Jessica Titone's Blog

Stolen is currently free to buy on Kindle. The promotion will last from January 28 - February 1.

Today is only the first day, and so far the results have been amazing. I saw my sales ranking and nearly fell out of my chair.

#1 in Historical Fantasy
#17 in Teen and Young Adult
#105 in Top Free

Never in my wildest dreams did I think this would happen. I'm excited to see what the next four days will bring. I'm also so, so grateful to anyone who's downloaded a copy. Even if you never plan to read it and you just want to hoard it in your Kindle library like me, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

If you like what you read and want to leave a review, I would deeply appreciate it. Even something as brief as, "I really liked this," or "Not my tastes but still well-written" helps immensely. Just a reminder: anyone that writes a review or shares Stolen on their social media is eligible to receive a free bonus companion story. If you're one of the wonderful people who's done this, please send me a DM on Twitter (@jesstitone) or email me at jesstitone@gmail.com so I can send your gift.

Now for the news about upcoming projects:

It's no secret that I love the Stolen universe. Arcadia's many inhabitants are unique and interesting in their own rights. Though I would have loved to write each of their backstories and experiences in the realm, I decided against it. Stolen would have gone on for 500 pages, and well, no one needs that. I've been playing around with the idea of developing it into a series and am proud to announce two new projects.

Chosen: A full length novel that runs parallel to the events in Stolen, told from Jesse's point of view. Readers of Stolen have posed many questions that Jesse's book will answer. I estimate it will be published toward the end of 2018.

The Arcadian Companion: A collection of short stories appearing for free on Wattpad. The first story in the collection will be about Liesel. Stolen reveals her eventual fate, but she possesses a rich backstory that's coming out beautifully as a narrative. Estimated posting to Wattpad is in the next month or so.

Keep a close eye on the blog for updates about the projects, including story excerpts, concrete publication dates, and character artwork.

Grab your own copy of Stolen while it's free: Link

Step One: The First Draft
Have an idea. Make an detailed outline, fly the by the seat of your pants, or do a combination of both. Doesn't matter - just get it done. Conduct five million Google searches. Watch YouTube videos when words fail you. Listen to music you can ignore. Set a daily word requirement and consistently meet it until you've gotten the whole storyline down on digital paper. Be proud of your accomplishment. Think to yourself, "The hard part's over."

Step Two: The Read Through
Read what you wrote. Figure out that your dialogue bears no resemblance to the way that actual people talk. Edit language and phrasing to make it sound more natural, clarify wording, simplify anything that's too complex or confusing. Set a date for the book's release. Create a cover. Think to yourself, "I'm almost done. The end's in sight."

Step Three: The Alpha Read
Summon the courage to show your work to another human. Identify a human with a knack for telling you the truth. Give you precious manuscript to that person. Wait forever for them to read it. Try to listen to their opinion objectively. Hold your tongue when you want to fire something back because your feelings are hurt. Live in denial a little while. Cry when you realize how much time and effort it will take to fix everything. Pick up the shattered bits of your ego from the floor. Think to yourself, "I can't do this."

Step Four: The Rewrite
Rebound. Have an epiphany about how to fix everything while driving 70 mph down the interstate. Talk it all into your speech to text app while sitting in carpool. Kill your darlings. Create a separate document to house them because you have trouble letting go. Write new ones in their place. Retrofit existing chapters to suit your changes. Hold your sick kid and try not to think about how you should be writing. Reread what you wrote. Have another go at the parts that still don't work. Think to yourself, "This is where the real work begins."

Step Five: The Beta Read
Identify at least two people who would be willing to read your work. Use the internet to source them if you can't find them. Read between the lines when the comments come back. Twist. Tweak. Add. Subtract. Think to yourself, "It's almost there. Almost. Just keep going."

Step Six: The Proofreading
Run "Spelling and Grammar Check". Hit the "Ignore" button more times than you thought possible. Find a grammar nazi with eagle eyes. Give that person your manuscript. Don't mind so much when it comes back bleeding with red marks. Pour over every line. Obsess over every word. Think, "If I look at this any longer, my brain is going to bleed out of my ears."

Step Seven: The Reflection
Put the damned thing away. Work on the blurb. Work on the acknowledgements. Work on the copyright page. Anything but read that book again. Pick it up when the thought of putting a match to it summons tears instead of joy. Read it one last time. Decide that it's good (or good enough). Think, "I can't believe I did this."

Step Eight: The Publication
Publish in any way you see fit. Tell your family. Tell you friends. Tell all of your social media. Tell them again. Hope. Pray. Worry. Promote. Think, "Time to write another one."

