JLC

Shameless plug: The Local Boy Done Gone audiobook is live on Spotify/Apple/Chirp, with Audible/Amazon to soon follow! Narrated by Brian Ibbott from @coverville.com (which still makes me grin every time I write it down…) Teaser trailer: m.youtube.com/watch?v=B_Dh... #TimeTravelAuthors

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 19 Both Local Boy Done Gone & Timely Persuasion have the genders/ages of characters altered via time travel butterfly effects, so swaps are already part of the plot. It’s not a crucial part of the story, but more using time travel for an interesting thought exercise.

(immediate understanding of a book is sometimes in hindsight evidence that it is flawed)

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 9 Most cynical character in both DG & TP is Nelson’s pianist father, both the 1990s and 1970s versions. He’s reasonably skeptical/jealous of Local Boy’s dangerous folk rock appeal and questionably cynical of everything else.

If memory serves (which it often does not), the only hardcover books I’ve purchased in person at a brick and mortar on release day in the last 25 years are Black House, the last 3 (+1) Dark Tower novels, and now this. Go then…

FYI: Frankenstein was actually the name of the author

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 3: spirit (Spirit Guide is the title of a Benji Hughes album, so this scene sorta subtly unifies my literary universe…) “I didn’t catch your name, mister songwriting spirit guide.” Here’s the part you’ve been waiting for. Smile. Nod. “I’m you.”

Always nice to see one of these! (links in bio as they say…)

Happy Ian Noe album release day to those who celebrate!

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 15: 3rd sentence, page 10 (This style of prompt always make me check all my books…) Done Gone: “I’m calling it ours.” Timely Persuasion: “We’re going against the Blackouts tonight and need your arm for the victory.” L Extreme: “Yes, that’s his album,” C said.

Black Grape Case Oats Eels Green Jellö(y) Iron & Wine L.A. Salami Mary’s Danish Muscadine Oysterhead The Roots Sugarcubes Wheat

Day 13: Ask & answer a future #TimeTravelAuthors question Do you believe in your own time travel method/theory? I don’t think the past can be changed, but do believe the underlying “your brain is in constant contact with your past & future selves” which explains Déjà vu, instinct, psychics, etc…

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 11 Local Boy was in just one fight, shown in both Timely Persuasion & Local Boy Done Gone. Continuing our trek backwards in time, Day 9’s excerpt came immediately after the fight, and the audiobook preview ends seconds prior to it. www.audible.com/pd/B0HBFVSG7W/

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 9: laugh (Moving backwards in time, this comes immediately after Day 11’s prompt…) “Are you gonna get, or do I need to knock you into next week?” Not that good of a line, but the freak sort of laughed at it before standing up and darting off into the late afternoon sun.

The only day you can repost this.

In honor of Benji Hughes re-releasing his song “Come to Jamaica” on streaming, here’s a free link to the standalone Jamaica inspired short story chapter from L Extreme / The Ballad of Heartman & Songstress (Weirdly the most “normal” thing I’ve ever written…) read.bookfunnel.com/read/5rr6o4d...

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 5: grow Swirling visions spawn more bad lyrics: Sweaty tingles, surging organs, sacred oaths. Lists and words and glances, suspicious undergrowths. Nameless smiles, smiles nod, nodding smiles smilin’ Gods. Guests are guesses guesting people, greeting people what a fraud!

#TimeTravelAuthors D3: Time Passing Time travel in Timely Persuasion spans 1969-2001, but only a few weeks pass in the present of 2002. Local Boy Done Gone spans 1969-2001 in “real time” with multiple time travelers briefly popping in from 2015ish. (Audiobook took 7 years— but worth the wait!)

Schrödinger’s Catch: A ball inside a fielder’s glove simultaneously is and isn’t an out until observed by instant replay.

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 31: promo Have an Audible credit to burn? Or a hankering for an Audible free trial? Listen to my words read (and/or sung!!!) in multiple voices by the great Brian Ibbott from the Coverville podcast. www.audible.com/pd/B0HBFVSG7...

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 29: “craft” Plink, plink, plink. Dink, dink, dink. A leaky craft may sink, sink, sink. A melodic, metallic tapping sound woke me. Despite my dumb dirge of a ditty and some down and up motion, I wasn’t on a boat.

The timeline gave up Hope after 8th Sox didnt

Found out my 6 year old dog has cancer, which got Shawn Smith’s haunting cover of “Heart-Shaped Box” stuck in my head on repeat. “I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black…” m.youtube.com/watch?v=LNx0...

