Dear Mother,

Sorry it's been so long since I last wrote you. I'd give the usual excuses, about a new job and a move and a brief alien abduction, etc, but the truth is simply that I've made other things a priority. Yes, some of those things are important, like my new job and our new place and fighting my way free of the gladiatorial slave pits of Gromlan X. But I still look at the date on my last letter and cringe.

You remember that song, "Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)" by Cinderella? I've been thinking about that a lot lately, as I find myself struggling with a bunch of stuff I want to write, and only ten to fifteen hours a week with which to write it.

Three reasons I love this song:

• I really appreciate the intentionally bad grammar of "you got" instead of "you've got."
• I really appreciate an all male rock band naming themselves after a domestically abused princess.
• How awesome would it be to play piano on a beach wearing a woman's nightgown?

Also, it does not apply to me. That is to say, I did know what I got (till it's gone). I had forty hours a week to spend in front of my computer and my notebook last year, writing stories and columns and letters and book reviews and documentary reviews and books. And I loved almost every minute of it, even those times when I was frustrated beyond belief because the words wouldn't come, even when the words that did come turned into crappy stories that no one bought or read. I did what I loved, and I treasured it. Because I knew that at the end of the year it would be over.

This is an old, familiar story with old, familiar conflicts - conflicts of money and love and time. No one ever seems to have enough of them. That's why old stories always end the same way, with two rich people getting married and living happily ever after. (Cinderella, of all bands/princesses, should understand that.) They go off into the distance with as much money, love, and time as they could ever want.

I know in my heart that God will always provide enough love. And I know in my head that God will always provide enough money. But time is in short supply, and always will be in this life. For we are a mist that appears for a little while, and then vanishes, as James tells us.

There's a book I read a few weeks ago by Thomas Merton called No Man is an Island. Great book, if you ever get a chance to read it. At one point, Merton is talking about humility, and what it means to be a humble person, what it means to know one's place in relation to God. Here's what he says:

One of the chief obstacles to this perfection of selfless charity is the selfish anxiety to get the most out of everything, to be a brilliant success in our own eyes and in the eyes of other men. We can only get rid of this anxiety by being content to miss something in almost everything we do. We cannot master everything, taste everything, understand everything, drain every experience to its last dregs. But if we have the courage to let almost everything else go, we will probably be able to retain the one thing necessary for us--whatever it may be. If we are too eager to have everything, we will almost certainly miss even the one thing we need.

There is nothing that will destroy the value of your time like the fear that you're not spending it wisely. This is a truth that I find myself learning, day by day, as I work and pray and read and relax and socialize...and write a little. Someday I hope to spend more time writing, before the cares of this world blow away in the breeze. But until then, I'll use what time I have, and send you letters when I can.

Love you always

Your son,

Jordan

Jordan Jeffers writes letters to his mother on the Internet because stamps are a form of witchcraft. He is currently hard at work on a new book, The Nothing Sword, and a half-dozen other things.

New Short Story Collection

My newest ebook, The Life and Times of Butterfly the Lower Back Tattoo, is now live and available in the Amazon Kindle store and on Smashwords.com for $0.99. It's basically a "best-of" collection from the last year of web stories, along with two additional stories you'll only be able to get in the ebook.

The collection includes:

• The Life and Times of Butterfly the Lower Back Tattoo
• The Knights of the Four Seasons Fitness Club
• The Way of the Sub
• PIXAR's Seven Step Plan for World Domination
• A Brief History of the Axe Body Spray Crisis
• The Unicorns in Sneakers (new story)
• Stormtrooper Worker's Compensation Claim (new story)

And fifteen other stories. The ebook will eventually be available in the Nook store and on Apple iBooks, if you'd prefer getting it from there.

Newsletter

With the help of an army of robot slaves, you can now sign up to receive my newsletter, which I'll probably send out two to three times a year (basically whenever I release a book, or whenever I'm feeling lonely). If you sign up within the next week (2/28 - 3/7) I'll send you a Smashwords coupon for a free version of The Life and Times of Butterfly the Lower Back Tattoo saving you a whopping $0.99.

