The 500 Fan Challenge

By a show of hands, who likes winning free stuff? You do? And you? Wow, that makes...everybody! Now I'll let you in on a little secret--I like winning things, too. Which is why I'm giving away free stuff to lovely people like you who have taken the time to "like" my Facebook page and support me in this harebrained endeavor called Being An Author.

"What kind of free stuff are you giving away?" you may ask.

THIS stuff.

That's right. One lucky winner will received a printed, hand-bound copy of my Christian speculative fiction story Vapors, a paperback copy of my suspense novel The Land Beyond the Portal, and three bookmarks, though not necessarily the ones shown in the picture.

Now let me tell you about that copy of Vapors. See this?

I hand-stitched that bad boy. I am not a sewing person, so my stitches tend to be a tad crooked. It took me a few nerve-racking hours to attach the blasted thing to the printout of the story and the cover got a little dinged-up in the act, but overall I think it looks okay. It was made with love, and I pray that it will be loved in turn by one of you.

Which brings us to...

The 500 Fan Challenge Contest Rules 

In order to win, you must complete these simple steps:

1. "Like" the page www.facebook.com/jsbaileywrites

2. Share the page with your tribe of fellow bookworms. (You know who I mean.) Encourage them to join, and when they do, make sure they post who sent them in a comment on the page timeline. Otherwise, I will have no clue who got them to add the page.

3. Tell these new fans to share the page with THEIR bookworm tribes so they have the chance to win, too. Repeat steps 2 and 3 as often as you'd like.

When 500 people have "liked" the page, I will determine who sent the most new fans and give that diligent soul the aforementioned Free Stuff.

Any questions?

Contest starts...NOW.

The Continuing Saga of Jenn Versus Deer

So I've had this problem of deer coming into my yard and utilizing my plants as a sort of outdoor buffet line. Everything I plant gets eaten. Strawberries? Entire plants gone without a trace. Pine trees? They add those on the side as a garnish. Lately they've taken an interest in one of my apple trees, which is maybe six feet tall at the most. Last month the tree bore many beautiful white blooms which soon either fell off or ended up in some Bambi's stomach. Many leaves replaced the blooms, and one by one, they vanished. At first I thought that insects had done the leaves in, but closer inspection revealed that the entire ends of the branches had been snipped off by a deer's bicuspids. My eyes immediately turned a menacing shade of red, and in a singsong voice I bellowed, "I WILL HAVE VEN-GEAAAAAAAANCE!" Okay, maybe that last bit didn't happen, but you get the idea.

I thought about various ways in which I might get my revenge. I could have taken a mounted deer head and stabbed it onto a stake next to the tree to demonstrate what would happen if others of its kind sought to have a snack. I could have sat in silence behind the house with a 12-gauge shotgun waiting for the intruders to approach. I could have done many things, yet I did none of them, and that is where I made my mistake.

This morning I arose from bed and went into the kitchen, where I opened the blinds over the sink to gaze out upon the glorious new day. My eyes widened when they laid their gaze upon my precious apple tree. Something had snapped its central branch in half, and it dangled lifelessly like a useless limb, hanging on only by a bit of bark. A smaller branch also met the same fate--dangling. Useless. As I consumed my waffles, I brooded. What could I do? The tree would likely die because almost all of its leaves were gone. And I could not, would not, let that happen.

I went outside after the completion of my breakfast and inspected the tree. Yes, I decided, it could be saved. I returned to the house and found a roll of duct tape, which is my repair agent of choice. I cut off small pieces of the tape and secured the severed limbs back into place with the hope that they could grow back together.

Next I brought a shaker of chili powder outside and sprinkled it all over the remaining leaves and in a circle on the ground surrounding the tree. I also found the remnants of a bottle of deer repellant (it consists of garlic and putrefied egg whites) in the garage and sprayed what was left on and around the tree as well.

Now all I can do is sit and wait. With the way my luck goes, chili powder is probably a deer aphrodisiac and I've just made the worst mistake of my life.

Busy, Busy, Busy...