HYPOTHETICAL: You can go back in time but only save one member of the 27 Club. Who are you saving?

And it was all yellow… Wordle 1,884 6/6 🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛ 🟨⬛🟨🟨🟨 🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Of course I had to try this based on the name / label. Pretty good.

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 5: bitter (out of context bit where @coverville.com ‘s audio narration gave me chills…) “…jaundiced to glowing to angels to suspicious to rainbow to stormy to gypsy to apple to always black to boar hogs to anisocoric to smiling sorrow to Cuban skies to eleven to bitter…”

#TimeTravelAuthors Local Boy is from/lives in 1969-1977 when he starts getting visits from circa 2015ish time travelers. “Where” isn’t specifically revealed, but it’s within 50 miles of real life DJ Maxanne Sartori’s station which narrows it down when she starts spinning “Won One”

Via @theathletic.com MLB trade deadline recap…

Love what looks like yellow matter custard dripping from the leftmost eye…

Amazon/Audible went live last night, so now I can officially say “available wherever you get your audiobooks…” www.audible.com/pd/Local-Boy...

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 23: Tip for writing time travel Remember: You have a time machine which (sometimes) gives you all the time in the world! Wish you wrote a scene differently? Go back and fix it. OR—leave both versions in and embrace the do-over like Marty.

#TimeTravelAuthors D9: Lie a character believes about themselves An old man visits Timely Persuasion’s narrator, claiming to be his future self. Local Boy Done Gone’s narrator (Dad of the above) is visited by the same old man claiming to be HIS future self. Whose future self is he?

Fourth of July always makes me revisit the #QuantumLeap spec script I wrote in college, set on July 3-4, 1976.

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 23: Words/phrases Oddly, I think I’ve sold more t-shirts with Local Boy’s catchphrase than books! jlcjlc.bigcartel.com

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 21: parents Timely Persuasion’s narrator has a BTTF-ish “meet your parents as teenagers + make sure they fall in love” experience. Done Gone follows the father before he had kids but knowing he needs to, with a running gag keeping the grandparents perpetually overseas.

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 17: glimmer/shine (I’m mashing the words together and using “shimmer” today) She used her left hand to show me off, raindrops shimmering on her shirt like the gown of a game show hostess.

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 13: excerpt with rich/poor (Only “rich” was a Little Richard name drop, so I’ll go with poor…) She held my face between her hands, forcing my no into a nod while silencing my poorly thought through follow-up with a kiss.

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 11: Robots, non-humans, etc Local Boy watches a lot of Scooby-Doo with his cousin. They recap the gang’s encounters with a ghost, an ape man, a robot, and a clown…plus the robotic dog Dynomutt who shared top billing with Scooby in the mid-1970s.

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 29: Weird Comps @autocrit.bsky.social called Local Boy Done Gone “like a fictionalized Miles Davis/Keith Richards memoir.”

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 21: meeting relatives In Timely Persuasion, time travelers are ghostly entities who can observe but not interact with anyone except their past self or blood relatives. Meeting relatives is the only way to enact change.

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 19: Does this count as ORGANized? The organ kicked up as the march kicked off from the vestibule at the back of the church. Both the pastor and my older self shushed me, and rightfully so. Botching this wedding at the wire wouldn’t do anyone any good.

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 11 “point” (a Billy Joel song from the future is played at an open mic night in 1969) My favorite was an extended number told from the viewpoint of a psychic arsonist justifying his crimes by predicting worldly events.

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 23: Something that surprised you about your story. Local Boy Done Gone was supposed to be a retelling of Timely Persuasion through a different character’s eyes. That lasted exactly one chapter until a familiar time traveler showed up to change things. #Pantsing

Just submitted my @nycmidnight.bsky.social 100-word Microfiction Challenge first round entry with an hour plus to spare! GENRE: Fairy Tale and/or Fantasy ACTION: Bailing water WORD: stress

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 9: explain your time travel method with emojis TP: 💉🧠🎵🫥🧬 DG: ⬆️➕🚐 🌫️ ♊️ 🔂

#TimeTravelAuthors Day 7, quiet (Conversation as news of Jim Morrison’s death leaks. Fun fact: headline got his age wrong!) “Paris. In a bathtub.” “Heart attack, maybe heroin.” “Young, like the others.” “Last week. They kept it quiet so the burial wasn’t a circus.” “CIA hit. Had to be.”

#5debutalbums0509 1. A Love Extreme — Benji Hughes 2. xx — the xx 3. Monsters of Folk — Monsters of Folk 4. Up From Below — Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros 5. Volume 1 — She & Him