Repeat until you've got a good excuse not to.

I am one of those people for whom writing and music are inextricably linked. This goes beyond simply putting some music on while I hammer out the words of my story, though I do that from time to time. Songs are consistently a source of inspiration for scenes in my novel. Sometimes it’s a whole song, other times only a part (like a bridge, because man do I love bridges). I’ve even wrote an entire chapter from a single lyric. The marriage between the music and the writing has become somewhat of an obsession for me.

A while back, I wrote about creating soundtracks for my books, or in the case of Watermarked, for each individual character. I put it off forever because life has a way of ruining your best laid plans. But the idea came back to me this morning. So on this rainy day in South Louisiana (of which there are many), I thought I’d share one with you.

I’m tackling Audrey’s first because she’s the one most like a rainy day. It seems fitting. Though I’m usually very particular about the order of these tracks,I’m going to let it go for the sake of this project. I’ll present them to you first in as a list and then with a bit more elaboration.

Empty Room - Arcade Fire
Strange Things Will Happen - The Radio Dept
White Nights - Oh Land
Red Star - Freelance Whales
Cursive - Billie Marten
Between the Bars - Elliott Smith
Reckless - Liam Finn
You and I - Washed Out
Truth - Alexander
Watermark - Sleeping at Last
Each Coming Night - Iron & Wine
Just Like Honey - Jesus and Mary Chain
Sleepyhead (Stripped Down Version) - Passion Pit
I Forget Where We Were - Ben Howard
Get Better - Mates of State
Leaving New York - REM

Empty Room, Strange Things Will Happen, White Nights, and Red Star
All of these seem to really capture Audrey’s excitement about moving to New York City, and the “days of wonder” she spends there in the beginning. These songs also hold a sense of naivety for me. Also, there’s a vibe of what it feels like to fall in love.

Cursive
Billie Marten is a young English girl. Associating her with Audrey seemed natural. Quiet, introspective music. Some may see this as sad, but I don’t. For me, it gives more of a sense of the passing of everyday life. Living with yourself and dealing with the fact that not every moment can be magical.

Between the Bars
Oh Well, OK also works too. Pretty much anything Elliott Smith did reminds me of Audrey. That says a lot about her as most of his songs are usually more of the wistful, sad types.

Reckless and You and I
These songs sound like instability to me. Restlessness. Being unsatisfied. Carpet headaches spawned by laying on the floor when you know your time would be better spent doing something else.

Truth
“The truth is that I never shook my shadow. Every day it’s trying to trick me into doing battle.” That line alone sealed this is as an Audrey song to me. A coming to terms kind of song. A fight song.

Watermark, Each Coming Night, and Just Like Honey
These songs are most heavily concentrated in the “England” chapter. Just Like Honey inspired the first airport scene involving Audrey and Jack.

Sleepyhead, I Forget Where We Were, Get Better
Ah, the upswing. Medication. Bright, shiny, and brand new. Almost.

Leaving New York
I can’t get too much into this one unless I want to reveal all sorts of spoilers. Let’s just say that this perfectly expressed the sentiment of the ending.


I listened to each of these tracks as I wrote this post. It almost makes me want to re-read the book again. Almost. Seems every time I read it, I only want to change a million things. So I promised myself that I’d keep my hands off of it for at least six months.

I had a ton of fun writing this. I’d be happy to give more insight to anyone interest or who has read the book. Just, you know, in private so that I don’t spoil anything.

What do you listen to as you write? Or what songs remind you of scenes in your favorite books?

“Jack,” I say wearily, unsure of how else to respond.

He shakes his head, drops his arms to his side and takes a step toward me. “Just…hold still,” he says very softly, almost inaudibly. I’m not sure if this is a whisper for the sake of being tender, or just him offering me a response to quell my protests while he remains in the thick of his own thoughts. His concentration is intense. I almost feel the ripple in the air that he makes in drawing nearer.

Sleep had deadened my perception, but the synapses suddenly start firing. When I realize what’s about to transpire, I open my mouth to question him, dissuade him, or reason with him. But, he kisses me anyway, despite my half-hearted, angsty little attempt at protest. It’s, at first, soft and light. A fleeting warm press of skin upon skin. One second. Maybe two. When he withdraws, I stand unmoving, scarcely breathing through parted lips. Something should be said, but I’ve no idea what. He takes my silence as an invitation to lean in and kiss me again.


This time, I kiss back.


