Author J.S. Living is in THE HAVEN!

Author and filmmaker V. Helena interviews author J.S. Living on her blood-curdling novel, The Covenant of Blood--a fictional tale about the life of Elizabeth Mina Bathory-Tepes aka the daughter of Dracula.

Episode Transcript

(00:14):
Welcome to another great day in theHaven. Today, I'm in conversation with
debut author novelist JS Lemmy Hey Studioaudience. JS has written a wonderful adventure
entitled The Covenant of Blood. Sheis a recipient of an MFA in writing

(00:37):
and JS has dibbled in Novella's comicbooks and short stories and has penned her
first novel that takes you into theworld of supernatural, bloodthirsty vampires. Please
join me in welcoming JS living tothe Haven. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Okay, first of all, wegot to show this beautiful book.

(00:58):
Yes, it is called The Covenant. Beautiful book. So this is your
first novel? Yes, what inspiredyou to write them? See, and
you're gonna ask me that question,soup, So you rehearsed it? No,
Well, I've told this story likecountless time, so it's not even
rehearsed at this point. It's justwrote memory. Okay, Okay. So

(01:21):
I was teaching a creative writing classat the library in my hometown, Augusta,
Georgia, and one of the promptsI gave to my students was about
writing a letter. And so thel at the time I was also teaching
a class at Augusta University, andto those students, I was telling them
about Elizabeth Bathory toughish, I meanElizabeth Bathory m and we were cause it

(01:42):
was like an exercise and like learninghow to cite your sources and stuff.
So I was like, Hm,I guess I'll write my letter about that
because that's just you know, whatwe're doing right now. So then I
wrote the letter and that was likethe thing that started the book. And
then I was like, I wonderwhat would happen if Elizabeth Bathory and Latian
Paler had the kid since they're bothknown as the first vampires. Uh?
And I is that like true vampirelore? Uh? Yeah? So y

(02:07):
e l. For those of uswho d who are not familiar, okay,
so Vlad the Impaler is known asd Dracula and Bram Stoker's book Dracula.
He got that title because he wasrumored, well not rumored too.
He actually had his enemies. Hewould impale them on sticks and fill up
buckp have buckets under them and thebuckets would fill with the blood of the

(02:30):
people who were impaled, and thenthe theory was that he would take that
blood and drink it, which ishow bram Stoker came up with his version
of Dracula and hence why we haveall the law about that right. As
for Elizabeth Bathrie the mother MM inthe book, she is known as the
first female vampire because she's rumored tohave bathed in the blood of her s
uh servants and the other women whoshe you know, killed cause she was

(02:53):
a serial killer. So m yeah, based in lore. Okay, okay,
so very very interesting. And youknow, I've d I often wonder
what is this fascination about vampires?You know, we've we've had so many
television series and movies about them,and you wrote a book about them,
So what what is a f fascinationfrom your perspective and what compelled you to

(03:17):
write about them? I think ingeneral the fascination is just that like,
vampires are supposed to be like thesemysterious, sneaky aloof thing. And also
I think it's the romance thing.Yeah, the sexiness. So yeah,
I think it's the sexiness and theromance and it just makes people be like,
huh, I think I want toknow what that's like or want to

(03:37):
live in that, And so youknow, with our great imaginations, writers
and other people just really get intoit. Okay, okay, so talk
to us about the title. Howhow did the title come to fruition?
Uh? The title took some workbecause did you have a working title before?
I had several oka and I wishI'd brought my little notebook in here,

(03:59):
but I I didn't. I leftit in my car. I could
have told you some of the othertitles I came up with, but essentially,
like some of them, that waslike, oh, the book started
out as novella's. So the eachthere's like three sections in it. So
those section titles were like the originalnovella titles. Okay, before I comby
it into one book. Oh,very clever. And so the novella titles,

(04:25):
I went through a lot of differentversions of those, Like I think
one of them was gonna be likea letter to mother, and then it
was like a mother bites back andsome other stuff, and then she was
gonna initi she was gonna focus onlike just her finding her I mean,
I focuses on her finding her mother. But eventually it was gonna it was
supposed to be like more of themother's story incorporated there but by the time

