Book Title: Marked
Author: J. Jay Barrett
Publisher: Self-Published/ VPJ Publishing
Cover Artist: J. Jay Barrett
Genre/s: LGBT Urban Adventure, Fantasy/Romance
Length: approx 70 500 words/206 pages
Release Date: February 20, 2018
Blurb
Never interfere. Those were his orders, and for centuries he stood by them, faithfully serving those that had given him his charge. Until one fateful night, while hunting, the young vampire stumbles upon a handsome, young stranger. Within minutes, Holden finds his peaceful existence thrown into a tailspin. Soon, it’s a race against time to save the human that he just can’t seem to get out of his head.
Buy Links – Available on Kindle Unlimited
Tell us a little about yourself.
What would people be most surprised to know about you?
I hate attention. The thought of being the center of attention in a room gives me crazy anxiety. My husband and I eloped because the thought of having a wedding, with everyone cooing and awing at us, was terrible. I didn’t even tell my family we were married for over a year, because I didn’t want to make a big deal of it.
I write under a pen name because I don’t want the attention. My close friends and family know, but otherwise, I don’t want to be known. That’s strange for most writers, who dream of penning a NYT best-seller. I’m not sure how I’d deal with that. I guess we’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.
How do you relax?
I go for a long run, between 7 and 12 miles. Whenever I have a bad day, it always fixes that. It also helps get out some of the built up frustrations from life’s ups and down. If I’m in a bad mood, a run always fixes it!
Do you have a favorite quote (either from your own books or one’s you’ve read)?
How long have you been writing and what made you fall in love with writing?
In 8th grade, I had a literature teacher, whose name I don’t even remember right now, Mr Bechler or something like that. He would give us writing assignments, and I’d always go over the allotment of words I was supposed to write. Why? Because I wasn’t done saying what I needed to say about the subject. He always used to tell me that I needed to write a book. More years that I care to admit later, I did.
Did you always want to be a writer?
I don’t really consider myself a writer. I mean, yes I write, but I’m not paying my bills from writing. I enjoy writing, and don’t think I’d enjoy it as much if I had to do it to live.
What are your ambitions for your writing career?
I plan to just keep pumping out stories in hopes that people will read them and maybe even like them. It’d be great if I made a some money off of my work but even if I don’t, I’ll probably keep pumping them out anyway.
What’s your favorite part of writing?
Getting lost in it. You create this world in your head, it becomes real, the characters become real. It’s like reading, but you’re the one who has total control. I have an emotional attachment to my lead characters, which is strange, because they are basically imaginary friends. At one point, I almost scrapped this book, but decided that Holden and Logan deserved to have their story told, even though they aren’t real. It’s really the strangest thing.
Why did you choose to write GLBTQ romance/fiction?
I always was told to write what you’d want to read. So I did. I’m gay, obviously, and it’s nice to read about characters you can relate to. Sure, I’ve connected with straight characters in books before, but not on the same level. It’s nice to find characters who’ve had the same life experiences that you’ve had. You don’t find a lot of it in mainstream literature, though that’s rapidly changing as society does, but often gay characters are reduced to caricatures of gay culture or they’re characters without much depth because the author doesn’t know much about gay people. Gay men are some of the most complicated people out there; the internal masculinity/femininity balance, the masking of low self-esteem with a harsh exterior persona, and hook up culture fighting with everyone’s desires to be loved. We’re complicated beings.
Do you write any other genre?
I think my work will always be centrally focused on a gay character, but definitely not a fantasy or urban adventure every time. We’ll see.
Describe a scene in your writing that has made you laugh or cry?
The nightclub scene from Marked. I actually was laughing because it actually happened to me a long time ago. I was with this boy I was seeing and his female friend was with us. She got incredibly drunk and became a jealous witch.
Give the readers a brief summary of your latest book or WIP.
I’m in the very early stages of a new story. I can’t give away too much but it’s set in Chicago again, but will venture beyond the city a bit. I’m really excited about it, but a published work is extremely far off.
What genre does it fall in?
Still urban adventure and fantasy romance, for sure.
Share a few words about your latest book/WIP, other than the usual blurb.
Give us a little insight into your main characters. Who are they?
Originally, they were based very closely on traits my husband and I carry. However, over the years, they developed lives of their own and so they aren’t really based on anyone. Let’s just say, they are the product of the world they live in and their experiences.
Will we be seeing these characters again any time soon? Is this book part of a series?
You know, probably. I originally envisioned this as a series, but a lot of my ideas for the sequels were incorporated into this book. It definitely leaves off in a place where a sequel is possible.
Which actor would you like to see playing the lead character from your most recent book?
That’s hard for me. Holden has a look that I’ve envisioned in my head and it’s not any one person. It’s hard to place a different face on the character I’ve spent so much time with. Whoever, they’d have to be incredibly good-looking, lean and toned without being ripped, and have eyes that swallow you whole. I’m open to suggestions though, if there’s anyone interested in developing a screenplay.
Tell us a little bit about your writing style.
What does your writing process look like?
Messy and disorganized, but I sort of thrive in messy situations. I get incredibly frustrated with it and then focus all my energy on cleaning it up. It works for me.
When/where is your favorite time/place to write?
When I go for a long run, I kind of run things through in my head over and over. That’s where I get my best ideas, and then I sort of tuck them away. I do that over and over again until I come w0up with what seems like the best one to me. That one little idea will create a firestorm of words that flow onto the screen.
What genre/s do you enjoy reading in your free time?
I tend to gravitate towards gay fiction, which always has a sense of romance to it since a characters sexuality is featured, but honestly my bookshelf is filled with books from every genre imaginable.
What was the last book you read? What did you like about it?
I’m currently reading The Song of Achilles. It’s also the last book I read, and the book I read before that one. It’s just such a sweet love story and alternative history type of book, without dabbling too far into the erotica world, so it’s exactly my style, so I’m reading it for the third time.
Have you held any interesting jobs while you worked on your books?
I’m a Flight Attendant. Everyone seems to think that it’s simply fascinating, but I’ll tell you, it’s pretty boring most of the time. A lot of this book with written in the back of a Boeing 737, late at night, after my passenger all went to sleep and I had nothing to do for 2 or 3 hours. The job also gave me lots of free time in hotel rooms to pound things, and I encounter hundreds of personalities a day that are easily folded into my writing.
What hobbies do you have outside of writing?
There are so many. I paint, or at least try to, mostly abstracts, in mixed media. Much like writing, it hasn’t proven very lucrative, but I don’t do it for the money. I’m also a distance runner, running at least one full marathon every year. That actually takes up quite a bit of my time. I also travel extensively, when I have the chance.
Jay Barrett lives in Chicago with his husband. A writer in the evening, he’s a flight attendant by day and an avid runner. Marked is his first novel.
Author Link
Thank you for the interview. Congrats on your book release =)