If you reading this, you should stop and go to my Butterfly page to read The Life and Times of Butterfly the Lower Back Tattoo. And let me know what you think of it. I like hearing from people.

My newest McSweeney's column, "Christian Rock Radio and a Basketful of Baby Unicorns," is out today. A little preview is below:

There are three kinds of CAC songs:

Song 1 – Christ is awesome and powerful. Praise Him! These songs usually rhyme “grace” with “face.”

Song 2 – Same as Song 1, except the song is directed to “the Lord,” instead of Christ. Also, one of the four choruses is sung by a choir of children. These songs usually rhyme “grace” with “face.”

Song 3 – My daily life is hectic and sort of miserable, and I often fall short of my religious ideals. These songs usually rhyme “grace” with “face.”

You can read the whole thing on the McSweeney's website.

Though I generally disable comments on this website (due to spamming and the ever present Internet cloud of hate), I do like to hear from people who read the column, so feel free to drop me a line using one of the electronic relationship buttons on the right.

Last year, I made the transition from successful college student to full-time writer. This year marks another transition, from full-time writer to over-worked, split-attention writer (which is what most writers are). But writing isn't something I'll ever stop doing, so there will still be plenty of words flying at you in 2014. Here's a look ahead to what I've got planned.

Sequel to The Towers

I first want to say thank you to everyone who has read The Towers or is planning to read it or isn't planning to read it but still suggested it to someone else. If there's one thing that writing a book has taught me, it's how blessed I am by family and friends. So thank you.

And for those of you who are already asking me about a sequel, I plan on starting work on the next book in March, with the hope that I will once again have it out by my birthday, November 18. There is no title yet, but you'll be certain to hear all about it as that day approaches.

The Life and Times of Butterfly the Lower Back Tattoo: And Other Stories

February 1 will mark the one year anniversary of the Double J, and, in celebration, a "best-of" anthology of stories will be released that same month: The Life and Times of Butterfly the Lower Back Tattoo: And Other Stories. The release will be in ebook form only, it will contain several original stories exclusive to the book, and it will be $0.99. Look for it on (or after) February 19.

Analog Science Fiction and Fact

My first professional science fiction story, "A Fierce, Calming Presence," will be published in the April 2014 edition of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. The April edition will probably come out in February or March, because that's just how magazines work. Links to purchase the issue (in print or ebook form) will be posted on this website when it is released. Analog is also carried by quite a few libraries, if you'd prefer to read it that way.

Changes to the Double J

The publishing schedule on this site will also be changing in two ways. There are very few people that will actually care about these changes, but I am one of them, and since I get to do whatever I want on this site, I'm going to run through the changes now.

Instead of posting a new story most Wednesdays, I'll be posting a new story once a month, on the 19th of that month. The date is almost completely arbitrary, but the frequency is going down simply for time reasons, and because I have lots of other projects to work on. Rest assured, the stories will continue to be completely ridiculous, mildly humorous, and occasionally misspelled.

Blog content will continue to get updated weekly, on most Fridays. This year I'll be featuring the following blog categories:

• Speaking for All Christians Exactly Like Me - My McSweeney's column on pop culture
• Interviews with McSweeney's Columnists - I posted the first of these in December (with Ian Orti). More will be forthcoming.
• Letters to my mother - Stuff that's going on in my personal life
• Netflix documentaries you've been meaning to watch - Documentary reviews
• Short-short book reviews - All of these will also be posted on Goodreads, usually before I actually put them on the site. So if you're on Goodreads, you can get them there. I currently have eight friends, but I think I can get that up to ten by the end of the year if I buy some advertising.

I've got a few ideas for some other stuff too, but these will be the meat and potatoes of the whole bloggy meal. And, as always, all promises are subject to being complete lies.

Hope your year is lovely and peaceful, and remember you can drop me a line at any time using the electronic relationship buttons on the right. Happy new year.

My newest McSweeney's column is out today. It's mostly a review of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, though as always I manage to get off topic fairly quickly, touching a bit on Christian fiction and a bit more on "D-Box" movie theater seats. Here's a preview:

For some reason, my wife and I decided to go to the midnight premiere of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

Actually, let me rephrase that.