(04:48):
I finished the whole thing, itwasn't like that at all. Okay.
So it turned into more of thething about promises and prompts is being broken.
And then another word for a promiseis a covenment. Yeah, and
so the covenant of blood, andthen you have several blood covenants there,
you know, y you have theblood covenant between husband and wife, and
you have the blood covenant between motherand daughter and father and daughter, right

(05:14):
yea, So that was purposeful,like that was on purpose? Okay,
okay, okay, I love it. I love it. So when did
you decide to write it? So? I know, so you said that
you had these different novellas, andwhen you were writing the novellas, did
you see the end game of whatit is today or did you have to
go back and scoop these all upand make them into a beginning, middle,

(05:41):
end, a little, a littleof both. Okay. So when
I published the novella's, I didn'tknow anything about self publishing, totally new
at it. The person who wasteaching me how to go through it,
she was like, oh, youjust published it on Amazon, you know.
She was like, I write novellasall the time, and you know,
I get paid X amount of dollars. At the time, I was
really in need of some cash,So okay, this would be a great

(06:03):
way to do that. Good motivation. Yeah, but uh, it turns
out that like, using Amazon's ISBNis not necessarily the best for up to
go. Oh okay, And soyou hear that writers using the Amazon ISBN
is not the best way to godthe way this author? Why not what
happened so well, it's not anythingthat happened particularly, It's just like when

(06:23):
you published with Amazon's ISBN. Specifically, it means that you can only sell
your book on Amazon if you tryto get into a brick and mortar store
like Barnes and Noble like I wastrying to. Yep, they can't find
it in the system. So it'salways best to buy your own from balker.
Dad is a really good tip bit. Yeah. I tell people that
all the time. Okay, I'malways afraid that they're gonna be looking for

(06:46):
it in a brick and mortar theycan't find it. That is really really
good to know. Yeah, okay, in our studio audience agrees with you.
That's good information I have. Yeah, Okay, okay, so I'm
sorry you were. Yeah. SoI found out Amazon was not the best
way to go, So I waslike, okay, I really want this
in Barnes and Noble. So Iwas like, how can I do that?
And then I started like looking upinformation about how to do that,

(07:11):
and then I came across this womannamed Monique de Mensa who has all these
plugging Monique, I'm sorry, arewe plugging Monique? Say your name again?
Yeah, Monique de Mensa. She'suh, she's got I don't know
what her company is called. Now. She's got a Facebook group though,
and she does these courses ever sooften. She has a lot of free
information on her Instagram and her Facebook. But she also has a course that
teaches you how to like use yoursocial media and stuff so you can market

(07:32):
your things. Yeah, the courseis really good. I still suck at
social media. I don't have thepatience to do everything in there. But
it's got a ton of good information. So okay, if you have the
time, I do it. Andso basically you're saying that when you get
into this game, it's good tohave a good social media platform. Yes,
it's excellent, even though you don'tlike doing it. I'm just not

(07:55):
good at it. I don't getlike, hoot sweet. And then you
just publish it once and it hitsall those differ platform both seems well.
I actually tried a different there wasa different app that I used, but
uh, the one I used itwasn't very good because amaz uh cause Facebook,
Instagram, and Twitter they all hadlike different guidelines, so I'd have
to like modify each post, uhspecifically, Yeah, for each of the

(08:15):
platforms. I mean, I guessit's easier if you focus on one.
But your ideal is to post oneverything. Yeah, yeah, and and
do it only once or twice.Right. Okay, so you had these
novellas, you pulled them together.Oh how long did it take for you
to not necessarily write each novella?Cause that was probably years of I'm assuming

(08:37):
not right, Oh well lookout,oh you did it. Nah. No,
So the first novella it really onlytook me like t two three months,
and then the second one was likethe same thing. It was the
ending that took me a while toget to. Okay. So, like
I said, after I learned aboutall this publishing stuff or whatever, I
found an editor and I had theeditor like go through and I was like,

(08:58):
hey, I really wanna publish it. What do I need to like
have cohesive in here to like startmy ending? So I got the editor
to read the first two parts.She went through it, and then I
wrote the ending after getting her feedback, and then I sent it back to
her for the rest of the feedback. Having an editor it's also very portant.
Yeah, y, I mean youcan self edit, but but stuff,

