openings of others without taking a look at one of my own, so let’s take a look at my contribution to the Visions anthology, as well. My story was “If You’re Happy and You Know It”, which was originally published in The Collapsar Directive anthology, by Zombie Pirates Publishing in 2017. Give it a look and see if you think I did my job well with this opening.
“The way everyone was acting, you’d think it was a crime to be happy. And looking back, maybe it was, or at least, it might as well have been.
I think it started on a Saturday, or maybe a Sunday, so no one really noticed at first, including me. Everyone had recieved their regular allotment of S-Dopa for the weekend, so if they noticed anything, they would have assumed I’d just recieved a double dose, which didn’t happen often, but it did happen. On Monday however, when I sang along with the radio which ws always playing in the background at the computer factory as we slaved away everyday, the others gave me sidelong glances, as if, perhaps, I’d lost my mind.”
Kaye Lynne Booth – “If You’re Happy and You Know It”
You can hear an audio excerpt from this story here: https://youtu.be/2X-7XiL3uHg or you can purchase a copy of Visions here: https://books2read.com/u/49Lk28
Which beginnings make YOU want to keep reading? I invite you to share your favorite beginning in the comments below. It will make it more of a conversation, (as Joanna Penn says).
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For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.
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Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, as a sampling of her works just for joining.
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Julie Jones and “Tourist Trap”in Visions
Posted: October 9, 2022 Filed under: Anthology, Book Promotion, Book Release, Books, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Short Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Stories, WordCrafter Press | Tags: Anthology, Julie Jones, Science Fiction, Visions, WordCrafter Press Leave a comment
https://josephcarrabis.com/2022/10/09/julie-joness-tourist-trap-now-in-visions-anthology/
Thanks to contributing author Joseph Carrabis giving us a taste of the stories in the new Visions anthology from WordCrafter Press. Follow the link to learn more.
Preorder Now:https://books2read.com/u/49Lk28
