UtopYA Con 2015 and Beyond

One of my original critique partners, Christina Mercer, started going to the UtopYA Con in Nashville a few years back, and raved about the experience. Which is why that con was the first one to come to mind when I decided earlier this year that I wanted to travel to a fun con as a debut author.

It took some planning (and more money than I anticipated) to be able to attend this year, and I'm so glad I did! UtopYA started with a focus on YA paranormal and fantasy books, and has evolved over its four-year lifetime. For 2016 and the fifth year, they're expanding the scope to include MG through Adult categories, in the paranormal, fantasy, and contemporary genres, with a name change to Utopia Con to reflect that it's not just YA any longer.

Panel on "Is Time Travel Really Possible?" with Myra McIntyre, PK Hrezo (an Operation Awesome alumna), Robert Scherrer, Rysa Walker, and Sherry Ficklin

This is the most fan-based con I've ever gone to, and there was so much enthusiasm given to each and every author--we all joked that we're spoiled for other cons now, because we know what it's like to go to a great one. EVERYONE I interacted with was friendly and welcoming, and the creepster factor encountered at a lot of cons was nearly completely absent (I only heard of one incident with a member of the public trying to push his book idea on authors on fan day). Oh, and I got to have fellow Operative Karen McCoy as a housemate!

For me and Crow's Rest, going to UtopYA Con allowed me to peek into an entire other world of bloggers and fans that I haven't been tapping into. These authors (mostly indie- and self-published, and even trad pubbed authors like Rachel Harris) at UtopYA were doing everything right, and have a fan base that I wasn't even aware of. I hadn't ever heard of many of them before the Con, and yet they had fans traveling cross-country to squee over meeting them--and then those fans bought every single print book by that author to get it signed. I know of several people that left with close to 200 books they'd purchased at UtopYA. 

And not only did the con offer good-quality workshops, panels, and talks, there were tons of opportunity for letting loose! On karaoke night, the theme was time travel, so I wore one of my steampunk outfits and got lots of compliments

L to R: me, Karen McCoy, Michelle Kellogg, and Lora Beth Johnson

Karen and I rented a condo with critique partner Alison Kemper, and we got out into the humidity for a walk and to see some of Nashville. We were located on the Cumberland river and my photographer side fell in love with all the rusted metal

The railroad bridge near our condo

The drawbridge upriver from our condo

The view from our balcony

A statue of a French dude which I mocked mercilessly

And then on Saturday, there was a Fan Day and signing event, and Alison and I both had tables set up

Alison's books are rom-zom-com (romantic zombie comedy), so she gave out eyeball lollipops at her blood-spattered table

My display included my trailer on a loop, free bookplates, buttons, and bookmarks. You can't see it in this picture, but my skirt has blackbirds embroidered on it!

On Sunday, one of the attendees, Eva Pohler, organized a tour of the Parthenon replica in Nashville's Centennial Park.

I know I'm not doing this con justice--there were just so many cool things that happened, large and small--oh, oh, we saw nuns playing basketball!

Actually, that unintenionally-rhyming brain detour captured it pretty well! I'm still on overload and trying to process all the things I learned and saw. I even got video of Karen's lip sync contest performance, but it didn't turn out well. The best footage is in another post by Michelle Kellogg if you'd like to see her in action.

I really hope to be able to swing the finances to attend again next year--will I see any of you there?

Welcome to the Crow's Rest Bloghop!

Today I'm celebrating the release of my debut novel, Crow's Rest, by taking part in a bloghop, yay! You can see the complete schedule here. Participants were asked to share a real-life ghost encounter, or other strange happening, and boy do I have something special to share. And, there are giveaways!

But first, I wanted to share a section from Crow's Rest, which features a sinister encounter for Avery at Warren Castle (which is modeled on the real, haunted Preston Castle in Ione, California). Here she is telling Daniel about it:



The story behind the story is that the spooky events Avery describes actually happened to me at Preston Castle. And also like Avery, I've been involved in documenting the Castle's restoration in photographs. Preston Castle has been featured in an episode of Ghost Adventures and The Great Escape, and it's a pretty creepy place. They offer overnight events, but I'm not quite that brave!

Since I already indirectly shared a ghost story, I'm not going to count it as my bloghop post, lol. Instead, I offer you photographic proof of a living Fae being--I'm not sure exactly what kind he is, but this enchanted forest citizen was captured on film at the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park fifteen years ago:

You can click on the picture to see it larger, btw. Can you see the little bearded, pointy-eared man to the right? He's peering around the smaller trunk and looking very cheeky in his tophat. Perhaps my feet are blocking the entrance to his home under the tree? Tell me what mischief you think he's contemplating in the comments!

And now, for the giveaway!

