Jeff Salyards's Blog

Not gonna, lie, the last year has been difficult–personally, professionally, bookishly. My stepmom (really Mom 2.0 in many ways) was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died before Christmas. The day job posed a lot of uncertainty and challenges with serious reorg stuff happening, layoffs, and general headless-chicken confusion. My old site got bushwhacked and hacked out the wazoo, so I had to commission a brand new one. And while I wrote a new book totally unrelated to the Bloodsounder’s Arc series, it was only after I had finished a draft of the entire thing that I realized it didn’t work that well with four alternating 3rd person POVs. Yes, I’m a knucklehead and not always terribly observant.

So I went back to the writing board and reverse engineered it (de-engineered it?) and wrote the whole thing with a first person narrator instead. Which meant a lot of heavy lifting for the revisions: a huge amount of rewriting, cutting and murdering whole hamlets of darlings, and adding a lot of new content.

Which is all to say, it’s probably good I didn’t have this site up and running, because most posts would have been, on the whole, whiny, angry, bitter, gloomy, and generally super unfun for all parties concerned. Trust me, you were spared. But I’m in a better place now all around, so figured it was time to reintroduce myself again. Hi. I’m Jeff Salyards. I’m an assclown.

For those of you curious about the new project, it’s set in the not-distant future and is sort of a (sub)urban fantasy/science fiction hybrid. With a surplus of snark, umpteen action pieces, and an adorable phasing sloth named Twitch.

My elevator speech is usually “You are trapped in a small metal box with a large bald man; he will let you out if you buy some of his books,” so I’m not going to belabor this with a detailed synopsis of the thing. The excerpt is below. Go on. Be surprised.

Three chapters

The post We Meet Again. appeared first on Jeff Salyards.

A Fantastical Librarian was kind enough to invite me to do an interview. Because I know you were just thinking, “I have a good life–the one everyone else knows about, and the rich interior landscape they only suspect. I feel confident with how things are going–I am loved, respected, and fulfilled. No black angst here. Things are really right as rain. But you know what would make it just a little better? Just that much finer? If I knew what Jeff Salyards was thinking right now. That would really just put the cherry on top.”

You’re welcome.

The post Yammer? Don’t mind if I do. appeared first on Jeff Salyards.

A Fantastical Librarian was kind enough to invite me to do an interview. Because I know you were just thinking, “I have a good life–the one everyone else knows about, and the rich interior landscape they only suspect. I feel confident with how things are going–I am loved, respected, and fulfilled. No black angst here. Things are really right as rain. But you know what would make it just a little better? Just that much finer? If I knew what Jeff Salyards was thinking right now. That would really just put the cherry on top.”

You’re welcome.

Ragnarok Publications invited me to do a guest post on their site. They left it pretty open-ended, which is usually a mistake with me–I could end up writing about nachos or ninjas or the world’s smallest dog inexplicably named after a pop superstar. So I chose to write about action and first person POV. I know, I know, with license to veer anywhere, that was a pretty pedestrian choice. So my apologies for the absence of nachos or observations about river otters. Maybe next time.

The post Back to the Front appeared first on Jeff Salyards.

Ragnarok Publications invited me to do a guest post on their site. They left it pretty open-ended, which is usually a mistake with me–I could end up writing about nachos or ninjas or the world’s smallest dog inexplicably named after a pop superstar. So I chose to write about action and first person POV. I know, I know, with license to veer anywhere, that was a pretty pedestrian choice. So my apologies for the absence of nachos or observations about river otters. Maybe next time.

K.L. Schwengel was kind enough to invite me to virtually drop by and talk about Chains of the Heretic, flop sweat, lessons learned, and what I’m working on now. She is a hoot, and always fun to chat with.

The post Capt. Blather in the House appeared first on Jeff Salyards.

K.L. Schwengel was kind enough to invite me to virtually drop by and talk about Chains of the Heretic, flop sweat, lessons learned, and what I’m working on now. She is a hoot, and always fun to chat with.

Geek Mom invited me to do a post on what made me geek out as I was writing Bloodsounder’s Arc. So, if you are curious at all about the history that helped kickstart the series, or interested in yet another installment in the ongoing Assclown Saga, this intersection is for you:

Shoebox Time Machine

The post Shoebox Time Machine appeared first on Jeff Salyards.

Geek Mom invited me to do a post on what made me geek out as I was writing Bloodsounder’s Arc. So, if you are curious at all about the history that helped kickstart the series, or interested in yet another installment in the ongoing Assclown Saga, this intersection is for you:

Shoebox Time Machine

First off, I’m not dead. Let’s just get that out of the way. I mean, you’re forgiven for thinking so. It’s been a looooong time since I’ve posted on here. In Internet years, it’s been about 10,450, give or take. Even the tumbleweeds have given up and blown away. I never put enough content up here for it to even charitably be called a blog, but you can’t even claim you have a live website if it has no juice at all. Now, I could roll out a bunch of heartfelt excuses about juggling a day job that has gotten crazier by the day over the last year, and being a husband and a dad while trying to wrap up the final book of a trilogy. Except there are plenty of other writers who have similar circumstances who manage to post at least semi-often, so that flies about as well as a paper airplane drenched in cheap beer.

The good news: I actually used the time fairly wisely–Chains of the Heretic is complete and the ebook just launched yesterday, and the hardcover drops 2/16. Which is sort of like having twins a couple of weeks apart. Weird, and disconcerting, and kind of confusing, but still special. In a freakish sort of way. But the important thing is, Chains is out now, which feels just about as fantastic as I thought it would.

I’ve never written the final book in a series before, so I had some pretty weighty anxiety about how the whole thing would turn out. I really, really didn’t want to blow chunks in the big finale. That goes without saying, obviously, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t cross my mind. I wanted to leave readers satisfied with the conclusion, but still wanting more.

Reviews have just started rolling in, so it’s still early days yet, but I feel like Chains of the Heretic is the best of the three. I’m proud of this book. Nothing is perfect, and there is always room for improvement, but I’m pretty sure It’s the best imperfect thing I’ve written so far. I told the story I intended to tell the way I wanted to tell it.

I really hope readers enjoy the hell out of it, because I absolutely enjoyed writing it.