(09:20):
you'll miss a lot of things.You're always gonna miss something. So
okay, that's a very very goodpoint. So you have an MFA in
writing. So you've known for sometime that you wanted to write and be
an author and to publish a book. Oh yeah, so what inspired you

(09:43):
to write? And then what inspiredyou to write this book? Oh?
That's always fun. A third grade? Third grade when they started writing.
Okay, so third grade. Ihad this teacher, Miss Weinstein. I
don't know where she's at now.That's one of my favorite two. If
she's watching Y today, that wewanna thank mss Weinstein. Yes, so

(10:05):
third grade and what school Jamestown Elementary? Okay, Jamestown Elementary, shout out
mss Weinstein, Miss Weinstein. Shewas great. Uh, we were miss
Weinstein's Einstein's oh her last name?Very nice. Yeah, So she gave
us she would give us like writingprompts, and then some days she'd give
us like free rights or whatever.And I don't remember everything the story telling,
but I remember one time we didthis free write and I ended up

(10:28):
writing a story about the swamp girl. And I don't remember why anything about
what the story was about besides theswamp girl part. Anyways, she gave
me some high kudos on that,and she told me she thought I had
a really cool future as a writer. So wow, yes, see it's
amazing. I mean, teachers orother adults in your life, when they
give you that kind of encouragement andboost, it can go a long long

(10:48):
way and it really can't look atyou now. That is awesome. So
what was your process in writing this? B It was an interesting process.
So, like I said, itstarted with that letter, and then I
did like not super deep research,but you're not look at some Wikipedia pages

(11:11):
to learn a little bit more aboutthe Vailor and Elizabeth Bathory. And then
I have like this timeline document thatlike has like their history up there in
the years that it happened, sothat can make cohesive sense of how these
characters came together. So as Iwas writing, I kept referencing that list.
I forgot what the question was?Your process? Oh yeah, yeah,

(11:33):
so process? So yeah, solooking at the timeline and writing,
and I kind of just switched offbetween the two. And my process is
kind of chaotic because I don't justfollow one thing. Sometimes I write and
listen to music. Sometimes I writein complete silence. I'm one of those
people when I get like hyper focusedon something, like I'm solely focused on

(11:54):
that one thing. So uh,usually when I'm writing, it's like I'll
start like after work or something,and I'll be to like three, four
o'clock in the morning if I getinto the zone, right cause that's the
best time for me to write.Yeah, I'm actually a night owl,
but you know, day job socan't be a night out on the day
job vampire. But we're not makingany compar no, of course not.

(12:16):
Okay, So, and you actuallyI was gonna ask you about what is
going on in your background because I'mso fascinated by people who can write it's
almost like historical fiction, but it'snot tell me what genre would you say,
so if you place this in soit's urban fantasy. Urban fantasy.
Yeah, I would say if Iwrote about like her parents and their past,

(12:41):
that would be more historical fiction.Okay, but this book technically takes
place in like twenty fifteen. It'snever expressly stated. But they've got smartphones
and smart watches. Yeah, yeah, so you know, obviously it has
to be in the two thousand,which is so cool. Yeah, because
most of the time, and Idon't I don't watch the vampire stuff,
but you know, in the movies, of course, it was like modern

(13:01):
day or whatever, right, butI prefer the older, old, older,
you know, back when her parentswere around, right, those kinds
of story, because I just lovethat period in time and it just happens
if vampires are, you know,doing their thing at that time. So
not that I believe in them,but not that I don't believe in them,

(13:22):
right, you know, it's likethe unicorn. I mean, I
think there's some truth to everything thatwe think of as magical or mythical.
Never never, we never knew.So are there any particular authors that you
follow. Yeah, it's a verylong list, too many to name.
Well, who are your top threethat's even harder. Okay, so okay.

