GUEST BLOG: JEANIE & JAYHA

Paying for Ish You want…Paying for Ish You didn’t do by Jeanie and Jayha

Things you need to know before you read this blog:

North Carolina (NC) is on Eastern Standard Time (EST); New Zealand (NZ) is on New Zealand Standard Time (NZST).

Depending upon where we are in the Daylight Savings Time cycle, New Zealand is 16-18 hours ahead of North Carolina meaning today in North Carolina is yesterday in New Zealand

***

6:30 am Wednesday in North Carolina/10:30 pm Thursday evening in New Zealand

Jayha clocks out at work and rushes home to get Mr. Jayha so she can take him to work. They have one vehicle that they share.

***

7:22 am Wednesday in NC/11:22 pm Thursday evening in NZ

Rrring. Rrring.

Stirred from sleep, Jayha attempts to ignore that ringing sound. Well, actually, it’s not a ringing sound but the theme song from Warner Brothers’ Pinky and the Brain. It’s fitting being that Jayha has grandiose plans for her and the universe involving a religious official, a treaty, a line of demarcation, and a benevolent despot.

Rrring. Rrring.
Realizing that that noise is the phone and that it probably won’t stop ringing anytime soon, a sleepy Jayha picks it up and croaks out a greeting. “I’m up. I’m up.”

“No, you’re not,” the New Zealand accented voice belonging to The Jeanie disagrees…albeit with great respect because Jayha’s the momma.

“Am too,” Jayha says. She is awake…now…kinda…sorta even though her eyes are closed.

“Mmm hmm,” The Jeanie says all disapproving-like. “Where are you? I rang the house and you’re not there.”

“Parking lot,” Jayha says as she stretches in the driver’s seat of her SUV trying to ignore the fact that she feels like she spent the night engaged in “Fight Club” and the fact that her stomach is trying to claw its way out of her body. Momentarily distracted by thirst, she considers her options for the official drink of the Empire—sweet iced tea. Every restaurant in all of North Carolina has iced tea but only Bojangles has Jayha’s favorite seasoned fries. Yum. Bojangles it is.

“Momma, are you listening to me?” Jeanie asked.

“Yep,” Jayha answers.

“What’d I say?”

“You said: “What’d I say?” Jayha says in an attempt to cute her way out of answering.

“How was work?”

“Work was like that line in Napoleon Dynamite—but since I don’t want a intellectual property right violation, I’ll simply say, that it freaking sucks every night I go there,” Jayha says as she turns into the drive-thru.

7:36 am EST Wednesday/11:36 pm Thursday New Zealand time

Jayha orders her fries, slams a 32 ounce sweet tea and starts in on her reserve cup. Jeanie is telling off Jayha. Jayha deflects the telling off with a question: “When am I going to get some grandbabies?”

“Da h*ll?” Jeanie asks.

***

7:48 am EST Wednesday in NC/11:48pm Thursday in NZ

Jayha walks in the door of her house, makes a beeline for her laptop, and fires it up. “Okay, home bambina. Hang up, I’ll call you from my landline.”

***

One minute later.

Jayha scans the email with the part of the book The Jeanie worked on yesterday while Jayha was at work. Jeanie has been on a writing roll and has pumped out over a chapter in text.

“Wow, that kicks all kind of literary a*s,” Jayha says before she and Jeanie launch into a discussion on the direction of the book and outline what each other needs to do today in order to stay on track for the book to be finished.

“’Kay, night. I’m going to bed now because I have to get up early for work, but I’ll call and wake you up so you won’t be late for class.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Jayha begins.

“La la la la la” [Jeanie ignoring her momma sound]

“Fine. Night.”

“Night.”

***

8:09 am EST Wednesday in NC/12:09 am Friday in NZ

Jayha’s alarm clock goes off. Jayha finds it and throws it across the room. Jayha’s phone rings. It’s Mr. Jayha calling to wake her up for class. Jayha mumbles that she’s up. This time, she’s lying through her teeth. Jayha hasn’t even rolled over.

