Author: jwjudge (page 3 of 36)

At 1:00am, my wife and I wake up to some kind ruckus outside our window. There are bumping noises and some other things we couldn’t identify. We check the littles’ rooms to make sure they’re squared away.

We have some feral cats in the neighborhood. I told my wife I thought it was the cats playing with the water hose roll-up contraption. We look out all the windows that give us a view into the back yard, but don’t see any cats. The noises subside.

The absence of noise isn’t very reassuring. Whether it’s a person or an animal, just because they’re quiet doesn’t mean their gone.

I open the gun safe and get out my pistol. I have to check the perimeter of the house. My wife asks, “Are you scared?”

I say, “I’m not very comfortable.” It was an understatement. Wish my flashlight and handgun ready, I open the front door and slip out as quietly as I can. Fortunately, the moon is bright enough that I don’t need to use the flashlight and can remain stealthy.

By the time I’m halfway around the front of the house, I realize this is almost exactly how the first few chapters of my debut novel Vulcan Rising opened (obligatory link). Fortunately for me, I didn’t discover anyone kidnapping a baby pegasus.

In fact, I don’t see anything. No cats playing and no people lurking. The only other option is that something or someone is in the basement garage, part of which is below our bedroom. I have to pluck up considerably more courage to go into the basement.

There are many more dark crooks and hidey places in the confines of the basement. Not to mention how vulnerable to anything that’s down there when you descend the stairs. But I find nothing and no one in the basement either. Both a relief and a frustration.

I lay back down in the bed, but sleep is far away. I read in the 3rd book in The Expanse for a long time. Eventually, I get sleepy again and set the book aside.

The ruckus commences again at 3:00am. I climb out of bed and turn on the outside floodlights. The noises stop.

I lay back down, wishing the night were over already. I stay awake until sometime after 3:30. I’ve only just fallen back asleep when start up again. By now I’ve determined that whatever it is, it’s definitely in the basement. I know I’m done sleeping since it’s 4:00.

The next 2 1/2 hours pass slowly as I work on book-related things for the upcoming launch of Casual Business with Fairies (another link) and wait for the rest of the house to wake up. Once everyone else is awake, I venture down to the basement again. This time, things are different.

Things are upended and scattered around. But most telling is a giant pile of cat scat sitting in one of the old car seats that we’ve never done anything with. I never see the cat, but I open the basement doors so he can skedaddle. Hoping for a better sleep session tonight.

I never know where the inspiration for stories is going to come from. My debut novel, Vulcan Rising (link), arose out of a really strange dream and a couple of peculiar interactions with my five year old. One of my short stories, “The Murder Tree” (link) opened with a line that I derived from an off-hand remark made by the host of a podcast I was listening to.

But this story had a different path. In the Spring of 2022, I was involved in a conversation with several other parents about the tooth fairy and how everyone handles it. The group is rather eclectic, and the responses were diverse. During the discussion, one of parents made a statement about why they don’t participate in the tooth fairy myth: “We don’t do casual business with fairies.”

That sentence lodged itself in my brain, and out of it, this novel was born. But this is not the novel I intended to write.

After I wrote Forging Bonds (link), which completed the first trilogy of The Zauberi Chronicles series, I had planned to switch tracks. There was a horror story I wanted to write, but after outlining it and writing a chapter or two, I found it difficult to engage with. This may be hard to believe, but it was just too grim of a story. The really disconcerting part is that the story is based on a nightmare I woke up from one night.

When the horror story didn’t work out, I started outlining a murder mystery novel … also based on a dream I had. But for whatever reason, the muse wasn’t having it.

Next, I had in mind that I would finish one of the novels I had abandoned before starting Vulcan Rising. But Casual Business with Fairies (link) latched onto me like a spider monkey. Even though I had only the vaguest of ideas for a premise, I began to write. Five thousand words into the story, I still had no idea what it would become, but I kept the faith that I would figure it out. I had been in a similar position with my second novel, Seeking Sanctuary, and I would work my way out of it again.

Casual Business with Fairies surprised me at every turn. Each time I thought I had the story and characters figured out, things went a different direction. It was both exhilarating and frustrating. But in the end, I think it became the book that it was meant to be. Most of all, I hope it’s a story that you enjoy.

Learning from other authors matters. Here are three specific examples of how other writers have had a direct impact on my fourth novel.

1) I’ve given my chapters names (in addition to numbers) because of advice from Lisa M. Lilly Author about drawing readers in from the Table of Contents.

2) I’ve crossed over a character from another series because of my conversation with Kevin Tumlinson on The Write Approach podcast (Ep. 6).

3) And I’ve focused on keeping my chapters shorter — most are between 1200-1500 words — as a result of my conversation with David Ellis about pacing and keeping reader interest. (The Write Approach, Ep. 5).