Jon James Writes Whatever Shit You Come Up With - Probe

The first installment of "Jon James Writes Whatever Shit You Come Up With" is complete! The winning suggestion, by Kelly over on the Facebooks, was: "Mars sends a rover to Earth, it doesn't recognize us as an intelligent life form, takes samples, and leaves."

The story, titled Probe, can be read here.

Killer Queen on Sale

Good news everyone! 

My first published comic, a short titled "Mechabots: The Princes of the Universe" is now available for digital and print purchase!

You can get the digital copy of just this 8-page comic at Drive Thru Comics or via Red Stylo's web store for a couple bucks; it should be coming to Comixology soon as well.

Or, if you prefer print, the entire anthology, which features other fantastic stories and vignettes by numerous talented creators, you can get that through Red Stylo's store as well, or Amazon, if that's your thing.

Princes of the universe. Fighting and free,

Got the world in my hands. I'm here for your love,

And I'll make my stand,

We were born to be princes of the universe.

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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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