Jayha’s landline rings again. “I’m up!” she screams.

“No, you’re not,” Jeanie says tiredly as she’s set her alarm for an hour later to wake her momma up from the nap Jayha will take in her car in the school parking lot in between class.”

The Jeanie doesn’t like her momma sleeping in the parking lot. Obviously, it’s cold in winter and hot in summer and depending on where her momma parks it could be unsafe.

Now, Jayha’s really up and feels like sh*t for having her bambina have to get up an hour into her sleep to call her to wake her tired a*s up.

***

8:29 am EST Wednesday in NC/12:29 am Friday morning NZ

Jayha cranks up her SUV, puts it in gear and drops the hammer all the way to class. When she arrives on campus she drives around for ten minutes not able to find a parking space despite paying $500.00 fee for parking.

***

9:00 am-9:50 am EST Wednesday in NC/1:00 am-1:50 am Friday morning in NZ

Jayha’s first class, which she’s five minutes late to, which is like on time for Jayha. The whole campus is a hotspot and for most classes students log on to their laptops and take notes. In between taking notes, Jayha responds to email dealing with their books and their boards. To stay awake she sucks back her iced tea.

After class, Jayha stays put. Her next class is in the same room. She lays her head down on her laptop and sleeps for eight minutes.

***

2:00 pm EST Wednesday in NC/6:00 am Friday morning in NZ

Jayha is on her way home. One of the inner posse (in another time zone) talks her all the way there so she won’t fall asleep. She loves those chicks.

Jeanie’s alarm goes off. Jeanie cusses it out, throws it across the room. Jayha calls Jeanie. “Rise and shine, bambina!” she says all perky because that’s what momma’s do to their children.

“Aghr, sunlight!” Jeanie roars.

“You can’t even see it. You have black out film on your windows, your blinds are down; your curtains are over your blinds.” Jayha says.

“Light can still get in. You don’t know,” Jeanie says.

“Burglars would have an easier time of getting into Ft. Knox than light getting into your room. The only light that could possibly get into your room would occur if God walked into your room and said: “Let there be light.”

“Wow, over the line, Momma.”

“What’s over the line is you thinking light is going to get into your room.”

“Yeah, but I know it’s out there…lurking just waiting to get me.”

“Wow, get up chica so you can get to work. There are several points that a men should discount levitra icks.org be familiar to take care of his reproductive health during erectile dysfunction. Order for these herbal pills can be placed from the comfort of home to tadalafil professional increase semen production naturally. Men across the globe no longer need to cialis canadian prices worry about sexual issues again when you are with each other. The best time of result of these tablets is usually for 4 to 6 free cialis no prescription hours but many users have also reported immense improvement in their menstrual cycle after ginseng consumption. I wrote ten pages in between class. I sent them to you already. I’ve got to do some errands, go pick your daddy up, get some grub and do some homework before I can crawl my tired a*s into bed. I’ll call you tonight at your lunch break.”

“Okay. Love you bye,” Jeanie says.

***

8:00 pm EST Wednesday in NC/12:00 pm Friday afternoon in NZ

Jayha calls Jeanie during her lunch break. Jeanie works on the book during her lunch. They discuss the progress of the book and swap notes and decide what has to be done tomorrow. Jeanie wishes Jayha “good night;” Jayha wishes Jeanie a good afternoon, bids her to not cuss anyone out at work, make sure she walks out with colleagues when her shift is over; and drive carefully.

***

8:40 pm EST Wednesday in NC/12:40 pm Friday afternoon in NZ

Jayha finally goes to bed; the Jeanie is back at her desk.

***

10:00 pm EST Wednesday night/2:00pm Friday morning New Zealand time

Jayha gets in her car and cusses all the way to work (she takes forty minutes of unpaid leave every day the front part of her shift so she can grab enough sleep to work with). Jeanie is at work, working on notes, etc. for the story in between calls.

***

Four months later:

Jeanie and Jayha share an internet toast of iced tea as their book that they’ve spent six months working on is finally out.

