Greetings, all!
As I’m sitting here, blown away by the continuing influx of readers, it occurs to me that I’ve yet to make a proper introduction. While I definitely prefer to hide behind the fiction, I enjoy seeing the lengthier updates from the other authors that I follow. You all are a great community and I want to be a part of it!
I’d also like to assure you that, despite writing an entire book about death, I’m a generally happy - even occasionally chipper - person. A big fan of laughing into the abyss, as it were. It’s a hell of a lot better than the alternative and, for me, that’s a big part of what Terminus is about. We all face the same questions of mortality, dissatisfaction with our lives, etc, etc, but all of that feels somehow better when we face it together. I’ve made a lot of good friends bonding through sarcasm and shared melancholy and I’d like to think that the characters of Terminus do the same.
By day I trade words for numbers, working as a middle manager at a bank. (Yes, it’s become one of the most vilified industries, but I swear I’m one of the good ones. I’m in fraud prevention! Don’t throw things at me!) My background is music, though. I was a bassist for years, but unlike Sully, my background is primarily orchestral. If it has strings, I can make it do things. But writing lends itself better to being a weird loner and, at this point, I only really play to get out my aggression after a long day at the office. I couldn’t resist grounding this story in music, even tying it to the weird science that powers this world. Obviously, I was also able to pour some of my corporate malaise into Riley, though if I’m really digging into the characters, I’d have to say I’m more like Ben. Prone to indulging fits of brooding, overthinking everything, and engaging in the kind of amateur philosophy that leads to... well, books like Terminus.
Sully is my favorite, though. Yes, we love each of our characters differently, but characters like him have always been just my type. The dichotomy of having both a death wish and a deeply ingrained survival instinct is fascinating to me, as is the freedom that comes when you pass the point of "fuck it." It’s an idea that I’ve come to love more and more as I get older and, despite the fact that he’s staring down the barrel of sixty, I think part of his creation was a reaction to my turning thirty.
I could overanalyze all day, but at this point, the characters have taken on lives of their own. And I’m in no hurry to stop playing in this world. Some of the bits that I like best are the side stories, small tastes of all the varied experiences that could be contained within the Terminus. Even if I feel like I’ve wrapped up these characters in this book (an idea I’m still not entirely committed to), there are more stories to tell. Thanks to this (and a very intoxicated conversation that happened this weekend - hah!), I’ve started sketching out a sequel. Right now, the thought is that it’ll focus on the Children of Remembrance, a scholarly organization that uses the Terminus to preserve as much knowledge as they can, though that idealism never entirely translates in practice. They’ll also have a lot of fallout from the ending of this book to deal with.
Because, in the end, it’s about taking the world back for the living. There’s meant to be a lot of resolve in this darkness. Hopefully, if I’ve done this right, the backdrop of a world obsessed with death will make life, friendship, and humor seem all the more precious.
While I’m indulging in this fit of personal blathering, I want to reiterate again what your support has done for me. This book has been in a largely finished state for a few years now, but after being rejected by traditional publishers and failing to meet the pre-order goal on my first round of funding, I was ready to retire it. I’m still madly in love with the idea, my friends who have read the complete manuscript liked it, but I had started to think that it was too heavy, not something that the general public would want to read. This was going to be one more swing for the fences, once last try before giving up. But every time someone left a comment, or pre-ordered a copy, or even just gave it a follow, it meant SO MUCH. And the CEO Syndicate selecting this book absolutely blew me away. Even the 250 Quill goal seemed huge and far away for a long time, but thanks to you all, it’s seeming more and more attainable. I was ready to roll over and now I’m working on a sequel! That’s thanks to YOU!
So THANK YOU! It means the world to me. If we can make Quill happen, well, I just might keel over and die of happiness. At which point, I hope someone will find a way to summon me back from the dead so I can freak out some more. ;D
Cheers, y’all!
-Jaye
Greetings, all!
As I’m sitting here, blown away by the continuing influx of readers, it occurs to me that I’ve yet to make a proper introduction. While I definitely prefer to hide behind the fiction, I enjoy seeing the lengthier updates from the other authors that I follow. You all are a great community and I want to be a part of it!
I’d also like to assure you that, despite writing an entire book about death, I’m a generally happy - even occasionally chipper - person. A big fan of laughing into the abyss, as it were. It’s a hell of a lot better than the alternative and, for me, that’s a big part of what Terminus is about. We all face the same questions of mortality, dissatisfaction with our lives, etc, etc, but all of that feels somehow better when we face it together. I’ve made a lot of good friends bonding through sarcasm and shared melancholy and I’d like to think that the characters of Terminus do the same.
By day I trade words for numbers, working as a middle manager at a bank. (Yes, it’s become one of the most vilified industries, but I swear I’m one of the good ones. I’m in fraud prevention! Don’t throw things at me!) My background is music, though. I was a bassist for years, but unlike Sully, my background is primarily orchestral. If it has strings, I can make it do things. But writing lends itself better to being a weird loner and, at this point, I only really play to get out my aggression after a long day at the office. I couldn’t resist grounding this story in music, even tying it to the weird science that powers this world. Obviously, I was also able to pour some of my corporate malaise into Riley, though if I’m really digging into the characters, I’d have to say I’m more like Ben. Prone to indulging fits of brooding, overthinking everything, and engaging in the kind of amateur philosophy that leads to... well, books like Terminus.
Sully is my favorite, though. Yes, we love each of our characters differently, but characters like him have always been just my type. The dichotomy of having both a death wish and a deeply ingrained survival instinct is fascinating to me, as is the freedom that comes when you pass the point of "fuck it." It’s an idea that I’ve come to love more and more as I get older and, despite the fact that he’s staring down the barrel of sixty, I think part of his creation was a reaction to my turning thirty.
I could overanalyze all day, but at this point, the characters have taken on lives of their own. And I’m in no hurry to stop playing in this world. Some of the bits that I like best are the side stories, small tastes of all the varied experiences that could be contained within the Terminus. Even if I feel like I’ve wrapped up these characters in this book (an idea I’m still not entirely committed to), there are more stories to tell. Thanks to this (and a very intoxicated conversation that happened this weekend - hah!), I’ve started sketching out a sequel. Right now, the thought is that it’ll focus on the Children of Remembrance, a scholarly organization that uses the Terminus to preserve as much knowledge as they can, though that idealism never entirely translates in practice. They’ll also have a lot of fallout from the ending of this book to deal with.
Because, in the end, it’s about taking the world back for the living. There’s meant to be a lot of resolve in this darkness. Hopefully, if I’ve done this right, the backdrop of a world obsessed with death will make life, friendship, and humor seem all the more precious.
While I’m indulging in this fit of personal blathering, I want to reiterate again what your support has done for me. This book has been in a largely finished state for a few years now, but after being rejected by traditional publishers and failing to meet the pre-order goal on my first round of funding, I was ready to retire it. I’m still madly in love with the idea, my friends who have read the complete manuscript liked it, but I had started to think that it was too heavy, not something that the general public would want to read. This was going to be one more swing for the fences, once last try before giving up. But every time someone left a comment, or pre-ordered a copy, or even just gave it a follow, it meant SO MUCH. And the CEO Syndicate selecting this book absolutely blew me away. Even the 250 Quill goal seemed huge and far away for a long time, but thanks to you all, it’s seeming more and more attainable. I was ready to roll over and now I’m working on a sequel! That’s thanks to YOU!
So THANK YOU! It means the world to me. If we can make Quill happen, well, I just might keel over and die of happiness. At which point, I hope someone will find a way to summon me back from the dead so I can freak out some more. ;D
Cheers, y’all!
-Jaye