I know, I haven't posted much on here this month. I've been polishing up the manuscript for Rage's Echo, which is more of an epic undertaking than writing the rough draft. I haven't even been reading as often, either, which stinks because there are LOADS of books I want to read and I just don't always have the time to do it.

Anyway, I self published my Christian speculative fiction short story "Vapors" earlier this month, and it is now available only in the Amazon Kindle store. I designed a nifty cover for it:

You like? What I did was tear apart an empty frozen chimichanga box and dumped potting soil on it on my kitchen floor (because I didn't want to put dirt on the floor itself for obvious reasons), and I put one of my favorite necklaces on top to illustrate a scene from the story. Two photo editing programs later, and voila! I finished the cover.

Soon I will be querying agents regarding my work-in-process Rage's Echo. I will keep you updated, of course. :) Thanks for reading!


(Click the link below to see Vapors in the Kindle Store!)
http://www.amazon.com/Vapors-ebook/dp/B007R4A3OA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334629139&sr=8-1

"Sinner's Lament"

Sinner's Lament

By J. S. Bailey

Copyright 2012

I want to talk but no one's here

There's no one close and no one near

And though I walk and breathe I'm dead

From unseen wounds in heart and head.

My soul is gone, and with it, love

The One who cares dwells up above

Or all around, I cannot see

But God, no one will talk to me.

I'm freaking out, I'm losing touch

It's getting all to be too much

To breathe is torture, life is pain

Life's gonna make me go insane.

I'm sinking, slipping, swallowed up

Why would you make me drink this cup

Of poison! Poison! Cyanide!

Nowhere to run, no place to hide!

They're at my heels, they're coming fast

The monsters make me see the past

Of what was good, of what has been

Of what's now gone due to my sin.

I lay down in the grave I dug

I yearn for touch, for kiss, for hug

Yet none of these will I find here

There's no one close and no one near.

Abandoned! Yes, that ugly word

That's what I said and what you heard

My flesh is dying like my soul

As I expire in this hole.

My vision darkens as I die

The sunlight's fading from the sky

The distant tolling of a bell

Announces my descent to hell.

They say that you once died for me

Reach out your hand and you will see

I beg you, weeping, on my knees

Sweet Jesus, Savior, save me please.

The Genesis of Story

"How do you come up with ideas for your stories?"

I'm sure that most, if not all, writers will hear this question in their lifetimes. It is a good question. How do we come up with all those nifty little ideas that eventually turn into short stories or novels or poems?

Every single bit of information that we receive through our senses is, in essence, an idea. A sad song on the radio. A delicious morsel savored at a fancy restaurant downtown. A bit of gossip uttered in a whisper as you walk past an open doorway. The joy of birth, the grief of loss. Every person is bombarded with ideas as soon as he or she awakens, and they will never be in short supply.

An author's job is to extract certain ideas from the constant barrage and combine them into something new. For example, one morning I was skimming through a book about the early Church fathers and martyrs, and I got to wondering what it would be like to meet them in person and see what they had to say about their faith and the time period they had lived in. A few hours later I left to go to my classes over at Northern Kentucky University. I always liked to take the scenic route through the rolling hills of southern Clermont County as opposed to taking the interstate because driving on a winding road through forests and then along the Ohio River seemed so peaceful compared to the alternative. Driving along that route put my mind at ease, and what do minds at ease do? Come up with stories, of course!

The story hit me at some point as I traveled along Locust Corner Road. I knew I wanted to write a short story set in the post-apocalyptic future where humans and other living things could be resurrected through the use of technology so archaeologists could learn more about the past. I jotted down notes about the story when I got home. The story, which I named "Vapors," took me about eight days to write. (I'm currently trying to get it published--I'll keep you posted about that.)

Even non-writers come up with their own stories. Ever heard of dreams? I hope so. Dreams are like stories in that they result from oodles of ideas that combine in our heads and play out in new ways. Some authors even use ideas from their dreams and turn them into stories. Cool, huh? Ideas begetting ideas. The possibilities really are endless.