(13:46):
In the Vein of Vampires, Iwould say Darren Shan he's this.
I think he's uh In. Ithink he's from England. But he wrote
the Darren he wrote the Uh.I guess it's called the Chance series anyways.
Uh, it's about vampires too.His take is interesting though, cause
in his book it's like vampires andvampanese. And the vampanese are like the

(14:09):
terrifying vampires that we think of,but they're purple, but they turn purple
from all from draining people's blood andthey have sharp red nails. And I
don't know. It's a really goodseries. And so the vampires are what
they the vampires in that one,they're just people who like uh, they
got turned. They don't drain people'sbodies. They just take a little bit
of the blood to survive. Andthey have, you know, they have

(14:30):
all the virginal qualities, they havethe super strength vas not necessarily some of
them can be it depends on butthey have some weird customs. And if
you ever read the series you'll findout what I'm talking about. See I'm
fascinated again. Yeah, and andwho do you uh, idolize that's not
in that vampire realm. Ooh,tough choice. I would say, recently,

(14:54):
I've gotten into I've always when Iwas younger, I've always wanted to
see like black authors in the yA young adult adult fiction world because there's
just so few of us. SoI would say, like circa, the
numbers are going up. Yeah.Yeah. So by the time I got
so, i'd say from grad schoolto present, I've definitely changed to my
favorite star. So i'd say,right now it's j l Oh Okay,

(15:18):
yeah, the author of Wings ofEbony. Familiar, I'd say to me,
Okay, Children of Blood and Bone, that's an amazing series. I
haven't read it, but I've heardabout it. It's really good. Still
waiting on that book three. Stillwaiting on book three. She's doing a
TV show right now or a movieor something. We're writing on book three.
Tell me yeah. And then I'dsay I just got a book by

(15:43):
Nikola Yune, who I've heard of, but I hadn't read any of her
stuff yet. Okay, So Ijust got like one or two of her
books, so I'm gonna read those. I don't know. There's like pretty
much all of the Incoming or theall the black ye authors that are yeah,
promptly that I'd say all them.Jason Reynolds actually Jason Reynolds, Kwame

(16:03):
Alexander Yes, and and she actuallydid that television. It wasn't a series.
It was a made for TV movieor something you I can't remember the
name of it, but very verygood. Oh it's something with stars.
Yes, yes, and it wasthe movie that made me go read that
book. Ah, yeah, yeah, verse, I haven't read around.

(16:26):
Yeah, I haven't read that bookyet, but it's on my list.
Yeah, yeah, Okay, thoseare some good, good people there that
you mentioned. So what are someof the challenges that you faced in self
publishing? Oh, well, selfpublishing is a beast. It's the marketing
that's the biggest challenging, alright.Marketing is the biggest challenge because you have

(16:49):
to figure out, like, okay, how can I make content that's gonna
interest readers and keep them interested inmy stuff? And a lot of times,
you know, when you've got aday job and then you're trying to
also write, and then you haveto turn around and take care of your
home responsibilities, it's a lot inbetween to do all that, So it
makes having to sit down and makea social media post every single day like

(17:12):
more challenging. I'd say other thanthat, I do really well with the
in person and the meet and greetsand stuff. Yeah, I would say
that's true. Yeah, your yourpersonality is such that it just kind of
shines through and magnetizes people. Ohso yeah, I could see that one
hundred percent. So s marketing isthe biggest hur was the biggest hurdle for

(17:36):
you, ye challenge. I thinkit's that. That's pretty good. That's
pretty good. I've heard stories aboutpeople who get with and I don't know
vanity presses, not the vanity presses, but the ones that they put their
services out there and say, youknow, we'll publish your book, and
really they do what the author coulddo, but they're but the author is

(18:00):
paying them MM to do something thatthey could do themselves, which is for
the book design s. So Idon't think any author should do their own
book cover design. I'm not sayingthat they should, but you could go
to an on demand press where youpay one fee for all of that for

(18:21):
the ISBN that's not Amazon, forfor the book cover, for the editing.
I had a author on yesterday thattold me later like how much she
paid to get her book published byone of these services. And I was
like, oh my gosh, becauseI know book Baby Trafford, none of

(18:42):
the Amazon ones, but other publishingcompanies, and this is what they do.
They're nine to five, but they'reon demand, so they will you
pay them like three thousand dollars andthey will do all of that work for
you, including getting it up onAmazon. See. Although well, I

(19:02):
was like, I can do allof this on my own. You could,
like I said, but people arepaying way more than two three thousand
dollars to get that done. Ithink that's ridiculous. But I will say
that the only reason I learned thatI could do all that on my own
is, like I mentioned Monique deMensa, she had all this free information.
I was like, okay, letme take this note and this note
down and that note. So whenI paid for a course that was just

