Saturday, April 18, 2015

Johnny Mead, this time it's personal.

Johnny Mead has been released on the world.

You can see Vance's reaction to this going on, here, and you can get the book in question, here. I mean, sure there's some other stories in the book, and I'm sure they're all quite important and well written by my fellow co-conspirators, but really, all you need to know is that some character named Johnny Mead is in it and that I wrote him into existence.

Jack Lantern never did know what hit him. His first book was written and done, and the rough draft of the second too, before Johnny was more than a little spark. See I was reading that Second draft of Jack when I happened to watch a episode of a show called Gravity Falls that had something called a Jack-O-Mellon. The Jack-O-Mellon was basically a watermelon carved like a Jack-O-Lantern. Upon seeing that, and having been recently been reminded of Jack Lanterns pumpkin head, I had a image flash through my head of a character in the Jack universe who was a little like jack, but... different. A bit of an oddball.

It was with this image in my mind that Johnny began to take shape. I told Vance that I wanted to write a spoof for the Jack Universe and immediately got to work. I wrote half the story in a single night, and wrote the other half a few days later, it was a whirlwind of intensity, with the character of Johnny practically writing himself. He was simply delightful!

I read the story out loud to the Smith brothers of Ravania, and their laughter was music to my ears the whole time.

I really like that kind of music. It's addictive, and seeing as I was in the process of writing Guardian of Isolation at the time, it wasn't a kind of music I was getting a lot of. It felt really good to take a comedy break.

Now the funny thing, that story isn't the one that's in this newest book. No no, that story will be out in the next volume of Tales by Lantern Light. This book got a new story, a kind of proper introduction to the wonderful madness that is Johnny.

You see I wrote the first story for the second Jack book (which isn't even out yet!), and then since Vance liked it so much, had to go write a new one for the first Jack book.

I really like this second story too. It's a blast.

I am wonderfully excited to be able to play in Vance's sandbox, especially with such a chaotic force such as Johnny Mead. I look forward to doing more of it in the future, but for now, you should give it a look. That's Tales by Lantern Light. Find it on this page.

That's it for now friends. Wizard OUT!