“Yay, us!” Jeanie says.”

“Damn skippy,” Jayha says back.

***

A day later

Some a**hole puts the book on a pirate website. The book is downloaded over two thousand times. Jeanie and Jayha don’t even sell 100 copies of the book.

“You okay, momma?”

Sigh. “Yeah, all good? You, bambina?”

“Yeah. Do you want to write anymore of the series, momma or just let it go?” Jeanie asks. “That’s a lot of time and resources to throw at a book to get so little return.”

“Don’t know, Jeanie. Right now, I’m not feeling it. Like you said, that’s a lot to put into a book just to have someone take it all away. I don’t know if my heart’s really in it.”

“But what about the books we already wrote?”

“They’re going to have to sit there for a minute. Maybe we can offer them in print. Maybe we won’t offer them at all,” Jayha says with a touch of regret.

Jeanie looks at the email she just received: “Oh, my goodness! I love this book! When’s the next one coming out?” a reader asks.

Jeanie clicks on her other window and reads the book request on a pirate website: “I love these authors. Looking for any of their books.”

Jeanie looks at the list of their titles that have already been illegally uploaded on the pirate website. Clicking on the other window, she responds to the reader: “I don’t know…maybe never.”

“I’ve got to go, chica. I’ve got class,” her momma says.

“But you didn’t even get a nap,” Jeanie protests.

“Doesn’t matter. Someone’s got to make the doughnuts.”

Jeanie can hear the fatigue in her momma’s voice. She worries about her working all night knowing how bad her momma hurts. She worried about her driving sixty miles to college knowing how tired her momma is. She keeps quiet knowing her momma has to do what she has to do. She needs a better education if she wants to get a better job where she doesn’t have to work nights…standing eight hours on concrete. Sighing, she sets her clock. “I’ll call you to make sure you’re up,” she says.

“You don’t have to,” Jayha begins. Jayha stops knowing Jeanie is going to call her anyway. Jayha worries about Jeanie knowing she works long hours at her full time job and taking care of her family obligations. She worries as Jeanie’s sleep is always interrupted…by requests of others and obligations. She feels guilty because she is one of those obligations. If she didn’t go to school, she could get more sleep and Jeanie wouldn’t have to wake up in the middle of the night to call and wake her up and to talk her to school and back home. Jeanie needs to sleep. Maybe then she’d have time to play more but alas, Jeanie’s always writing. They’re both always writing…always. She looks around at the sea of paper on her table…post-it notes, backs of envelopes, backs of receipts that represent the births of many books. She loves these stories…wants to tell these stories. Sighing, she clicks the link to the pirate website and copies and pastes the link into the letter of her and Jeanie’s takedown request. They write so many, they’ve got a pre-printed form for them. All they have to do is change the date and insert the link because part of Jeanie’s routine is searching these pirated websites out; part of Jayha’s routine is writing these letters…always searching and writing…wondering how readers who gush about how much they love them not only steal from them and other authors but preemptively steal from them every day.

“I’m getting at the man,” one reader said.

“Me and Jeanie aren’t ‘the man.’ We’re just two chicks writing stories we love trying to make it.”

‘I’m only trying to pay some bills,’ Jayha thinks as she sends a payment to the cover artist…and another payment to the editor…and another payment to the proofreader…and another payment to the website guy.

Half a world away, Jeanie thinks, ‘I’m only trying to get money to pay bills…and to get back home to my momma.’

Somewhere, a pirate posts another link to one of their books prompting a thank you from a reader…and more take down requests that Jeanie and Jayha will have to tend to tomorrow.

It feels like the blues when you see evidence of people stealing from you. It’s not just the words that get pirated…it’s everything: your time, your energy, your talent, the editing, the cover art, the formatting, your love…everything that goes into creating a book. It feels like the blues when you see evidence that they know they’re stealing and don’t care.

-Jeanie and Jayha

A kickass tag-team bound together by the pen, Jeanie (the shagalicious wordslinger) and Jayha (the ninja master of h*ll no’s) are forces of nature that will either leave you begging for mercy or begging for more.