(19:26):
for me to learn the social mediamarketing aspect, I mean she goes through
the other stuff too, but yeah, so par free content was great because
I was like, okay, Igo to Baker to get my ISPN,
I can go on RETI and findan editor, or I can go and
look for an editor somewhere else ifI see somebody who has a good one.
Yeah, I was like, Ican go and just look up,

(19:47):
you know, go on Instagram andeasily find millions of people who do book
covers. So glad that you're sayingthis, because that is something that I
want our viewers to know as well, that it may they've seen daunting.
You know, after you finish yourbook, Now what I ask them,
now, what you know, howdo I get it out there? And

(20:07):
I do want them to know thatthere are resources out there. You just
mentioned that go on Instagram. Yeah, and and just kind of an how
did you find them on Instagram?I literally just looked for I think I
went in the Instagram search box andI was like cover artists, and then
if I couldn't find anything up there, I just went to people. You

(20:27):
know, a lot of artists areup there. So I just you know,
scrolled through different artists and styles Iliked, and I just contacted the
people I found, and then eventuallyI came up. I think eventually one
of those searches for a cover artiststhat came across the one who did mind.
Her name is Julia casspr Calila,and yeah, everybody can see the
beautiful, beautiful cover. Yeah,her name is Julia Kaligola. And my

(20:48):
ex husband actually took the photo andso I said, because this is you.
Yeah, that's I love it.That is me on my I love
it. He took the photo andso I was like, hey, can
you like so i E. Imessage her to see what her weight's for.
She had decent rates. So it'slike, hey, can you like
take this photo of me and fixthe hair cause the hair did not look

(21:10):
as good as it does in thatbright And I asked her if she could
uh get, you know, doa medallion. I had a different medallion,
but she says she couldn't get aclear image of that, so she
replaced it. And so that's howI got my cover. Wow, Wow,
that's great. So main thing isyou don't have to spend all this
money, nope, to get itout there. Don't let that be the

(21:30):
reason why you don't publish exactly,And if and if you're looking for a
cover, the best thing you cando is if you have a friend who
does photography, find somebody who lookslike your main character. Have your friend
take the photo, you know,pay them what their worth or whatever they
ask for, you know, aslong as it's reasonable, and then find
your cover artist and send them thephotos, especially if you want a unique
cover. Cause the problem I raninto is I couldn't find any unique covers

(21:52):
of black women with white hair,like I just I couldn't find any good
stock images of it. So mm, I was like, I'd rather be
my face then. Yeah, Andyou know what. The the beauty of
your cover is it will entice someoneto pick it up. And that's what
you want your cover to do.You want your cover to act as a
magnet to lure the person over toat the very least flip to the back.

(22:18):
Right, So that back cover isreally important. That content on the
black coup on the back of thecover is very important because that will make
them want to open it up andinvestigate further. So those are all elements
of how to entice and get thatreader who ordinarily may not pick up a
book about vampires, but they don'tnecessarily know that, you know, when

(22:42):
they when they see the cover.So thank you for that ti bit of
information sharing that So is there?Let me see, so what advice would
you give to new authors or writerswho are out there, who are,

(23:03):
you know, thinking about an idea, not really sure how to start and
finish as as you have, giveus some advice from that vantage point,
I don't know. I think thehardest part is starting, because you can't
do anything with a blank page.So my advice is just try to wrete
that first sentence and see where ittakes you. Because once you get the

(23:25):
first sentence down, if you're reallyinto your work, the rest will come
and it might take some time.It might take months like my novella's or
two years like the whole book did, but eventually you'll get there. Yeah,
yeah and s And speaking with otherwriters, outlining is something that some
of them, Yeah too, SoI'm more of a pantster. Well I'm

(23:48):
a plant ser Oh so, okay, I do a little. I do
a little bit of planning and alittle bit of pantsing. Oh yeah,
so I do like a very broadoutline of what I want my story to
be about. When I went tothe Savannah College of Art and Design SCAD
for those of you who may knowof it, and I went to the
Atlanta campus, I took this reallycool film class with this really cool professor

(24:12):
who he really taught us how tolike break down things into like bits and
pieces for television shows, and sohe called it a concept document. So
whenever I start a new project,I always start with that concept document because
I know that the information and it'sgonna change, but it gives me like
a broad idea of where I'm gonnago. And the concept document usually has

(24:33):
like your working title. It haslike what the theme of your book is,
which, contrary to belief, isnot a word. It is a
sentence, so like love is blindor something like that. You know,
it's a sentence. And then afterthat you do like a quick little outline.
You do, like a quick littlesummary. So it's a story about
Blank who wants to blank, butcamp because Blank so decides to blank.