Note: So, I'm deep into writing XO, the second book in the Watermarked series. How deep? Like "1000+ words a day, all I can think about, really excited" deep. I recently wrote an exchange that dredged up memories of the first book - this scene in particular. Though I've done some horrible things to them, I really do love these two together.

Pssst, come in closer. I’m going to tell you a secret. Ready? Here it is:

I don’t know how to do things in moderation.

This is definitely not a secret to anyone who knows me or has watched me throw myself headlong into any and every new venture. Most of the time, this tactic has not worked out for me. I’ve crashed and burned more than I care to remember. I’m going to choose to ignore all of that, because I’ve got a new idea for a project and I think my moderation deficit could work to my advantage.

2016 was a bad year for me. From the news and social media, I’m going to venture to say that it was a bad year for most every human alive on the planet. So, when 2017 rolled around I vowed (or resolved, if you may) to make it a better year. Actually, what I think I said then was, “I am gonna finally turn my life around!” But, yeah…you know.

One of my resolutions was to be serious about my writing. A few months later, I also tacked on that I would read more. As reading tends to beget writing, it just made sense. My mom ego did that then where it loudly moaned, “BUT WHEN WILL WE FIND THE TIME? THERE IS NO TIME!” I told it to hush and then quietly looked for ways to make it work. One step in the right direction was getting the Kindle app on my phone. As the phone goes everywhere with me, I could maximize the downtime spent pumping gas, eating lunch, or waiting in the checkout line by reading. It worked. In fact, it worked so fabulously that the gears in my mind started turning at an alarming speed. When they’re going that fast, you know you’re in for danger. My danger came in the form of a goal – an absurd goal – but the logic behind it was flawless.

I rationalized that if more reading equaled more writing, could even more reading somehow lead to words just spilling out of me faster than I could type them. I’m talking 1k words per day kind of writing. Or 10 pages per day, a la Stephen King. Okay, so 10 pages a day is crazy talk. Don’t make the mom inside of me remind you of how much time we don’t have. But really, if I read enough, could the writing come more easily? I bargained that it would.

So, I set a yearly reading goal. I set that thing at 100 books read in 2017. I was proud for a moment. Then terrified. But now, I’m mostly okay. My book tracker will remind you that I’m 15 books behind. In all seriousness, I didn’t really start reading like a crazy person until late February, so I think I can make up for lost time. Also, I’ve pretty much dropped TV which was a main glutton for my time. To up the ante, I added an addendum to my goal. I would read 100 books this year, but I would try to get them all for free. How the hell am I going to do that, you wonder? My handy dandy library card. ARC’s. Trading my soul for book reviews. That kind of thing. Also working gloriously, if you’re wondering.

I’m going to be writing reviews for all of these books as well. And working on writing my second novel Remember what I said about moderation? Yeah. 100 books, gotten for free, and reviewed. Wheeeeee!

If you’d like to follow me in my journey or team up with me to chase your own goal, feel free to friend or follow me. If you want to see me fail miserably because you’re one of those people who gawks at car crashes, that’s cool too. I’d love some words of encouragement and some great book recommendations.

(Note: I know I said the soundtrack posts were coming, but I'm finding that this issue is more appropriate for today.)

Diana Gabaldon wrote a post recently about her work process. As I admire her both as a creative writer and a determined human being, I drank down every word of it as fast as I could. It’s here.

If you’re not interested in reading, I’ll summarize the part that was most interesting to me – something she dubbed “the rotation.” When she was writing her first book (Outlander, for all of you who are living in the dark), she was also in the midst of raising children and holding down two full time jobs. Sound familiar? Probably. Her only time to write was late at night after her kids were in bed. She’d sit down to write her novel, and then, as most writers do, she’d fizzle out after a certain amount of text. For her, this equated to about two thirds of a page. That’s not much, especially when you consider the epic length of most of her work.

Now, she could have sat there staring at the blinking cursor until inspiration hit, but that wastes time. Remember that she’s only got this precious, finite amount each night. There’s no time for staring. So what she did is she cycled through projects. When she hit the wall with Outlander, she’d move onto her text book project, or grant proposal. By the end of her time allotment (which I believe was something like three hours), she’d have accomplished a few pages of each.

Momentum is a huge factor in writing. It’s like anything else, but I’m going to use running as my metaphor. I hate running. The first few moments of it are so dreadful that I feel as though my lungs or legs might suddenly give out at any second. But after a few minutes of running, my body acclimates and I’m able to run farther and longer than I thought at the start. Your writing “wall” is that ugly running spot where your legs and lungs threaten to give out. If you stop, chances are you’ll be stuck at the same place the next time you try. But if you keep going, you’ll improve. Since it’s nearly impossible to keep writing once you hit the wall on something, it seems the only way to overcome this hurdle is to write something else.

