J.G. Martin

So I get a lot of spam as an indie author with a social media presence. I get it on my TikTok, I get it in my email... and now I'm getting it in my Tumblr inbox.

This person has not read my book. Every detail on this comes from the blurb. And the "active readers" they're giving me "access" to are either just paid reviews, bots, or don't exist.

But if you're naive, and don't realize how predatory messages like this are, you might accidentally take them up on this nonsense, waste your money, and they'll move on to the next sucker.

oh my god my book cover is done! Art by Dali Wu, commissioned through Reedsy!

Book drops August 14th 2025

I'm going to yammer a little about symbolism. Specifically how I do not use it on purpose.

What I do is write what demands to be written. There's structure to keep track of, consistency, and an attempt at satisfying conclusions.

But I'm not obsessing over metaphor and symbolism while writing. I might push a few I notice happen organically, during revision, but it's not something I go in with intent to add.

I feel awful about it.

Because there are so many people who go out of their way to find hidden meaning and symbolism in everything, and assume all writers are meticulously adding these little secret things. We're all in on the wonders of 'alchemy' and 'chaos magic' and we're building secret worlds.

Maybe some are. Maybe some know what they're doing there and can give you those precious connections to other things and prove to you everything is connected and has meaning.

But I'm just telling stories, sharing nightmares, welcoming you into the creaky recesses of my noggin. I don't know what all is hiding here, and I certainly didn't put it there on purpose.

So I am sorry if you come to me for that. What you see is what you get in a lot of my writing. You may find many metaphors for loneliness and belonging, but if there's any connections to the chaos of the universe...they're on accident.

Not only did he not put it there on purpose, he couldn't even see it when it was pointed out to him. And it's not because he didn't understand symbolism. He always joined in on discussions of other stories. But, what we all saw in HIS story was so beyond his intentions and experience that we were all talking gibberish to him.

Luckily, we had a good teacher. Because she was able to turn that into a lesson about how we can never know what readers might see and take away from our stories. But, she also pointed out the flipside - that as readers, we can only definitively say how a story made us feel and what we took away from it. We can never REALLY know the author's intention.

I don't mean there isn't any symbolism in what I write, but that I didn't do it on purpose and so I can't confirm or deny...or even understand when it is pointed out to me.

Which I've learned is a fairly common thing and another reason I think separating the art from the artist is important. Take what you wish from the thing, but keep in mind what you see is colored by your experiences and not exactly the intention of the creator.

My husband's friend is entirely convinced that every author has secret messages and knows alchemy and is putting chaos magic in their work for other alchemists to find.

And if you were confused by that very long sentence...so was I. But I don't study chaos or alchemy and my interests in symbolism and metaphor are fairly shallow. I like to enjoy a thing, picking it apart isn't how I enjoy a thing. I am fully supportive of others enjoying things this way though, and so I am not allowed to talk to this friend.

My opinion is that the most meaningful bits of symbolism come from our subconscious, those buried aspects of ourselves that fight to be seen through the masks we wear day by day: the inner pains, traumas, or fears that forced us to turn inward in the first place, to find escape or catharsis through the art we create.

Hot take?

Could I explain the actual rules of how they’re used? Absolutely not.

WRITEBLR INTRO

My pen name is Jack Lovelace, & I’ve been lurking for around a year but was too nervous to start my own writeblr until now. Tbh I haven’t written any fiction since I left middle school, but I’ve been working on a couple novel ideas in my head for years now. Once I narrow it down to 1 or 2, I’ll be posting excerpts, moodboards, & drawings for those WIPs along with rambles about my writing progress. My anxiety makes it really hard to share my ideas & interact with others without worrying about what others might think; but this seems like a welcoming & encouraging community, so I’m going to try anyway. 🙂

ABOUT ME

I’m a 23 year old community college student in California taking prerequisite classes for an RN program

My favorite genres are horror, apocalyptic, dystopian, & realistic fiction

I like cats, San Francisco, story podcasts, & foreign zombie movies

I’m a non-theistic satanist & recently joined The Satanic Temple

It feels like just yesterday that 2024 was a brand new year, and yet, here we are, just a day away from its end. So, without further ado, here's just a short list of things that happened to me in the writer world in 2024.

-I published my second novel, Splintertown, in February of this year! It was an absolute dream come true and I will always cherish the memories of how it felt to finally see this story come into the world. Splintertown also sold very well, and very quickly, copies of this one flew out of my hands significantly faster than that of its predecessor. It was so impressive and wild, and I am so grateful.

-A copy of Shadow's Hidden Blade was sold for the first time ever to a customer who lives outside of the U.S.

-I donated copies of Shadow's Hidden Blade and attempted to get it circulated in a local regional library. I was unsuccessful, but at least I tried.

-A copy of Splintertown was sold for the first time to a customer outside of the U.S. (What?!)

-I received many comments from readers over the course of this year that absolutely filled my heart with joy.

-I read a lot of books this year, several of which were written by my fellow authors on Tumblr! J.G Martin's (@jgmartin) Crooked Antlers was the perfect book to curl up with on a rainy night and will likely be a spooky season favorite, Apolline Lucy's (@apolline-lucy) The Silver Birds had me struggling to pick my jaw up off the floor, Alina Capella's (@alinacapellabooks) The Tengu and The Angel was a strikingly emotional summer read, Gabriella Buba's (@inkcurlsandknives) Saints of Storm and Sorrow had me on the verge of losing it on an airplane, and Estella Mirai's (@estellamiraiauthor) The Stars May Rise and Fall made me stay up way too late while desperate to find out what happened next.

All in all, wow, what a year!