For some reason, my wife decided to go with me to the midnight premiere of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. I’m not sure why. I went because Tolkien basically taught me to love reading as a kid, because I wanted to write a column on the movie, and because I have the ability to sleep in as late as I want. None of those reasons applied to my wife, however, so she was either going because she was starved for a date or because she… well, actually, that’s the only reason that makes any sense.

You can read the whole thing over at McSweeney's.

Special Note! - If you want a first edition of The Towers, complete with all original 35 typos, make sure you order one within the next 48 hours. Otherwise you will get the far inferior, typo-free version that I am sending in soon.

Dear Mother,

Happy birthday! I hope you are enjoying a slice of angel food cake while you read this. Now I know this letter is supposed to be for your birthday, but I'm going to make it about me instead. As a parent, I assume this is what you want.

We're nearing the end of a long and strange year, now, a year where I did something that I've wanted to do for almost ten years. I became a writer. Not a writing student, or a writing major, or an aspiring writer. A writer. Someone who gets up in the morning, and sits down in front of their computer screen, and writes. And then gets up again the next day and does it again. Someone who sells stories to magazines, writes columns for websites, publishes a book. Someone who works a whole year and makes less than $1000. I did it all. Finally.

I know I should be joyous, but it's more of a relief than anything else. Madelyn and I have a bit of a morbid turn at times, and we often talk about what would happen if either of us died. I have no idea why we do this, but I'm sure I could make up a reason that sounds plausible. Here are three:

1. We are terrified of losing the other person, so much so that we feel a compulsive need to confront that fear in a safe environment where we can deal with it appropriately.
2. We are actually not afraid of it at all, so we enjoy flaunting our courage and confronting the possibility in a reasonable and straightforward way.
3. We are strange, and so we think it is kind of funny to talk about strange things.

Psychology! It makes no sense to me!

Anyway, the other day I was lying in bed, thinking about what would happen if I died, and I realized I was cool with it at this point in my life. I don't want to die, obviously, but my outlook on it has definitely changed. At the beginning of the year, I had mixed feelings on the idea. Obviously the big draw is heaven. No more suffering, pain, sorrow, anxiety, fear, confusion, etc.

Hold on.

Let's take a moment to think about what I just wrote, the infinite joy contained in that "etc."

Thinking.

Okay.

Sorry about that. I almost glossed over heaven for a second. I think about it far less than is good for me.

Because heaven, of course, is difficult to think about, simply because it is so far out of our realm of experience. With what can we compare it? There have been moments in my life so pure and joyful and peaceful and wonderful that I have trouble even remembering what they were like, much less imagining something so much better and greater than them. And so it is easy to gloss over, to forget, to think of heaven as some sort of consumable pleasure, rather than the kingdom of God.

I was always hesitant about dying, for I saw so much work to do here on earth. To leave before that work was done - this seemed like a great tragedy to me. And a great failure on my part. For I know how much time I have wasted in my life, how many fruitless moments can testify against me. How much time I've even wasted today.

Yet that does not really bother me anymore. Because the year is over, the book is done. I had something to say, and I said it. I have a lot more to say, of course. God is almighty and God is love, and so I will never run out of things to learn about Him, and praise Him for. I look at the future, and I am happy, thinking of all the words that await me, the stories and essays and books and letters, and (much more importantly) the people who will read them. But if that is not for me, if I die before reaching the end of this sentence... No, still alive. My last thoughts will not be of regrets.

And if I gained nothing else this whole year, that one difference was worth it.

So my wish for you on your birthday is that you might have a year like that, a year that will leave you with no regrets, a year where you will, as you always tell me, take the big slide, and enjoy the ride down.

With love always,

Your son Jordan

In case you were wondering, I write letters to my mother on the Internet because stamps are a form of witchcraft.

The big day is finally here! Three fun things are happening today:

The Towers

Fun thing one - The Towers is finally available for order. There are a couple different ways you can get a copy, all of which are detailed on my new Shop page.