(24:56):
I fill that out, and thenfrom there I do like a little mini
outline, maybe like a paragraph orso, about what's gonna happen in each
chapter? Okay, yeah, andthen after that chapters, and then after
that's done, I start writing,so okay, and then when I start
writing, everything I wrote and thatconcept document goes out the window. So,
but do you write consecutively chapter onethrough or do sometimes. Yeah,

(25:18):
it depends on kind of feeling thatyou kind of bounce around and chapter I
start consecutive. I start consecutively,and then I'd be like, I don't
know what's gonna happen in this middlesection, but I know it happens down
here. Yeah, I'm really goodat my beginnings and my endings, my
middles, that's pretty good. Istruggle with my middles. So what usually

(25:40):
happens is I think I mentioned thist before, like I writ I wrote
like another book before I wrote thisone. But I didn't send that one
off for any type of publishing because, like, the middle is just not
good. I want it to be. No, it's just not good.
Are you gonna go back to it? I've been thinking about it. It
might be project now. That mightbe a few years before I go back
to that one. The con well, it's not even that's just the concept

(26:02):
is just so daunting. It's ait's gonna be a wife a challenge,
it's gonna be a y novel.And I created my own gods and goddesses.
I love that. And then,uh, the main character, initially
in the version I have right now, she like came down to Earth to
find the soul of her brother,who's another god. But the more I

(26:22):
look at it, the more I'mlike, an, that doesn't make sense.
So I've been playing around with someother ideas about like what happened,
Like maybe she just lost her memoryof becoming a goddess or something, or
I could go back to my originalidea, which was that she was just
gonna be the I, the daughterof one of the gods, but hadn't
decided yet. Well, I lookforward to reading that book. It sounds

(26:44):
very interesting. I love the conceptof gods and goddesses. Yea, and
and your next offering in between books, tell us how we can find you.
Oh yes, so I am onFacebook, Instagram, and Twitter,
although don't check my Twitter as muchas the j is literally the same thing
on everything, okay. And also, if you guys purchase a copy of

(27:04):
my book, I don't know howmany guys know this, there is a
QR code in the back and itwill take you to a short story.
Oh yeah, Jessey. And theshort story is actually there's like three short
stories in it, and you'll getto know some of the backgrounds of some
of the characters in this book,there's a bonus, and yeah, of
the book, there's a bonus.And if you sign up on my website

(27:26):
www dotjslibbing dot com, you'll beit. You'll get the chance to sign
up for my newsletter and when yousign up for that, you automatically get
another short story. Oh that alsoties into this book. So okay,
lots of freebies, lots of freebes, and I do not spam your email.
I send out an email like onceevery three months, so you won't
get that many from me. Butthere's always update h in the gut.

(27:49):
Yeah. So thank you jas Living, thank you joining us today and Dreamcatchers,
thanks for tuning in and being abig part of why we do this.
It is my oh that you areinspired in your own writer's journey and
that this season will inspire you tocontinue and finish that dag on a book.
So you can stream us on anyof our nine streaming platforms including iTunes,

(28:11):
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On a side note, hope you'refollowing our exciting news for October twenty

(28:36):
twenty four. Join me and theWriters Saven Show crew for a fabulous time
aboard the Virgin Voyages, Valiant Lady. There will be great ports of call,
but the best of best part ofit all is you will be able
to get up in close and personalwith I don't know why I can't say
this with some of your favorite authors. And if you're a publish author,

(29:00):
you may get a chance to beinterviewed on the show while we're cruising.
I mean, does it get anybetter than that. There will be master
classes, literary cafes, panel discussions, and plenty of fun, fun,
fun fun. But so there willbe limited slots, so hit us up
on www dot writer chamim show dotcom for the details. That's all for

(29:21):
now, and until next time,catch fire on Purpose.