One grand prize will be awarded, and it includes a signed copy of Crow's Rest, signed bookmarks, a Celtic knot necklace, and fun swag items

And two Swag Packs will also be awarded, and include signed bookmarks, a Celtic knot necklace, and fun swag items

These giveaways are open to U.S. addresses only, and you can enter through this Rafflecopter

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Title:  Crow's Rest

Author:  Angelica R. Jackson

Published:  May 12, 2015

Publisher:  Spencer Hill Press

Isbn: 9781633920040
Pages: 288
Retail: $9.95

Buy Links: Barnes and Noble |  Amazon | BookDepository

About the author:
In keeping with her scattered Gemini nature, Angelica R. Jackson has far too many interests to list here.

She has an obsession with creating more writing nooks in the home she shares with her husband and two corpulent cats in California's Gold Country. Fortunately, the writing nooks serve for reading and cat cuddling too.

Other pastimes include cooking for food allergies (not necessarily by choice, but she's come to terms with it), photography, and volunteering at a local no-kill cat sanctuary.

Twitter  |   Facebook  |   Goodreads  |   Photo Galleries  |   Blog  |   Website

Such a Tease

A few weeks ago, I needed a break from drafting the Crow's Rest sequel, No Man's Land, and realized I didn't have any teasers made for Crow's Rest. You know, those images with a quote from the book that get shared around Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, etc? (Here is a helpful post on what goes into a great teaser at the Cover Your Dreams site)

In true writerly fashion, I seized on this excuse not to write opportunity to envision my book in another medium and started combing Crow's Rest for quotable text. This was much more difficult than I thought it would be--a lot of the sections I love from the book either needed more setup, or they were too spoilery.

But I eventually had about nine excerpt possibilities, several of which got trimmed down even further for the actual teaser and a few that didn't get used at all. The opening lines even fit perfectly with some video footage I'd taken, so I have one video teaser as well as the still teasers I made.

There are lots of programs you can use to make your own teasers, btw; PicMonkey is popular and writer Sarra Cannon walks you through how to do that here, or check out this roundup of online sites to combine quotes and images. I used Photoshop because I already have it, and know how to use the tools. I also have tons of my own photos since I'm a photographer, but I didn't have very many that exactly fit how I envisioned the teaser.

Fortunately, Shutterstock sends me 15 or 20% off coupons every once in a while, so I got 5 downloads fairly cheaply. Then I spent some time finding just the right images for each quote--with some false starts. For example, one teaser features a kiss in the hay, and I found one that I thought was perfect--but the hay in the picture was so busy-looking that it was difficult to read the text overlaid on it. Tried various ways to make the text stand out, but ultimately abandoned that photo for a different background (and I love the way it turned out).

I'm planning on revealing one teaser on the Crow's Rest Facebook page every other Tuesday, but I've only shared one so far so I'll use it as an example. I started with the text:

Overhead, the stars unfolded without the interference of streetlights, and a chorus of summer insects buzzed...the leaves of the sycamore shifted and rustled. But—no breeze. A sound like muffled croaks and squeaks—or whispers—joined the rustling. Am I more rattled than I thought, or is there really something in that tree?

Those lines begged for a spooky tree in a field of stars, and I found several candidates on Shutterstock. I narrowed my choices down to three, and played around with the watermarked versions to make mockups and see which one worked the best. The one below was a clear winner, so I used one of my credits to download the high-res version and added the text, book title, my name, and the publisher's logo.

I mixed up the styles of the images and text for each of the rest of the quotes, since they all have different tones: sexy, whimsical, spooky, suspenseful, etc. I could easily have gone crazy and made enough of them to post every week until the release in three months, but it just didn't seem like that much time spent on it could be justified.

So I settled on a reveal every other week until the launch, and I took advantage of scheduling them ahead of time on Facebook and Twitter (using Hootsuite). The teasers will also find their way onto my blog, my website, and maybe my author page on Amazon--wherever I think I can make them earn their keep, lol.

If you have a favorite teaser, feel free to share the link in the comments!

Crow's Rest Book Trailer, and the Making Of

Today's the day that I get to share my book trailer for Crow's Rest! Since I made this video myself, I wanted to give a little behind-the-scenes info on the images.

But first--the book trailer! And make sure you have the volume on; you won't want to miss the soundtrack.




Hope the trailer entertained and intrigued you! You can find pre-order and Goodreads info on Crow's Rest here.

These are all my images, by the way, which saved me a tremendous amount of licensing fees. I did end up buying a program to give the whistling of my original song a little reverb, and then bought some stock audio of the crows, so the entire trailer cost me $3.89!

First off, once I had the script finalized, I knew I wanted to set the mood and place the story into its setting. To open the trailer, I used a few photos set in the Sierra foothills town that inspired Crow's Rest--and its haunted Castle. Here's another look in case they went by too quickly:

This is taken from the town cemetery, looking towards the Castle

This is an interior shot of the haunted Castle--which was abandoned for years after it did its duty as a boys' reformatory--and the perfect shot to accompany "Rumors that strange happenings are on the rise"

The exterior of the Castle, with one of the turrets that helped earn it its nickname (it was more properly called the Preston School of Industry when it opened in the 19th century)

With the setting established, I moved on to the characters: Avery, Daniel, and the corbin. The shots with the (human) models were actually taken as test photos for a possible custom cover shoot, and I didn't want them to go to waste--and I think they work really well here.