In conclusion, I suppose it can be said that ideas are the primordial ooze that eventually spawns fully-fleshed characters and the stories they tell. If you want to become a writer, let those ideas simmer. Let them grow. Turn them into something that will entertain or touch or scare.

But most of all, write.

"One Small Jar"

 (Author's note: I wrote this nearly a year ago. Sometimes putting memories into words helps ease the pain, though it is doubtful that the pain will ever truly be gone until I breathe my last.)

One Small Jar

By J. S. Bailey

"Conception came out," he says

(conception? no, no, you're wrong)

then puts it in a jar and leaves.

A jar so small

and lifeless like the tomb it is.

i want to see i want to see my baby

(Why would you want to?)

"Sure," she says

then picks the jar off the counter

like it's nothing

And shows me.

But I cannot see

There's a label in the way

i cannot see!

And just as quickly the jar is gone.

Taken away

Forever.

I never saw her

(Or was it him? I cannot know.)

Oh, Crystal, that gem of my heart,

Where have they taken you?

The flesh may perish

But when a warm breeze rustles the treetops

And the sun peeks its rays through the clouds

I know you are there.

Written March 29, 2011

The Tale of a Pseudo-Pseudonym

There are many reasons that an author may choose to use a pseudonym for his or her writing. Maybe he writes both action-packed Westerns and steamy romance novels and doesn't want to baffle his fans by using the same author name for each genre. Maybe an author's given name is Hcnsiuygewr Ykjbd and wishes to use a more easily pronounceable moniker on his books. Maybe his given name is identical to that of an already-published author or a celebrity. Or maybe he just hates his name. The possibilities are practically endless.

I use a "pseudonym" for another reason altogether. My full name is Jennifer Anne Bailey. Nothing too unusual about that, right? Exactly. Now, I don't mind being named Jennifer. Nobody is ever going to hear my name, wrinkle their nose in disgust, and say, "Why in the blue blazes did her parents name her that?" Jennifers tend to be quite successful in life, if one is to look at Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Hudson, and Jennifer Love Hewitt for examples. We Jennifers are determined to succeed in our areas of expertise. We might even be unstoppable.

The problem is, Jennifers are everywhere. My godmother and namesake is (duh) named Jennifer. At least four of my cousins are named Jennifer. My sister-in-law is named Jennifer. One of my friends is named Jennifer. Three of my husband's cousins married Jennifers. One of my old English teachers is Jennifer. My friend's sister is named Jennifer. One of my mom's cousins married a Jennifer, too. Counting me, that is a whopping 14 Jennifers. Crazy, huh?

Not only are there quadrillions of Jennifers claiming the Earth as their own; there are also nearly as many Jennifer Baileys. Okay, maybe there are only about 4,000 Jennifer Baileys in the United States, but that's still waaaaay too many for my taste. What if another Jennifer Bailey became a published author, too? What would I do? Send her scathing emails urging her to change her name? I'm too professional to resort to such tactics. Besides, it's mean.

I could, however, use my initials instead. C. S. Lewis did it. J. K. Rowling did it. G. K. Chesterton did it, too. So why can't I?

Because J. A. Bailey sounds weird. Go ahead, say it aloud. Jay-ay-baylee. Jay-ay-bay. Blech. Nope. Won't do it. Plus, my initials spell "jab." Don't blame my parents; they aren't the ones who told me to marry a guy whose last name starts with B.

The solution? My maiden name is Schmid. S is a nice letter, and J. S. Bailey has a nice ring to it. It rolls off the tongue. Jayessbaylee. Beautiful. People have begun referring to me as "Jayess." My husband alternates between calling me "Jennifer Schmid-Bailey" as if I were a British dame and "Johann Sebastian" in homage to my homeboy J. S. Bach. I've even periodically forgotten that my middle name is Anne.

In conclusion, I have to say that I truly enjoy being called J. S. Bailey. It's not too common but not too unusual either, and I finally feel that I have my own identity as an author, which is just pretty darn cool.

Bailey out.