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.

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.

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,

There's a document in my Google Drive that I wrote about nine or ten months ago, when I was trying to decide what to do with my website. I titled it "Website Thunder Brain" because I like to be different, and this sounded cooler to me than "Website Brainstorm." It's basically a list of ideas for my website, this light-gray masterpiece that is jordanjeffers.com. Here's a direct quote from part of it:

Blog content should be mostly non-topical, humorous work, in the following order of priority:

1. Fiction - Along the lines of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.
2. Nerd appreciation - Thoughts on wizards, books, making friends, and playing games.
3. Christianity - Thoughts on religious life, scripture, and pop culture?
4. Sports - Personal narratives, fun with baseball history, and shameless Cardinals rants

Let's focus on the first item on that list. When I said, "Along the lines of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency", what I really meant was, "Almost identical to McSweeney's Internet Tendency in every way." I basically intended to steal their model as much as possible, focusing on short pieces that smash genres together in different ways. (Stealing other people's ideas, of course, is a writerly tradition that dates back to Shakespeare.) The first two stories I ever wrote for this site -- Letter of recommendation for Ms. Amelia Bedelia and A series of letters to the boy who keeps cutting things off of the Giving Tree -- are pretty classic McSweeney's style stories, though longer than they normally publish.

I never really stopped copying McSweeney's, or "the Tendency" as I like to call it, though much of my work now is a bit less "conceptual," fiction that's closer to being a story than an idea. But I always felt like they had found a niche that was really worth exploring, little ideas that could have a big impact on the way we see little things, like lower back tattoos.

Anyway, this is all behind the scenes sort of stuff, and not particularly interesting. I really just quoted the passage above to show you how much I respect McSweeney's, how much I wanted to emulate them.

And that brings me to a few weeks ago, when the Tendency announced their 5th Annual Column Contest. They do this every year, as you probably picked up on from the word "annual," soliciting columns ideas from random people. The winners all receive a $500 prize and a chance to write for the Tendency for a year. This sounded like something I wanted to do/spend, so I decided to enter. I figured that, at the very least, I could use the opportunity to develop something new for my own site.

It took me about a week and a half to really come up with the topic and write something worth reading, eventually coming back to the third item on that list, "Thoughts on religious life, scripture, and pop culture?" The question mark should tell to you how confident I was about my ability to do this in a way that was both real and humorous at the same time. Writing about religion is dangerous work -- the ground is treacherous and thorny, peppered with land mines and banana peels. It's equally easy to blow yourself up and make yourself look like a fool. Often it's safer to circle around the long way, and try to come at God from an oblique angle.

Then Mr. Robin Thicke and Ms. Miley Cyrus decided to write humorists everywhere a blank check of comedy at the VMAs, and my new column came together around their particular insanity. I called it "Speaking for All Christians Exactly Like Me," and sent it off like a young child to their first day of school, with a tear, a prayer, and a few shoelaces untied.

A week or so later it came back to me, along with a nice little email from the Tendency informing me that I had not won. [emoticon sad face]

But...[dot dot dot]

I had been honorably mentioned! [emoticon happy face]

Look, you can see my name on the contest results page.

Though this mention comes with no prize money, it does come with much honor and, more importantly, the same chance to write my column for McSweeney's for the next year that the winners get. So starting sometime near the end of September, you'll start to see "Speaking for All Christians Exactly Like Me," on the Tendency. The columns will all be about pop culture in some way or another, and I'll post links to them on my own site, and tweet them, so you won't miss any.

I'm super excited about this, in a way that's really hard to describe. You know those times when something happens that you can't stop smiling about? This is one of those moments, for me.

Hope you are well and joyful, as I am. Can't wait to see the new baby niece again this weekend! She's going to be so proud of me.

With love always,

Your son Jordan

Jordan Jeffers writes letters to his mother on the Internet because stamps are a form of witchcraft. Feel free to give him electronic encouragement via the little Facebook and Twitter buttons below. It means more to him than you might think.

Regular readers of this website (see also: Mother, my) will have noticed a certain silence the last few weeks, as personal and professional considerations have forced me to alter my normally diligent writing and publishing schedule in favor of a more relaxed program. In other words, I've been really busy, and I haven't been writing as many funny stories.

There are lots of different reasons for this, which include, but are not limited to, sickness, travel, weddings, conferences, car batteries, car tires, something called an ETAX system, car shopping, car agonizing, car buying, Gettysburg, the Smithsonian, the Lincoln Memorial, a half-marathon, and something I like to call "laziness."

The biggest reason, however, is that I am currently pouring all my creative energy into a novel, and that tends to suck all of the funny stories out of a person. Sorry about that. You can, however, expect a return to our regular publishing schedule (new stories Wednesday, new blog posts Friday, for those of you who don't know) once the first draft of the novel is completed.

[BEGIN PROMOTIONAL LANGUAGE]

I'll also be releasing a "best-of" anthology of funny stories sometime near the beginning of September. This anthology will include updated and expanded versions of some of my most popular stories from the last year, along with a healthy dose of exciting new material, including:

• The adventures of Stephen King, Nicholas Sparks, and George R. R. Martin as they try to stop J. K. Rowling from destroying the world!
• The heroic saga of Padrick Pennington, the man who lost everything trying to outlaw the use of Dr. Seuss at high school graduation ceremonies!
• The Way of the Sub: Part II!
• The story of a lowly, nameless stormtrooper, struggling to make a workers compensation claim in the crumbling Galactic Empire!
• Probably something with goblins in it!

If you have an intelligent electronic device of some kind, you'll be able to read it. And you should read it. It will be funny and almost free.

Also, you should read it if you are someone who knows me well enough that it would be kind of awkward if you didn't read it.

Anyways, info on all that will be posted to this website with increasing regularity as the release date approaches. You can also expect all of the completely free words to continue as normal.

[END PROMOTIONAL LANGUAGE]

In the meantime, I suggest you catch up on the news, invite a friend to lunch, or visit some of your favorite trees. I will be buried in my computer screen, fiddling with prepositions.

Jordan Jeffers would like to thank every single person who has read anything he has written and said something nice about it. He would also like to thank every person who has lied about reading something he has written and said something nice about it. It means more to him than you might think.