FAQ
Are you still alive? Where are you?
As of now (today being 02.22.2022 as I write this) I'm struggling pretty badly with writer's block, made worse by severe ADHD and chronic depression. I'm stepping back from writing to publish at this time, trying to find my love for writing again, or at least some enjoyment, which has been absent from my experience as a writer for a long time now. At this time, I don't know what that might even look like if I do find it again, but I have a feeling it will be a little different from what readers have seen from J.L. Aarne before. Yes, I'm alive (yes, this a real question someone asked me recently on Tumblr), but I'm trying to figure out what my writing is going to be like from here on out. This does mean that the Dale Bruyer #4 novel I said I would try to have finished and published in 2022 might be again delayed, though hopefully not abandoned. I'm answering this question here on my website and putting it at the top of my FAQ page simply because I don't want to be one of those writers who just disappears without explanation. I'm not famous or, by anyone's standards (even my own), successful as an author, so the number of people who even remotely care about this is likely tiny, and yet I wanted to say something because I have previously been so unreliable and inconstant when updating series. If I've left you hanging at the end of a book that never got the sequel I promised or that it deserved, I'm sorry. I have to take care of myself and my mental health right now.
Is there going to be a sequel to "I Hear They Burn For Murder"?
I used to get emails and online messages about this quite a lot for someone who is not famous or even infamous in any capacity. Since it's been several years since the first book was published, I don't get them much anymore. Every once in a while, maybe once a year, I'll get an email about it from either a reader who just found the book, or a reader who read it years back and is frustrated enough to have considered violence against me at least once. So, I will 100% understand how unsatisfying my answer to this question is bound to be and I am so very, very sorry.
I do not know.
I'm not trying to be coy, I'm truly not being an asshole about this on purpose, I swear. At this point, I genuinely do not know if there will be a sequel, and my biggest regret about this book is that I ended it on a cliffhanger with every intention of writing a sequel immediately after. I know the story, but I can't seem to do it.
You see, I created the world of "I Hear They Burn For Murder" with a friend, my oldest friend, who was (and still is for all I know) also a writer. When that friendship ended, it took me awhile to figure myself and my writing out again. Before I could really do that, there came the utter chaos of 2020 and 2021, and right smack in the middle of it all, a close family member died. Somewhere in there I had a "real" job for a bit, too, because I like money and I didn't have any. So, if you came to my site and hunted down my FAQ page for the specific reason of finding out just what the actual fuck J.L. Aarne is doing besides writing, I guess that's my answer. Life happened and got in the way, it sort of more or less hit me in the face like a snow shovel.
There is more to Rainer's story, though, and I even know some of it. I'm just a bit gun-shy at the moment about trying to start it after how massively I screwed it up the first time. So, the short answer to the question is: Maybe.
Is there ever going to be another Dale Bruyer novel?
See my previous answer because it's the same, except for one thing: Yes.
I'm still grieving, and nothing has been easy about the past months, so even if it's a dumb idea, I'm thinking about revisiting Dale because hopefully he'll be able to help me. Even a little would be nice.
No promises (because I'm really much better at breaking them than keeping them where writing is concerned), but I'm aiming for book #4, "Beware the Lunar Light", to be finished in 2022.
Was the Dale Bruyer series started as "Supernatural" fan fiction?
No. Lol, no.
I don't watch the show, though, of course, I know what it's about and I've seen bits of it because I don't live in a Skinner box, but no. There are hundreds, probably even thousands of stories with a very similar basic premise of weak/underestimated/human hero battles and therefore understands and has their own strange connection to monsters. Fantastical, magical villains and conflicts in a recognizably modern, non-magical world. It's not a new or original concept.
I have still been asked this question and seen accusations of it in reviews, so to set the record straight, no. I do, however, consume the same entertainment as everyone else. I've watched "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and I read the Anita Blake series until it became more porn than story, so I'm familiar with the trope and it should surprise no one that I love it. A lot of people love it, it's one of the more popular tropes out there.
Why does Dale smoke? Nobody smokes anymore.
This is one of the weirder ones to me, and usually more of an observation than a question. If you've ever worked even a single day anywhere that sells cigarettes, you know it's complete bullshit, too. As someone who has worked a soul-sucking job as a gas station cashier more than once, take my word for it; people still smoke. A lot of people still smoke. I probably sold about 3 times as many tobacco products as I did candy bars when I did that job.
Dale smokes because he's a smoker. He sprang into my head that way, thanks I'm sure in no small part to my total and complete love of John Constantine (one of my absolute favorite examples of the trope I mentioned above). And, while he tried briefly in book #3 to quit, as many smokers do, he's going to continue being a smoker.
You wrote fan fiction? Can I read it?
Yes, I did. I learned a lot about story telling by writing fan fiction. The immediate feed-back and encouragement I had in fandom was invaluable to me taking the leap and creating my own worlds, characters and stories. I never would have done it or even believed it was something I was allowed to do without it. Fandom was the most fun I've ever had while writing and I miss that. I've lost the ability to write that way somewhere a long time ago.
As to the other part of the question: It's out there somewhere. If you can find it, you can read it. Good luck with that.