We are women who have brains we aren’t afraid to use; feelings we aren’t afraid to express; and, middle fingers that we aren’t afraid to extend. We pen stories that push all kinds of boundaries and we don’t apologize for it. Our heroines are feisty; our heroes are hot, and our stories are one-of-a-kind adventures. Come visit us at www.jeanieandjayha.com.

Praises, compliments, adulation, and the like for Jeanie and Jayha can be sent to:

jeanieandjayha@gmail.com

Jeanie Johnson and Jayha Leigh links:

our website: www.jeanieandjayha.com

our yahoogroup:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JeanieandJayha

our Empire:

www.beautifultroublepublishing.com

Comments

  1. I love this interview! I HATE freaking pirates and the people that buy the stuff they pirate. In my opinion if a person buys a pirated book, he or she is stealing also. What gets my goat…is that they pirate the book then complain about something in the book. A bunch of tired a** people.

    Rant over.

    Go Ladies! Much love! Now rock this blog so we can happy dance… 😉

    Serenity

  2. *blog/interview

  3. Thank you Serenity and we’re signing off on that point about people who get a pirated version and then have the gall to complain.

  4. Love it! You two keep writing….don’t let these knuckheads steal your joy and passion from you! There are always fools but your loyal readers will shell out the dough again and again to get their hands on your prose! You keep writing and keep fighting the good/honorable fight! Love ya! 🙂

  5. You two are the biz! OMG. Loved it! Loved it!

  6. This is too funny! I love this blog.

  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

  8. Pirates are some of the most non-sensitive people on the face of the earth. They want our books…because they adore our writing. Don’t they KNOW they are robbing the people they adore?

    If they truly “love” us, they should try supporting us in our efforts by paying for our books. ‘Nuff said.

  9. @Rolanda, thank you for the words. Believe me some days those are the type of words that keep us pecking away at the keyboard

    @RaeLynn, thank you so much.

    @Reana, thank you. We try and go a different route and though we don’t blog much, we’re glad peeps are enjoying what we write about.

    @Fran, preach! and what gets us is that the pirates will pirate books that cost a whole dollar. No sense in that. None. Thank you for commenting.

  10. Jeez, pirates are ridiculous. I’m not looking forward to them, and hopefully, wont have to deal with them (crosses fingers.) Great blog ladies! 😉
    -Vi

  11. You ladies rock on!!

    Jayha – I feel your pain when it comes to working, going to school, AND trying to write.

    THE Jeannie – I feel your pain when it comes living so far from your mama (or in my case, my daddy 🙂

    I effin’ hate pirates too. I only hope that there will come a time where we can put a real hurtin’ on them where ever they are. But then again, we’re still trying to find a way to exterminate the thing most-resembling a digital pirate, the cockroach, too, so it’s gonna take time.

  12. If anyone out there is reading about J&J for the first time, let me tell you I LOVE these girls. If you want sassy, cutting-edge commentary on just about anything, you have to join their yahoo group. It’s a busy group of great people – writers and readers, and others. On top of all that they are hot-stuff when it come to sizzling, pulse-racing books.

    Maybe that’s why their books are the targets of pirates. There’s always someone somewhere who wants good stuff for free. And that’s the big problem that authors and publishers face – trying to get people to UNDERSTAND that every time they take a “free” copy of a book from a pirate site or a friend, they do damage to the people who work hard to put that book that they are enjoying so much together.

    Let me ask a question here. Are you a person who has taken a copy of a book? Have you stopped to think about what has gone into getting that book onto your computer? Did you take it because it looked like a good read, or someone told you it was? Well, it’s good that people recommend books but if you walked by a car sales lot and fancied the look of a car sitting there, would you sit in and take it for a drive, just because you liked the look of it? Of course you wouldn’t! It’s stealing, right? Well it’s the same with books, or anything. Take something without permission (and no, the person who has the ebook does NOT have the owners’ rights to give you a copy – check the law on digital files), and that’s stealing. Not only stealing but destroying the hard work and effort that goes into putting it together.