Writers need side projects. For most of us, time to write is extremely precious and rare. Who wants to spend it working something that takes away from your main work in progress? While I agree that you should definitely devote as much time as possible to your main project, I firmly believe that a side project will make you a stronger, better writer in addition to improving your productivity.

So, why am I talking about this today? I’ve been working on my second novel. It’s Book 2 of the Watermarked series, if you’re wondering. Not many people have read Book 1, so I doubt anyone’s wondering. I’m in the same boat as Diana with the whole full-time job, raising young children, no time to write problem. I was moving along at a frighteningly rapid pace on the rough draft of Book 2. It’s worth noting here that I usually write painfully slowly, so anything faster than that gets labeled as “frightening.” Yesterday I got stuck, and I panicked.

The reasons for my sudden halt make sense: oldest kid had a double ear infection, I had several doctor’s appointments this week, my entire Monday was occupied with work meetings, book sales have completely stagnated, and I’m questioning the silly notion of having a writing career, etc. Knowing these things did little to remedy the feeling of doom that had wormed its way into my brain. I indulged it for a whole afternoon, and if I’m being truthful, even part of the next morning. While I’m not fully recovered from the anxiety ridden downward spiral, I’m doing better right now. Why? Because I started working on a new book.

It’s an idea that’s been rattling around in my head since 2012, according to the save date on the outline document sitting in my Google drive. It's a little YA, a little fantasy/fairy tale, and a little out of my wheelhouse. Writing it feels like I’m betraying my main work, but I’m fighting hard against it. Progress on Watermarked Book 2 is slow moving today, but you know what? It’s moving. And that’s something.

Lately I’ve been traveling for work. I teach at a virtual K-12 school. It’s a cool job, but that’s another story. Anyway, our students live in all corners of the state of Louisiana. So three times a year, we get in a van and drive around the state conducting benchmark reading and math tests for the elementary students. During this time, I do a lot of riding in vans and staying in hotel rooms. The hotel rooms are great for writing, but I’m someone who’s easily carsick, the car rides are not. So, I sit in the backseat, sunglasses on, headphones streaming music into my ears as I stare out of the window at the trees lining the interstate.

My free time on this trip has been split between editing the hell out of Watermarked and writing its sequel. Immersed in the process of doing this, I chose music that aligned itself with my books and the characters in it. To understand why this is so important to me, or even where I’m going with this, I’ll have to start at the beginning. Strangely enough, this means I’ll have to divulge a deep dark secret about myself.

Deep breath.

Okay, so here it is - I went through a phase where I actually liked the Twilight series. The first movie had just come out. I saw it and then found myself reading all of the books in one delicious gulp. The books have their faults, but they also fell into the realm of things that could be enjoyed without having to expend much brainpower. My interest in the series waned as quickly as it came on. It was literary “candy”, and turns out that if you eat enough of it, you’ll get sick. But for the course of a month, I lived and breathed Twilight.

One of the things that fascinated me was Stephenie Meyer, herself. Here was a girl who had never before written a book. One day, she simply decided she was going to. So after long days of raising her kids, she stayed up late at night and powered through it. Girl didn’t write one book, but four. I mean, if nothing else, you have to admire her determination.

I was wading through the mire that was the ten years in which I cycled through stop and start phases of writing my own book. Hearing Stephenie’s story about how she created Twilight inspired a newfound determination to get Watermarked written. To aid in my venture, I became particularly interested in what she had to say about her process. Something that stuck out to me was her confession that she created soundtracks for each of her books, which she’d listen to as she wrote.

Now, I realize that this is not a new invention. I’m sure there were tons of writers besides Stephenie Meyer that created soundtracks. I’d always heard music that reminded me of a particular scene I’d written or encompassed Jack perfectly, but I never actually sat down and created a physical soundtrack for anything relating to my own novel. Being that Watermarked was more character-driven than plot-driven, I opted to create not one soundtrack – but four. One for each main character. (I’ve always had a knack for overdoing it, it seems.) The process of doing this helped the writing tremendously. It gave me something to occupy my brain while I was writing, but it also allowed me to dwell within the Watermarked landscape while I was away from the computer. Some of my best scenes were inspired by listening to one of the soundtrack songs as I was cruising down the interstate at 70 mph.