• Read The Towers

Both paperback and ebook copies are available. Currently, you can buy the ebook versions from Smashwords or Amazon's Kindle Store.

Smashwords has every kind of ebook version you could need (.mobi, .epub, .pdf, .etc), so if you want to read it on your Nook, Kobo, or iBook app, then Smashwords is where you want to look. The Towers will eventually be available in the Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and iBooks stores, but as of this writing, the book is not yet posted to those sites. I will update this site and various social media channels when that changes.

New website design

Fun thing two - The Double-J has a bit of a new look now, mostly because I actually have a navigation at the top of the page. I also have a new About page as well as the aforementioned Shop page. But don't worry, the light gray background will remain a cornerstone of my design for years to come.

Birthday

Fun thing three - It's my 27th birthday today. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts on this at year's end, but this has been without a doubt the weirdest and most rewarding year of my life. Thank you to everyone reading this, and everyone who has ever read any of the silly or serious things I've written.

And most of all, thanks to my wife, without whom The Towers (and this whole website really) would not be possible. Looking forward to sharing a piece of cake with you today. One of many more to come.

If you missed it, go to my Shop page to read The Towers. It really is a good book. I wouldn't ask for money for it if I didn't think so. And you know that's true because of how free everything else on the Double-J is. Extremely free. So give it a try.

As some of you know, I've spent a lot of time finishing up The Towers over the last few weeks - editing, formatting, praying, re-editing, re-formatting, and drinking copious amounts of orange juice. Though The Towers isn't my first novel, it is my first novel worth reading, and I think it's good enough that I would recommend it to you, especially if you like fantasy.

So I'm quite happy and relieved to be able to announce a release date for The Towers - Monday, November 18. The book will be available from a number of retailers in print and all ebook formats. A full list of ordering options will be posted to this website on Nov. 18. Until then, I won't be posting any new stories on the Double-J (That's what I call this website; I hope it catches on.), but you can expect a brand new story to come your way on November 20.

Here's a bit about what The Towers is about:

The Towers

Neither more nor less than one hundred towers shall shield you from the Nightmare. For each tower is a Prohibition, and each Prohibition is a tower. And the towers alone can save you from the death the Nightmare brings.

- The First Prohibition

For generations, the mountain people of Cairn Meridia have lived free, defending themselves from the dark army of the Nightmare with the strength of their towers, the wisdom of the Prohibitions, and the magic of shame and grace. But now, as a masked rebellion festers in the heart of the city, the Nightmare comes again, twenty years too soon, and the fate of Cairn Meridia hangs upon a terrible choice. Here is a tale of lies, loyalty, and above all love.

Jordan Jeffers would like to take this opportunity to tell you that this is his last signature in third person. From now on, I won't pretend to be an editor. Feel free to give me electronic encouragement via the little Facebook and Twitter buttons below. It means more to me than you might think.

Dear Mother,

I'm writing this on a Thursday morning, about ten or so hours removed from last night's Cardinals victory in Game 5 of the NLDS. We don't have cable anymore, so I watched the game on an iPad, drinking Bud Light out of a commemorative Cardinals beer stein. This was the most St. Louis-y thing I could think of.

Game 5 joins a long list of Cardinals memories now, slotted in beside Carpenter's Game 5 in Philly, and Yadi's home run in New York, and three dozen diving catches by Jim Edmonds. They're all stored up in my head, these memories, like books on a crowded shelf. And every once in a while I'll pull one down and dust it off, read it a little, and think about the moment it happened, the people I shared it with, an unbroken line of nostalgia from the moment that I could remember anything at all.

But memory is an odd thing. I recall very little of the games I went to when I was a boy. (By the way, am I too young to start using phrases like "when I was a boy?" I defer to your judgment on this.) At least, I recall almost nothing of the actual games, what happened and who made what plays and who won. It's the other stuff I remember, the atmosphere, the environment, the people.