    Don’t be fooled into thinking authors make fortunes. Stephen King, Stephanie Meyer, JK Rowling, yeah, but 99.9% of authors aren’t them, they’re hard-working people – ordinary folks – trying to make a living just like you. Trying to make sure they have enough money to pay for the house and feeds the kids, just like you. Put yourself in their shoes. Think that you’re an author who has book out. You might get 75c – $1 on each book sold (yes, it’s that low). Most books published never reach 100 sales, so it’s a very competitive industry. You’ve made a few sales, it’s promising, you’re first check is maybe $30-$50 for three months – then you see your book on a pirate site. You see people ASKING for it, thanking people for it, then asking when your NEXT book is coming out. What do you think? Do you think, “Hey that’s great – my book is popular!”, or do you think, “HEY! what’s going on here, these people are copying my books for NOTHING!”

    Feels a bit different now, doesn’t it, huh? Not so good if you yourself are being pirated, is it? Look folks, authors are normal Joes. They need paid for their work. Would you work for free? If authors don’t get paid, they stop writing. If authors stop writing, where do your next books come from?

    Think about it…

    Jim Brown
    http://www.jimandzetta.com

  13. @ Violette…thank you. Yes, pirates are ridiculous…and everywhere and need a good old fashioned foot up their azz.

    @Zetta…lmao and did we mention how much we love you.

    @ Jim…fist in the air…fist in the air…Preach! Preach!

  14. Jim you’re my new Public Announcement Hero. We should make a youtube Video with you in it! Fist raised in the air. Take the pirates down!

    It really sucked. And what’s worse is…. a fam member told me well dayum… not only do you know how music artists feel. Shit you’ve hit the big time if someone’s pirating you.

    I blinked. I’m not big time yet. If I was I could afford to hunt the sleazy belly of a son of a…. Hales is to polite to go further on and just say I’d zip tie the fuckers and put them on notice, watch the mob of angry authors from everywhere descend at once. Sublime revenge or fanciful thought.

  15. Jim – great comments. Although J&J put a humorous spin on most of their blog post, piracy really does suck and it’s not fair that people gush about how much they love authors but won’t spend the few bucks to buy the books “legally.”

  16. Jeanie and Jayha, you had me laughing so hard since I could literally see the phone calls flying back and forth; and crying so hard for the pain and disappointment that pirates have caused. Please don’t stop writing, that would be such a loss to us who love to read your prose and are willing to pay for them.
    If any of you pirates read this blog and comments, I hope you feel ashamed of your actions and stop stealing. I wish I could hunt you all down and take you out!

  17. @Hales…you are right Jim is the man…Jim should be like the official spokesperson against piracy for the Empire…and back away from the zipties young lady

    @Reana…tell it…tell it.

    @Novellette…thank you for the encouragment. And look at you getting all gangsta…we’re rubbing off on you. Smile

  18. Love your stuff Jeanie and Jeanie, and I thank you for giving us your steamy stories. Down with pirates…may they get what they deserve and may the tag team duo be rejoined very very soon. Von

  19. Hummmmm… Now what I would like to do to a PIRATE… Fond memories of ant hills, wet raw-hide strips, and a little honey in certain places come to mind… I know that I could come up with a few other things too… I know, I’m badddddd, but, that’s how I feel… I know what you ladies go through on each book, and then for somebody to out-right steal that work… Just makes me see RED…

  20. I hate pirates. I have signed every petition that I can think of, contacted every lawyer that I know, which is the perk of being an accountant with a JD degree… The only pirates I like are the sexy ones with gold earrings, not these moochers. You guys do wonderful work, and we know you work hard at it all the time…to me it just yells a lack of respect for the time and effort that goes into it. These effin pirates should write their own d*** book and see if they want it posted on a pirate site…

  21. @Classy…thank you for your support
    @John Spiritwolf…this is why you’re one of our fav peeps…smile
    @nevea…tell it, chica…tell it

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