Music is so intrinsically tied to emotion that it communicates the mood of a scene or a sentiment far better than I ever could with words. Being able to hear what an author was listening to when he/she wrote something brings such a deeper level of understanding to the text. I adore when other authors share songs that inspired them. So that is what I aim to do:

In the following blog entries, I will attempt to tackle the musical inspirations behind the four main characters in the Watermarked series. (Yes, I’m calling it a series now, even though the two following books are light years away from being released.) There will be one post devoted to each character, in which I’ll create a shortened soundtrack, complete with the reasons behind why these songs/artists were chosen. I’ve always been a music nerd, so I am excited to share a different layer of my work with readers. I genuinely hope it will provoke some good discussion.

First up: Audrey.

Watermarked was officially published in June of 2016. By the time I pressed the button to make things real, I was entirely sick of it. I had read, re-read, rewritten, edited, thought about, and spell-checked it to death. I would have probably set it on fire were it paper and not a digital file.

The Kindle book was over 700 pages. "Okay," I thought. "No big deal. I like to read long books. Diana Gabaldon writes 1000 pages books and look how well she's doing."

Yeah.

I'm not Diana Gabaldon. And people aren't generally fond of 700 page books that carry on into infinity. Still the whole "sick of it" vibe surrounded the book, so I could not bring myself to touch it.

I'm now about nine months away from when I first hit publish. A certain thought won't leave me: 700 pages is a hell of a lot to expect a person to read. So I've picked it up again and am currently combing through it at a pace that would make a snail groan.

I'm the author, so please take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt. Y'all, it sucks. It really sucks. Typos galore. Sentences that go on for far too long. Never ending chapters. Unsophisticated dialogue. Also, Ray acting very much like a child of ten. What is wrong with me that I thought that this version was ready to show the world?

So, I am revamping. Killing all of my darlings, tightening up the SPAG, and above all, shortening the darned thing. Stay tuned for second edition...premiering just as soon as I unglue my kids from my arms so that I can type.

Edited to add: The moment I notice all of the novel's glaring faults would be when its Kindle Unlimited page reads starts skyrocketing. I watch the charts each day and speak aloud to the little dots on it. No, no, stop buying the book. Stop reading. Just give me a week to fix everything!

Life continues to perplex me.

I live in a small town. My parish (Louisiana doesn't have counties) is comprised of four small towns looped together in an interestingly shaped polygon. We have exactly one public library in the parish seat. It's old and outdated in a number of ways. It's also usually pretty empty. Each Saturday morning, rain or shine, I get up, get dressed, pack up my computer, and head to the library to sit at table nestled in the "Louisiana" section. This spot has become a haven to me because unlike my home where two small, loud children reside with myself and my large, loud husband, no one talks to me. No one asks me for anything. No one clings to my limbs and pulls. No one suddenly becomes really quiet while they're secretly destroying every nice thing we have.

In my spot, protected by the wall of Louisiana history books that no one will ever read, I can easily push out a thousand words. I can read through novels and post semi-competent sounding reviews. I can also watch ballet videos on YouTube and transcribe what I see into the dance scenes I stubbornly insert into my books, though I have zero experience with ballet.

Let me tell you what else I can do - I can check out books. No, I don't mean the dusty ones sitting on the shelf that no one wants. I mean ebooks. There exists this lovely little app called Overdrive. On it, is your local public library's network of ebooks. Thousands of them! Things you actually want to read! For freeeeeee! (Okay, not really for free. You paid for them with your tax dollars, but it feels like it's free.) With a book appetite like mine, I can easily spend hundreds a month buying them the old fashioned way. Review swaps have helped cut the cost. A lot of indie authors will trade you their book for a read-through, an intelligent sounding review, and your soul. They don't explicitly ask for your soul, but that ends up what being requires when you accidentally volunteer to review a book that's dreadful. Luckily, I haven't come across many of those.

Once on a work trip, I got stuck in an elevator with my colleagues. They panicked a bit, but I had my phone in hand. So I said, "It's okay. I've got a new book on my Overdrive app." This lead to them questioning what Overdrive was and then me going on and on about the greatness of the public library for a few minutes. They eyed me curiously and then said something to the effect of, "Yeah, that's great, Jess. But we need to concentrate on getting out of this elevator." I've had a few other opportunities to sing the library's praises, but they've all gone about the same (sans elevator panic). So now I'm telling you guys - a community of voracious readers and writers just like me. The library is not a dead institution, but it's getting overshadowed by Amazon, coffeehouses, and other modern advancements. Any further decline and I'll have to organize marathons to raise awareness about the benefits of libraries. Ya'll - I am not cut out to organize social functions or do anything remotely related to marathons. So I am going to write about it. I'm going to talk to my friends about it. And I'm going to continue to go there on Saturday mornings.