Uncle Tam is the caretaker for an historic cemetery, so Avery and Daniel spend a lot of time hanging around tombstones

The corbin picture is actually of a rook in Ireland--we definitely don't get these birds around here! But the crows that flock around my garden won't hold still for pictures, and I loved this ones's soulful expression.

For the trailer, I added a little violet to his eye color and cropped in tight on his face

 For a photo to depict the passage to Faerie, it was no contest--this lovely view is of the Stourhead Estate gardens, taken from inside the grotto

And the next one is the ruins of Kilcatherine church, which date back to the 7th century

That cheeky raven pic is from a trip to Bryce Canyon, but this post is already rather long so I'll skip adding that one! I just wanted to give you all an idea of what you can do with images that might already be in your photo collections, and that you don't need to spend a lot. For the links on the Power Point tutorials that helped me create this book trailer, see my post from November 24 here on Operation Awesome.

Can I Write Off Inspiration On My Taxes?

I just got back from a three-week-long visit to Ireland, England, and Scotland and am still jetlagged! This trip was partly to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary (as if I need an excuse to go to that part of the world) and partly to do some research on the Celtic lands.

My forthcoming novel, Crow's Rest, draws from Celtic mythology and faerie lore pretty heavily, so it seemed only appropriate that I see some of the sites that birthed these stories. I've come back armed with thousands of photos (that's not an exaggeration) and some video footage that might find its way into a Crow's Rest book trailer.

I also made note of travel plans that worked, and those that didn't, for future articles to sell. We opted for self-catering cottages and I'm so glad we did--made the eating for food allergies so much easier. Plus, we had the bonus of having cottages in the gorgeous countryside all to ourselves!

I'm sure I'll be tying this trip into other posts, but for now please excuse my fatigue and enjoy one of the pictures from a graveyard in Ireland. It shares a site with a ruined church founded by St. Finian in the 7th century:

End of Year Wrapup

I've been purging closets and drawers lately, wanting to start the new year with an uncluttered and streamlined house. Much like when I'm rewriting, I find there are some "darlings" I'm holding onto  for inexplicable reasons. Maybe because so much time and effort went into their creation, or because I think I'll use it somewhere or somehow else, or I acquired it for some self that I wanted to be at the time.

So I'm going to create a "dump box," the equivalent of a "dump file." A dump file is where I put large sections of text that I think I might use elsewhere, but they certainly don't belong in this scene or chapter. Honestly, most of the time they quietly languish there, but every once in awhile I realize it was just in the wrong spot. Then I can recover it and put it in the right spot, without having to struggle to remember what I'd written.

The dump box will have items that I'm not quite ready to let go of, but putting them in the box will hopefully bring me some distance to decide if I really need it. After all, we have a fairly small house, and every item in it really has to earn its keep.

Hey--that's like writing too! Every word in a sentence has to contribute to the whole, as well as having its own weight. And here I was worried I wouldn't be able to tie housecleaning into writing for this post. ;)

Anyway, all the best wishes for you and yours and your writing from Operation Awesome! I'll leave you with a lovely winter scene from our snowfall a few weeks ago.

Photos That Inspire Words

So I'm also a photographer and a history buff, with a habit of ferreting out local ruins and old homesteads and recycling them into my settings. But one source of inspiration is not so secret since it can be seen for miles around: Preston Castle in Ione, California.

And as if Preston Castle (the proper name was the Preston School of Industry) wasn't cool enough on its own, it's been recast in my novel as Wilson Castle, occupying a weak spot on the border between our world and Faerie. All the local legends of ghosts and strange happenings are faeries and monsters leaking into our world in the town of Crow's Rest.

Here's how it's described in the opening of my book:

July air streamed through the car window, coating my tongue with heat and iron-rich dust. Nearly there. . . As we took that last curve on the approach, tree branches arched over the road, blocking our view until there it stood.

A castle, its ruddy bricks warmed by the afternoon light. Looming over the Gold-Rush-era town at its feet, the Wilson School of Industry reformed bad boys for nearly a century before the state abandoned it to vandals and ghost hunters. The usual mass of turkey vultures and ravens soared above, sinisterizing the turrets even more.

There really are vultures and ravens!

 And the inside is a creepy, writer's delight

What about you? Is there a real-life place that you've featured in your writing? Or maybe you've made the pilgrimage to settings of other books like Forks, WA? Share some links in the comments if you have pictures! There's a video I took yesterday over on my personal blog too.

And don't forget our Mystery Agent Contest coming up on May 1st! The agent's wishlist is over there on the top right of the sidebar.