Jordan L. Hawk's Blog, page 23

I’m sooo excited! Both Hainted and Widdershins are on the list of Honorable Mentions/Potential Finalists for the 2013 Rainbow Awards! I can’t tell you how thrilled I am about this!

I have a bunch of bits and pieces of news that don’t make up a whole blog post on their own, so I’m lumping them all in one.

First, production on the audiobook version of Threshold is scheduled to start October 1 and be completed by the end of the month. I’m so excited!

Second, I’m putting out the first 3 SPECTR stories (Hunter of Demons, Master of Ghouls, and Reaper of Souls) in a single combined paperback (and a combined ebook if you’re the sort of person who likes to buy in bulk). Look for that around the beginning of October, and of course I’ll have copies with me at GayRom Lit if you’re going.

In other Whyborne & Griffin news, I’ve finished the first draft and revisions to Book 3, Stormhaven, and will send it to my beta reader for the weekend. Unless he has massive problems with it, it should go out to my editor by the end of next week! Also, I’m planning on reading from Stormhaven at GRL, so if you’re there come by for an exclusive early peek, er, listen, into the book.

A year ago today, I released Hainted.

Pretty sure I spent the entire month or so beforehand biting my nails and freaking out. What if people hated it? What if I couldn’t write gay paranormal romance after all? Sure I’d hired a fantastic editor who made the book twice as good, but ultimately it was my cover, my words, and my decisions.

Sheer. Terror.

One year and eight releases later, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude with how far we’ve come. I’m so lucky to have the most amazing readers and friends in the world. You are all so terrific, and I can’t say how grateful I am you’ve come on this journey with me! We voted Widdershins into a book of the month slot on the GoodReads M/M Romance group (something I never thought would happen!), we gave away several hundred free copies of Hainted to celebrate the downfall of DOMA and Prop 8, and we came very close to breaking into the top ten best selling GLBT novels on Amazon when Threshold came out.

But even more important, we talked on Facebook and Twitter, on GR and through email. We made friends and shared pictures and laughed. So many of you were with me online when I lost furbabies on Halloween and Easter, which meant so much to me and my husband.

So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for taking this journey with me. I can’t wait to see where we go in the next year!

Love,

Jordan

It’s release day for Eater of Lives, the 4th book in my SPECTR series!

When a supernatural killer is implicated in a string of cannibalistic murders, federal exorcist John Starkweather must track the demon down with the help of his live-in lover, Caleb Jansen. Caleb is possessed by Gray, a vampire spirit who is a natural demon hunter.

Caleb’s desire to find the killer is tempered by the knowledge his own time is running out. If John can’t successfully figure out how to exorcise Gray before forty days are up, the possession becomes permanent.

When John’s ex shows up, looking for a place to stay while visiting the city on business, tensions mount even higher. Lines are drawn and Caleb learns some decisions, once made, can never be changed.

It won’t be out until December, but here’s the cover for Whyborne & Griffin 3, Stormhaven. I’m still working on the first draft, but I have to say this one has been fun to write so far! Well, fun for me; I’m not sure if the characters would agree.

The building in the background is from a picture I took of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum on my trip, although I cropped out the lovely white clock tower.

If you subscribe to my newsletter, you saw this last week. For everyone else, enjoy the first chapter of SPECTR 4: Eater of Lives, which can be found here.

I’ve been zipping through Stormhaven and having a grand old time, so I thought I’d post another song from my Whyborne & Griffin writing soundtrack.

If you read my interview last June at The Novel Approach you may recall Griffin was kind of a pill to get to know as a character. When I was first working on Widdershins, I had a hard time figuring out what made him tick. I do a lot of my plotting and planning while exercising, and unless I’m on my bike, that means I’m listening to my writing soundtrack. The song below really nudged my brain in the right direction and finally gave me a handle on Griffin as someone with a troubled past who had yet to come to terms with it.

For those who prefer print, or just want something to put on the shelf, Threshold (Whyborne & Griffin Book 2) is now available as a paperback from CreateSpace and Amazon!

TALA’s museum includes information about the treatments, such as they were, used on patients. Many seem designed more with an eye to restraining the inmates than curing them.

The “Tranquilizing Chair” where patients were restrained until they calmed down. Beside it is a full-body straight jacket.

An “Utica crib” used for the transport and restraint of patients.

A bath used to “calm” patients by restraining them in a bath of cold or warm water for hours on end, complete with very unhappy mannequin.

Although electro-convulsive therapy (“electroshock”) wasn’t used until the 1930s, by the 1880s devices such as these were used to administer electric shocks to patients.

You can view a scan of an 1895 catalog of “electro-medical and electro-surgical” instruments here. They came with all sorts of attachments, including vaginal and rectal wands, which give me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about.

And that’s it! I hope you enjoyed our virtual tour. And if you’re ever near Weston, WV, I hope you’ll take a couple of hours of your day to visit and see the place for yourself.

You can find part one of my posts here.

On to the doctor’s quarters!

The restored entrance to the doctors’ quarters, complete with plaster rococo molding. All staff lived on premises, from the janitors to the superintendent.

The common area outside of the doctor’s private apartments.

In contrast, here are the nurses’ quarters. Each of these two tiny rooms would contain four beds. Eight women lived in each room. Since they worked in shifts of 12-hours on, 12-hours off, two women could share a single tiny bed, one sleeping while the other worked.

Here are some of the uniforms and clothing worn by nurses from various eras of the asylum’s history.

Next time, we’ll talk about the various treatments patients underwent.