2024: The Books I wrote and related topics
I published the first book in my Land of Exile trilogy, By Blood, By Salt on May 14 2024. I had been working on and off on this trilogy for nearly 2 decades. I had gone the traditional publishing route and would have held to it, except my agent left the publishing industry and I had to consider if I wanted to start from square one, or try a different venture: self-publishing.
Self-publishing is usually a slow-start with a lot of leg work to get the book out there. To find readers. To get reviews. But I’ve had some incredible love showered on this book, and I am so thankful!
As part of my effort to get the word out there I decided to enter a self-published book competition, the SPFBO (read about it here or here). I had two astonishing strokes of luck which I could never have contrived for myself, even if I were the greatest writer in all the lands:
A: it was a complete coin toss whether or not I got IN the competition, and I got in.
B: It’s also complete luck-of-the-draw WHICH judge or group you get assigned to. The range of scores trickling out in the finalist round (see that here) proves that a winner for one judge might be uh…NOT a winner for another and this is certainly true of my book as well. The judge I was assigned to selected my book as his finalist. THIS IS A HUGE DEAL. It means now that ALL the judges will read and review my book. But some judges would have felt quite differently, I imagine, and had my book been assigned elsewhere there is every chance I could have entered and exited this competition in complete obscurity. Different people have vastly different tastes!
To be completely honest, becoming a finalist in the competition gave my book an incredible boost. People who would never have otherwise heard of it took an interest and decided to give it a try. Even people who aren’t particularly keen on military fantasy! And others who might have been only vaguely aware of it moved it higher up on their TBR.
A lovely Youtuber, Tori (@Toritalks2) who is also the author of The Blood Stones, decided to give it a try. And she loved it (HERE’S the video).
And she shared that love with all her viewers (Here’s another!).
And she interviewed me (this was so fun to do)
Meanwhile I was hammering away at book 2, A Haunt for Jackals, which will publish on the 25th of February.
People talk about the book-of-your-heart. Well, here it is folks. I have never yearned for a book the way I yearn for this one. Hopefully I’ll be able to say the same of book 3 once I’m done re-writing it, but this lil’ baby has so much of my heart, soul, blood, and sinew in it and I hope you love it.
Book 3 is at about 30-35% written (or re-written, since I had written book 3 before, but am now doing so again from scratch because everything has changed so much over the years). It is very slow going but that’s just because I want to GET IT RIGHT!!! There are just ever-so-many nails I want to hit on the head, all simultaneously. This is precisely as hard as it sounds.
SPFBO UPDATE:
Regarding above-mentioned competition. It has been a fascinating experience. I have received 5 out of 10 total scores and it has been a THRILL reading different judges responses to the books.
Here is the first score I received from Youtuber Captured In Words: an 8.5. A strong score, due to the fact that I was the finalist he chose from his batch of 30 books.
The second score was a little rougher around the edges, but still fun reviews to read, from Fantasy Book Critic: 6.
Third score/review from Esme Weatherwax and co. was by far the most amusing and I laughed out loud: 7.5
Fourth Score was from Covers With Cassidy: a 7.5
My fifth and most PHENOMENAL GROUP of reviews/scores yet (5 total reviews!!!!) came from Queen’s Book Asylum. Reading these made me absolutely giddy: an 8.5 average between five scores. But, y’all, one of them gave me a literal 10. A TEN.
Five scores down! Five to go! Pretty sure it’s still anybody’s game.
2024: The Books I read
I am not going to list all 30 books (okay, technically 29. Ya happy, goodreads challenge?!!?) that I read this year. The absolute standouts were Everything Sad is Untrue and Wind, Sand, and Stars.
Both are memoirs. Both have unique, elegant prose that yanks at your heart and soul. Both are HIGHLY recommended to any and all readers.
Two other surprise beauties were Shards of Honor, a military sci-fi with heart, and The Rock, a historical fiction set in 7th century Jerusalem surrounding what would eventually become the Dome of the Rock and all the religious beliefs, conflicts, and conflations that surrounded it.
2024: The life and times of JL Odom
Whellll. This was the year I published my book. This was the year I got overwhelmed by all that came along with that, including trying to be on social media without being CONSUMED BY IT. And trying to enjoy the little successes of my book without BEING OBSESSED BY EVERY DOPAMINE HIT AND SCOURING THE INTERNET FOR SIGNS OF MY BOOK’S SUCCESS.
I have been homeschooling my 5th, 3rd, and 1st graders and this is the first year that I really struggle to stay on the ball with that, because the book stuff consumed so much of my time and mental energy, not to mention it was plainly distracting. Figuring out a more workable schedule is the high priority this coming school year.
I’ve been teaching Jiu Jitsu still, but had to scale back on attending classes and teach only, because the time just wasn’t there.
Figuring out a healthy balance has been a challenge and it is still very much a work-in-progress.
But you know what else we got to do?
Go to the Balloon Festival in Albuquerque with some family
Visit Yosemite and Sequoia/Kings Canyon with family
Also the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert
I competed TWICE at purple belt, even though I am a new purple belt and have had to scale back my training of late, it’s still good to go out there an get it.
It was a good year. It exposed a lot of my weaknesses, for sure, but that’s for the best and on we go.
J. L. Odom 