New Weekly Feature

I'm starting a new weekly feature here to generate more content and get me writing more: Jon James Writes Whatever Shit You Come Up With.

Taking suggestions for the first installment, which will probably be posted Saturday.

I'll write a flash fiction short story of whatever suggestion gets the most likes/votes between here and Facebook at whatever point I feel like writing. I choose on ties. I reserve the right to veto, but there's not much chance that you are going to come up with anything much worse than what I've already posted here.

Comment suggestions or votes below.

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Creatures of Askrlim

I've started fleshing out what would become my "Monster Manual" if The Tenth Rune were an RPG. I've posted the page over here, where I will be keeping it updated as I develop the world further, but I often find when writing that it helps to have a pool of cultures and creatures to reference. In stories set on present-day Earth that is all set already, but when you decide you need to make up a whole cosmos like I did this time, a bestiary can be handy!

On a similar note, have any of you noticed how hard it is to come up with magical creatures for a fantasy setting? Fantastical creatures tend to be either amalgams of mundane creatures (I'm looking at you, manticore, hippogriff, sphinx and chimera) or else big versions of everyday animals (giant spiders? dire wolves? oversized ladybugs?) Do any of you have any useful advice or resources for creating original monsters?

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The Tenth Rune and Faceless

If you've been to my Projects page, you may have noticed a novel-in-progress with the unfortunately bland title of Flight of the Valkyrie. I've decided to change the (working) title of that one to The Tenth Rune, which I believe to be more fitting to the story.

I've also posted a new short story that may or may not be part of that novel, but tells the origin of the female Loki-equivalent deity in the pantheon: Faceless. Go on and give it a read!

Hopefully I'll add some more of the cosmogony of Askrlim on here as I develop it further. I've done a lot of re-imagining of the Norse myth that the story draws from, and only a limited amount can fit in the story so I think this would be a neat place to display it.

I've also got a few other short stories in the works set on Askrlim, but I can't post them here since I've got some places in mind I'd like to submit them to. I found a call for anthology submissions at World Weaver Press for a few anthologies that I think would suit this world well. I'll keep you filled in on them as I go.

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Satan!

Here we belong, Fighting to survive,
In a world with the darkest powers,
And here we are, We're the princes of the universe

"I love Satan!" I told artist Kelley Williams when he showed my the first colors from the forthcoming comic in the Killer Queen Anthology.

As you can see, I was referring not to a newfound adoration for the Dark Lord, but rather to Kelley's fantastic realization of the Lord of Lies. Fear not, church friends, I still denounce Satan and all his works. Except those in dealing with Space Whales. But we will have to wait a few more months before we get the deets on that conflict!

In the mean time, prime yourself with this:

New Story Up!

Happy Friday everyone!

I've posted a new short story over on the Projects page. Here's the direct link.

This is an unusual story. The only way I see it ever seeing print is in one of those books that have a bunch of stories in the same universe with my "novel"(?)-in-progress Do Gyndroids Dream of Electric Dicks?, formerly known as Dreammaker. (There's something magical about the word dicks in italics. Especially in serif fonts... Dicks.)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy. It was an interesting experience.

Depending how busy work is, maybe I'll make these Friday short story posts a thing.

Then again, maybe I'll resume posting DGDoED again. I've got a few chapters written that I never got around to posting. Ideally one day I'll get the whole thing mirrored on this site as well to avoid Tumblr's crappy interface. Aaaand that's how a simple notification turns into a ramble. Jon James out.

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Killer Queen

I am immortal, I have inside me blood of kings,
I have no rival, No man can be my equal,
Take me to the future of your world,

I am pleased to announce that a short comic I wrote will be appearing in Red Stylo Media's Killer Queen Anthology!

I won't give you too many details yet, but it's inspired by the song Princes of the Universe. The artist will be the talented Kelly Williams, and here's a sneak peak from the comic:

Be sure to follow the anthology at Red Stylo's site and the Killer Queen Anthology Facebook page. And of course I'll let you know on here when there's more to tell!

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Hetero, Christian Cis-Male Writer Seeking Critical Readers

Let me state first that this is not intended to be a whiny, woe-is-me rant about how anti-oppressive movements stifle writers' freedom of speech. That is bullshit, and if this comes out sounding like that, it's unintended and exactly what I'm writing this about.

The fact is, I'm privileged. I used to wear facial piercings and dreadlocks and women's clothes in an attempt to separate myself from that privilege, but the mere fact that I can describe that in the past tense demonstrates the difference between it and true disadvantage. Short of a facial tattoo, there is nothing I could do to effectively make myself part of an oppressed group (and even then, having a "white-sounding" name is an advantage in anything not face-to-face, and being hetero means I'll never have to fear holding hands with my spouse.)

As a Christian, and a human capable of empathy, my role in life is to demonstrate love to my fellow creatures. I'm not always great at it, but it's something I'm working on. And as a privileged Christian, I am called to demonstrate love to the oppressed.

From my position of advantage, it isn't always easy to see when I am taking part in oppression rather than liberation. That's why I'd like to open up this invitation to request of my readers: If you ever spot this in my writing, please, tell me. I want my work to be a liberating form of art, and if I make an off color joke or talk about dicks too often, and it is anything other than liberating for any group, I want to fix it. If I am failing the Bechdel Test or just being ethno-, Ameri-, hetero-, theo-, or chrono-centric, that's truly not who I want to be.

And lastly, if you point out to me that I am falling into any of the trappings of my privilege, and I decide to be an asshole about it and start getting all defensive and explaining to you how it's not oppressive and you just need to take it in context, please link me back to this post.

The following message is for future asshole me:
Stop being a hypocrite you moron! What you're doing is oppression! Don't make me a liar! Oh, and while you're here, when do we get robot eyes?


This post has been brought to you by Orson Scott Card's recent hateful drivel, because he tells the kind of stories I want to tell, but he is not the kind of writer I want to be.

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