Hi friends, family and loved ones!

 I truly hope you are all in good health both physically and emotionally. These are unprecedented times and I don’t even know how to write this without sounding like the CEO of a company. “We here at Jake’s apartment just want you know we are taking every precaution and the safety and well-being being of our readers is of the utmost importance.” I mean that’s all true and I actually enjoy reading those weird emails, but they just feel impersonal and the last thing I want is to come off impersonal right now. Because this book, the campaign and your support is as personal as it gets for me. I’m thankful I have the opportunity to write and the investment of others to fuel my writing and persistence to complete this project. So here’s the update.

After working and revising based on the last round of notes, I just sent off my fourth draft to my wonderful, talented, and endlessly patient editor,  Sarah. Fingers crossed this will be the last round of big edits and we’ll enter the next stage of design and HOLY SHIT CAN YOU BELIEVE IT, PUBLI-FUCKIN-CATION!

And while I would love to say that the book will arrive in time to keep you company in quarantine, let’s hope we all get out of our houses first and the book can sit on your shelf, or be deposited in one of those free library boxes affluent neighborhoods have. 

If you’re antsy and think you can’t possibly wait another day, let me know.  Maybe I can send you a little sampler of an unapproved selection.

THANK YOU ALL for your kindness and support. I am indebted to you and if you want to get a face time coffee, please hit me up. Wishing you the very best during these difficult times,

Jake

Hey there,

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? The reason I’ve been quiet is because I didn’t have much to say and I didn’t want to bother you. That being said, it doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. Aside from life doing it’s thing and my full time job, I have been doing some significant amount of writing, which is what I suspect you really want to know about.

Let’s get to it.

(A God in the Shed: Part II)

The bulk of my time has been taken up by work on the sequel to A God in the Shed, titled : Song of the Sandman.

Writing, editing and rewriting this sequel has been one of the most depressing and difficult creative journey of my life. I very nearly quit writing entirely at one point, and writing is one of those things that brings me the most joy in life.

But the storm has been weathered. The book is on the verge of completion. We have a date to go to copy editing, which means a solid release date isn’t far behind. While I apologize for the delays in getting this book to you, I hope the wait will have been worth it.

I do have a little something to help tide you over until Song of the Sandman hits shelves.

Achewillow is a side project I’ve been working on with my friend Amy Frost (winner of the first season of America’s Next Top Podcaster). It’s a ‘cozy’ horror story that isn’t as intense as A God in the Shed, but has a much weirder background setting. I wrote the story, so you can expect some strange characters, old gods and bizarre magics. It’s also codeveloped with Amy who brings a layer of cooking and coffee to the story. Also, she narrates it, which really elevates whatever I put on the page.

Achewillow takes the shape of a storytelling podcast, the first season of which spans 15 half-hour episode. It’s essentially a free audiobook. It tells the story of Miriam DuFour, a young adult who’s life is spiralling into the gutter until she receives a strange envelope. In it, Miriam discovers that she’s inherited a coffee shop from a relative she didn’t know she had in a town she didn’t know existed: Achewillow. From there, she is drawn into a world of subtle magic, baking, demons, coffee and the occasional raccoon.

I’m really proud of Achewillow and I hope you listen and enjoy it. This is the first of a few projects I have in mind to make sure you and I, dear reader, don’t lose touch for so long again. Of course, the more successful Achewillow is, the easier it becomes for me to put things like this together. So, if you do like our little podcast, consider rating it on iTunes, or leaving a review. I can’t overstate how much impact this has on the success of such a project.

The last time I put Arch-Android, the sequel to The Life Engineered, back on the shelf, I was done with a second, mostly satisfying draft. Once Song of the Sandman is out of my hands, I’ll be doing a third draft which will be sent to beta readers. From that point on, we’ll be in good shape to get this book into your hands.

The Life Engineered has always had a special place in my heart and I’m very eager to bring you the next chapter in that story. 

That’s it for now. I apologize again for the long silence. I didn’t feel like had much to say that was worth your time, but that’s about to change.

Cheers and much gratitude,

J-F.

“Where’s my book?”

I still hear the question frequently, though less than last year, which was less than the year before. Will own the fact that I held a mistaken belief that my earlier drafts had more potential for publishing than they did. Also, I can write copious amounts but figuring that minimum 75% of that is drivel, it’s going to take a lot more copious drivel to get the job done. The good news is as an amateur writer, I can see my writing muscle getting…wait for it…stronger. Ha! what did you think I was going to say?

Saw a comment on FB from a friend, another writer, which I found interesting. We seem to have the opposite challenge about writing. I need to write everyday, obsessively, even just a little if possible, but have a demanding day job and other obligations that get in my way. I’ve been writing and rewriting this one project for close to 20 years now (along with a few others) and believe I’m finally learning how to tell the story. We’ll see how that works out for me—and for you my patient supporters—but I don’t think I’ll stop writing until I’m dead. It’s my drug.

I admit the quiet isolation of sheltering in place and social distancing is heavenly for an introverted extrovert who’s re-writing a novel for the umpteenth time. Good news is a solid draft for the 1st Act has been written and compiled. Now engaged in outlining Act 2. The end is a moving target which makes it fun. The process feels like yoga. Surrender, breath and wherever you are is where you are. I promise there will be a book at the end of this process, death be damned.

Here’s some more good news: Ozark Season 3 starts next Friday, March 27th. Stay safe and mind your manners. Coronageddon is upon us. If you’re a writer, make the most of it. Just effing write. And remember to always cough into your elbow. *hack, hack*

Hello, everyone who is following my debut novel The Drifter and the Dragon. I have finished implementing the feedback from my editors and have now uploaded the complete (semi) final draft. I plan to do one more read-through for fine-tuning and to ensure that the changes I made are internally consistent throughout the novel. Please feel free to give any feedback you have, positive or negative. I only ask that it be constructive. Once the last read-through is completed, I plan to submit The Drifter and the Dragon for publication, and you will hopefully see it on bookshelves in the near future. Thank you for reading!

To all; thanks for your support. Pre-orders now at 510—past the 2/3 mark. THANK YOU!!!!

Hey everyone,

I fully expect all of you to be reading this from your throne of toilet paper and canned goods, scrolling through this update with fingers slick with Purell.

While the world is losing its mind, I wanted to share that I recently received Round 2 of editorial feedback much quicker than expected. In short, things are moving in the right direction! It seems that Sarah, my editor, was overall pleased with the new draft. Her annotated copy of this draft had 196 margin notes, feedback, and comments, while the first one had 545. It’s a decrease that I’m incredibly pleased with. It means that while there is still work to be done, there’s considerably less of it.

Some of the “big picture” things I’ll be working on in this next draft are further strengthening characters and the relationships between them, as well as strengthening the dramatic tension in the novel’s climax (since more excitement is never a bad thing). Some of the smaller, easier stuff this time around includes fixing logical and continuity errors, eliminating run-on sentences, fixing confusing/”odd” sentences and phrasing, and improving the pace by removing repetitive narration and unnecessary scenes.

My work announced that it’ll be closed for the next two weeks, so receiving this most recent round of editorial feedback couldn’t have been timed more perfectly, as I’ll have a nice chunk of time to work on (and maybe even finish) the new draft. The last one took about a month to complete, so I’m anticipating to finish this one a little earlier. When it’s done and submitted, I’ll be sure to let you know. Hopefully the world will still be standing by then—you know, no rivers of blood or swarms of locusts like the media seems to think is on the horizon. Until then, try not to lick any doorknobs. 

Thanks again for your continued support! 

Ricky