Finally!
My debut novel Pandemic-19 (though not my first book) released and is available with major distributors across the globe! Over the last few days, it has been showing up with major bookstores and online retailers everywhere. Scary, and yet it makes me smile with a humble warmth to know all of my hard work in wanting to entertain people and pay forward is coming to fruition.
I did a soft launch release on Amazon to have the ebook version for the holidays. People are now asking when it will be available on other platforms (end of next month tentatively). Then, I released the paperback and hardcover to Amazon while my publishing company, Good Twin Publishing, worked with the printer and global distribution. Presto! Pandemic-19 can be found all over the place!
Great. Awesome. Good for me. What now?
Well, that’s the million dollar question. Isn’t it? The work has just begun!
Pandemic-19 “work” doesn’t just stop. There is marketing efforts, advertising, trying to get author signings set up (have people waiting to meet me it seems), and the overall continuing effort that must be done to keep plugging a book! It does not end, no way, no how.
OK, got it. But, you’re a writer. Are you taking a break?
What? Silly question.
The writing never stops. In fact, while working on the finalization of Pandemic-19, I was waist deep writing two other novels. Yes, 2, I said. An author never sleeps, literally, it seems. I had to keep busy moving forward, never backwards. The two books in the works, both important stories that must be shared, could not just sit on the proverbial mental shelf and wait.
That is not how us writers seems to function. The wheels are ever spinning around and around. The mechanisms of our thoughts traveling a million miles a second. Light speed has nothing on our weird and wicked brains. Once we are compelled to jump in with both feet and wade into the chilly waters, constant lookout for sharks in the water, we have to swim and at full speed.
Just the way it is, my friends.
So, back on point. Pandemic-19 is going to work its magic and grow into a bestseller. I feel it in my bones. The plot breaks the mold of modern-day fiction. It includes pivotal characters with disabilities who are integral to the story. Inclusiveness in a major fiction work, and a suspenseful psychological thriller, is long overdue. I am going to change the game. Come with me friends and enjoy being entertained.
As I sit today, drinking coffee to wake me up and feed my brain to write this, I am a third of the way done with another gripping thriller that will knock your socks off. The story you will not be able to put down, much like readers keep telling me about Pandemic-19. This book is looking to come out the end of the year. My editors need it during a specific time, and then there are all the edits, blah blah blah, that need to happen to make it worthy for all of you. So, stay tuned on that one. The next book coming to audiences, and one special to my heart, is a children’s book.
Yup, a kids book.
Isn’t that a different genre and everything for you?
Absolutely.
However, as a writer, I write stories. I do not stay in my lane, so to speak. I believe the plot drives the adventure, and I have had this one in mind and in various degrees of state for some years. I have to write it. There is no diverging away from it.
Why?
Great question! And, a heartfelt answer.
Many writers stay to one genre or style. Perfectly fine.
I write what I feel deep inside of me. I was exposed to all kinds of books growing up. I read 1984 by George Orwell as an elementary school kid because the story was fascinating to me. Fahrenheit 454. Animal Farm. My great-uncle Josh was a huge western fan. He read Louis L’amour like crazy! I got to sit next to him as a kid and read those stories or he would tell me about them. C.S. Louis and the Chronicles of Narnia I still have the set and read to my own children. Stephen King books proliferated my house, along with Dean Koontz and John Sandford. Jackie Collins too and a vast area of fascinating women authors. History of all shapes and sizes I read to foster my love of learning. If I could get my hands on it, I usually read it.
Don’t get me started on the classics like Shakespeare, Plato, Aristotle, and many, many more.
I love to read. You should see my home office overflowing with books.
That love of stories and adventures built a foundation for me. I dream, think, ponder, and go with what develops. I don’t care what it’s suppose to be, as far as the end result on the audience. I care about what I am writing and am I going to be able to convey to my reader the words and worlds I create, allowing them to be entertained and lost for a brief moment in time.
Why should I stick to a lane, if my love has no boundaries?
Well, a few, but let’s not digress.
I love children’s stories. In fact in my house, we read every night. Have done so since my wee ones were inside the womb. Why not write my book and give my children an adventure to read inspired by them? A classic one day that they can read to their children and say their grandfather wrote it?
Makes a bit of sense to me.
That put me smack dab in the middle of now. I am diligently working on a fanciful book set in Scotland that takes the characters back in time. The twins find out that the world they thought they knew, and their father, hide secrets that only the kids can unlock. Family is a portal to the past.
My skin tingles thinking about it!
It is the type of book that children can get lost in, dream they are right there, and cheer on kids like them as they try and navigate the magic and hidden nature of a world that dictates the future. Wonderful stuff!
Plus, as an inclusive author, one of the main characters has a disability. Down Syndrome in fact. However, it does not define her. Much like it should not today, or EVER. She might not be typical, but she is just like everyone else and shows that she can change the world. Just is transported back where things are not as forward-thinking as modern times. She will try and change the past, to make the future a better place.
If, she and her crafty and ingenious brother, manage to succeed.
That’s all I can reveal. Got to keep it mysterious and you wanting more after all!
That is where I am at right now. A full plate writing two novels, focused on getting one ready for primetime in the next few months for release, and balancing life and a just released soon to be bestseller!
Yeah! (Let’s hope it becomes one).
Positive thinking, that’s what I say. Never sell yourself short. Go for it.
I live my life that way. Writing is my medicine, my home away from home, my ability to do something I love and share with the world. If I can give someone a smile, make them shudder at a line, and come away from a book they enjoyed, then I have done my job.
And to me, it’s all worth it.
The headaches, the heartache, the joy, and the potential.
Now, time to get back to it. These books do not write themselves!
Jason McDonald 