I remember the parking garage on 8th street and the aerial walkway that ran between it and the stadium, the crowds of fans we would weave through on the way to our seats, my hand in yours. I remember old black guys and young black guys and old white guys playing saxophones on the street corners, dressed in Cardinal red, and me always a little afraid of them, of their puffing cheeks and skillful fingers and open cases, lined with the scatterings of crumpled bills and bright silver coins, resting on blue felt. I remember the long, endless ramps that we walked up to our seats, the way I would always get distracted with counting the bars on the railing, or watching the cars on the Interstate outside, then run to catch up to you when I saw you had gotten ahead, like I was a dog in a park, and you my owner.

I remember tiny red plastic helmets filled with vanilla ice cream, and over-sized Cokes in souvenir cups, and paper boxes of popcorn, striped in red and white, boxes that always had the word "Popcorn" on them in bright red letters, so you always knew what you were getting into. I remember standing on the field in Busch Stadium 1, the grass perfect and green underfoot, the bases looking so much farther away from each other than they looked from above. I remember Ozzie Smith doing back flips, and Willie McGee getting standing ovations, and Brian Jordan smashing into the walls in the outfield to rob extra base hits. And I remember that every time Jordan would do this, someone nearby would make a comment about how he used to play football. Guaranteed.

I remember when Dad would pick me up from my own football practice in '98, and the first thing I would do when I saw him was demand to know whether McGuire had hit any home runs that day, and if so how many, and if not, how many Sosa had hit. The list goes on. I haven't come close to exhausting it (the organ and the kiss cam and the hat dance and the wave and the nachos and the beer vendors and...)

And every year, I add a few more memories to the list, home runs and double plays, wicked curve balls and screaming line drives, Yadi throwing laser beams to second, and the big "CS" flashed up on the video board. Paul going to a game on his 21st birthday and sharing his first (legal) beer at the ballpark with Dad, probably the first time I ever saw alcohol in Dad's hand. Photos of my new nephew at Spring Training, decked out in a complete designer line of Cardinals clothing, because of course he was. Dad taking me to Game 1 of the '11 World Series and buying me a stocking cap, like I was twelve years old again instead of a married man of twenty-four. And me feeling about as loved and happy as I could get when he did. Running around my apartment with Madelyn during Game 6, screaming at the top of my lungs after watching Freese go deep.

It's silly, in a way, to be that invested in a team, to care that much about the various adventures of a little white ball. But, really, it's not so much the game that I care about. And I think it's something I'm just realizing now, as I write this, why I love baseball so much. Because baseball is about family. And every time I say I love baseball, I'm really saying that I love my family. I love you, and Dad, and Paul and Katie and Grami and Grandpa and everybody who ever put on that "lovely shade of cardinal" with me, and stood in the stands or watched the TV or listened to the radio and cheered and thought, "This is just about as happy as I can get." I love thinking about baseball, because I love thinking about you. And so it will go with my family, if God blesses me more than I deserve. As he always has.

I hope that makes sense.

Remaining always, your loving son and Cardinals fan,

Jordan

Jordan Jeffers writes letters to his mother in the Internet because stamps are a form of witchcraft.

My new column for McSweeney's, "Speaking for All Christians Exactly Like Me," debuts today on the Tendency. This one is about Ms. Miley Cyrus, Wrecking Ball, and the Biblical story of Amnon and Tamar. Here's a little preview:

As I sat there, the boom box started playing “Blurred Lines,” and the three frisbee men immediately stopped their game and began twerking in celebration. One of them was actually pretty good. Like, suspiciously good. Like, I have a sneaking feeling that he watched the VMAs and immediately began twerk two-a-days, practicing for this exact moment, and a dozen or so other moments in the years to come, at weddings and clubs and house parties, knowing he would get himself a cheap laugh at Ms. Cyrus’s expense. Well, mission accomplished, Twerking Guy.

Mission accomplished.

You can read the whole column at the McSweeney's Internet Tendency website. Comments are not allowed on the Tendency, so if you have something nice to say, you can do it on this page.

Jordan Jeffers is currently learning how to twirl baton. This is not a joke, just something funny that's actually happening. Feel free to give him electronic encouragement via the little Facebook and Twitter buttons below. It means more to him than you might think.