JAY ROLAND
JAY ROLAND
Books
JAY ROLAND
Hi, my name is Jay Roland. I’m a new author in the Dark Epic Fantasy genre. Let me tell you a little about myself. I was born in Flint, Michigan, in the ’80s and grew up on a healthy diet of Star Wars, Star Trek, Labyrinth, Ladyhawke, Conan the Barbarian, Red Sonja, Beast Master, and many other fantasy/science fiction movies and TV shows. My educational credentials are nearly as long as my favorite fantasy movie list, having attended four elementary schools, four middle schools, and two high schools before randomly landing an IT support job in 1999 (thanks, Terry) and leaving school only to get my GED in 2003 (I was supposed to graduate in 2000).
While I probably should have been doing homework and paying closer attention to my chores, I spent most of my time in high school hanging out with my friends, playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (that’s what made it cool. It was “Advanced” ;), and Magic: The Gathering. Or I was on the marching band field playing the tenor sax, or in theater practice. Well, that was Monday through Friday. My weekends were reserved for the Renaissance Festival or wandering through the backwoods of Corunna, Durand (or other lesser-known areas of Shiawassee County), and hanging out around bonfires where my friends and I would howl at the moon or whatever. Well, there was that one time we opted out of the bonfire and broke into a golf course, took the flags from the holes, gave each other piggyback rides, and jousted.
Now, if you’re reading this thinking, “Didn’t I see you at Grand Valley State University campus around 2004?” You’re not imagining things. I was there, but let me tell you a secret. You can hang out on a college campus and not pay them any money. You can even walk into a class with a friend and sit there watching the teacher talk and not give them a dime. Let me tell you how that started. In 2004, after my first marriage crashed and burned like the Hindenburg, I met a girl named Nyssa. I lived in Flint, and she lived in Macomb. Soon after, she moved to Grand Rapids to attend GVSU. She wanted a roommate, and I wanted to move to Grand Rapids. So I moved in with her in August 2004, and we started dating in December that same year. But that same summer, she took me to the GVUS Renaissance Festival, where I met the members of the GVSU sword fighting club, John, Jarred, and the rest of the team. I started going to their training sessions because I’d been training with swords since my first day at the Renaissance Festival. There I met people who also attended the GVSU gaming club and Ways of the Earth, an alternative spirituality group. Long story short, I joined all the clubs, attended all the functions, and had the time of my life. In fact, I even started a group called Iron Tempest Gaming Group. Myself, Abby, Nink, Ricky, Jon, Connie, and Matt all worked together on a project to make a game that would compete with any other RPG out there. Unfortunately, the project lost steam, but it was a great time with great people. A few years later, Nyssa and I moved back to southeast Michigan and got married.
Starting in 2007, I got back into IT and over the course of the last 16 years, worked my way up the corporate IT ladder, starting with working at a helpdesk for a company called CareTech Solutions. After years of dedication and hard work, I’ve recently been promoted to the Director of IT Service Management.
While I have had a successful career in IT, I have always had a passion for writing and storytelling. In 2017, when I was considering finishing development of the Darkthorne RPG, I started thinking of stories and scenes that would/could occur in the Darkthorne Chronicles setting. When I got these flashes, I would just jot them down and go about my day. Over time, I decided I had enough material that I could weave these stories into a singular tale.
For context, I have continued roleplaying every system that you can think of, and also the Darkthorne setting. I have around a thousand pages of material for everything from the magic setting down to the number of bakers that live in the city of Ganos in Southern Aestaria. There’s very little that I don’t know about the world of Ashana.
So I sat down and plotted out the age of the story, and overarching theme and plot. After that, I weaved in the individual scenes. To clarify, when I say “Scene”, it’s a paragraph of action or summary of dialogue that would occur between two people. When I started this project, I had about a dozen such paragraphs that I wanted to weave into a singular story. But that still left plenty of questions to answer and writing to do.
Now, after years of writing and revising, I have finally finished my first novel, “The Darkthorne Chronicles: Shadow of the Soul Blade.” It’s been a long and challenging journey, but it’s a labor of love that I am proud to share with the world. I hope readers will find it to be an immersive and engaging adventure that takes them to a fantastical world of magic, monsters, and epic battles.
So now this is me. I’m a husband to an amazing wife. I spend my days working as an IT leader. I spend my nights taking kids to Karate, or picking someone up from after-school activities, and my weekend mornings at the soccer fields. (if I’m honest, my wife does most of that, most of the time, but occasionally, she lets me help out.) While my weekend nights are spent playing D&D with my older girls, or teaching the twins the finer points of fencing and sword play. When I can, I find time to write, and do my best to balance everything out.
If you’re interested in keeping up with my author’s journey, you can follow me at www.jayroland.net .
Q. WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO NEW AUTHORS THAT YOU WISHED YOU HAD RECEIVED YOURSELF WHEN YOU STARTED?
A. The whole editing process really hit me like a ton of bricks, and came from the left side of nowhere. I didn’t know anything about the types of editing, or what each would cost. I had no understanding of what it would do to me emotionally, or mentally, to pay a complete stranger to find every possible mistake, every error in a 91,000-word manuscript. In the end, I came out fine, and the book is all the better for it. But a little warning would have been nice.
Q. DO YOU VIEW YOUR WRITING AS A KIND OF SPIRITUAL PRACTICE?
A. In a sense, it’s a type of meditation. But also, there are a lot of times that I don’t feel like I have control of the movie I’m watching in my head. I’m just peering into this alternate dimension, and writing what I see. But to put myself in a mental state where I can see, and hear the characters. Sometimes it’s like I’m watching a screen. Others it feels like I’m in the middle of everything that’s happening. It’s both transporting, and transcendental at the same time.
Q. WHEN YOU READ YOUR BOOK REVIEWS HOW DO YOU HANDLE THE BAD ONES?
A. I really have to take it with a grain of salt. I know that I didn’t write this book for everyone. I wrote it for the people that would enjoy it. If it happened to get in the hands of someone that didn’t enjoy it, then I’m sorry that they spent time doing something that they found to be displeasing. But in the end, I have to remember that just because one person didn’t like my book, doesn’t mean they speak for the whole world. And even when I go to my favorite authors pages, they get 2- and 3-star reviews for the same reason. Their book ended up in the hands of someone that it wasn’t written for. It’s not the author’s fault.
Q. HOW DO YOU FEEL WHEN YOU DO GET A GOOD REVIEW?
A. Right now, if I get a really good review, and I’ve gotten some amazing reviews so far. I get out of my chair and do a happy dance. I’ll even post some completely ridiculous GIF on social media saying “actual footage of me when I get a good review.” Or something similar.
Q. ARE YOU TRYING TO HAVE EACH BOOK STAND ON ITS OWN OR ARE YOU TRYING TO BUILD A BODY OF WORK WITH CONNECTIONS BETWEEN EACH BOOK?
A. I write as the muse commands. The other day, I had a completely new story idea come to me, unrelated to anything else I’d worked on with the Darkthorne Chronicles. That’s how I started the Aetherium project.
Q. DO YOU WRITE EVERY DAY? HOW MANY HOURS A DAY DO YOU WRITE?
A. I’m either writing every day, or doing something with marketing. I’m a much better writer than I am a marketer. But I try to make sure I accomplish something “Authorly” every day.
Q. HOW DO YOU CONNECT WITH YOUR READERS? DO YOU OFFER THEM A FREE BOOK? DO YOU OFFER THEM A NEWSLETTER?
A. I connect with them through social media, primarily Facebook. I have a newsletter sign up form on my website.
I offer people who sign up for my newsletter, the opportunity to be the first one s in the know about things that are happening. I make sure they know first.
Q. TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELF. ARE YOU MARRIED? HAVE CHILDREN/GRANDCHILDREN? IS THERE A SPECIAL DOG/CAT/BIRD IN YOUR LIFE?
A. I connect with them through social media, primarily Facebook. I have a newsletter sign up form on my website.
I offer people who sign up for my newsletter, the opportunity to be the first one s in the know about things that are happening. I make sure they know first.
Q. DO YOU HAVE A DAY JOB OR ARE YOU A FULL-TIME WRITER?
A. In my 9-5, I’m an IT professional, and currently I’m a department director. I’ve been in IT since 1999, and with few exceptions around the time of the .com crash, I’ve done IT ever since.
Q. ANY HOBBIES? DO THEY HELP YOU IN YOUR WRITING?
A. I have more hobbies than I could rationally count. But my table top role paying Dungeons and Dragons and my life long study of sword play certainly aid me in my ability to tell a good story, and make sure the combat is on point.
Q. HOW DO YOU COME UP WITH THE TITLES FOR YOUR BOOKS?
A. I find the best way to come up with a book title, is to find a friend that you can have a good long conversation with about your book. Record the conversation if they’re okay with that. Once you have a good synopsis down, and you can have that conversation, I promise that somewhere in there, you’ll get your book title. That said, It’s always good to start with a working title, with a level of flexibility in mind.
Q. WHAT DOES YOUR WRITING SPACE LOOK LIKE?
A. My writing space, is also my personal office. It looks like a medieval dungeon. There are swords and axes hung on the walls next to shields, and posters with ancient arcane symbols. The room is filled with book cases holding ancient arcane manuscripts like the Sepher Yetzirah, and the theatrum chemicum britannicum, and many more.
Q. AS A WRITER, WHAT WOULD YOU CHOOSE AS YOUR MASCOT/AVATAR/SPIRIT ANIMAL? WHY?
A. My favorite animal is the black panther. I’ve always been in awe of its mystique and beauty. But if I could be any animal, it would be a hawk, or falcon. The freedom they must feel in the ability to fly, and have nothing more to do than build a nest, and fly around hunting for food and mates. Just the idea of that level of freedom is breathtaking.
Q. DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF AN AUTHOR OR A WRITER FIRST? WHY?
A. At my heart, I’m a storyteller. For me, an author has a sense of authority over something. Maybe psychiatry, or finance. And a writer is someone technically trained in the art of word smithing. I’m a verbal storyteller whose skills were forged in the fires of the role-playing tables, where stories are told live to audiences of five or six people at a time. With this venture into shadow of the soul blade, I’m just doing my best to capture what I see on the screen playing in my head, and convey it to an audience of readers who will enjoy going on the journey along with me.
Q. WHO DO YOU TRUST TO GIVE YOU OBJECTIVE AND CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM OF YOUR WRITING?
A. Family and friends will either be overly agreeable to your writing, or overly harsh, out of some sense of obligation not to be too nice. So, I have a set of beta readers who I didn’t know before I started this project, and they have been the ones that I go to for feedback. They don’t know me, they don’t owe me anything, and all I ask for in return is honesty.
