Guest Blog: Wild Card by Jamie Wyman

UFI welcomes Jamie Wyman Author of Wild Card. Thanks for Joining us!!

*begin transmission* Hello? Hello is this thing on? Can anyone hear me? It’s me, Jamie Wyman. I don’t know what’s happened. I was typing and listening to the 90s grunge station, and the next thing I know I’m sitting in my bedroom circa 1995. If any of you can hear this, please…please, find a way to get me back to 2014 before my past self sees me and cringes that she is not, in fact, everything she thought she would be.

Oy vey, this place is a bit of a wreck. I mean, I wasn’t a slob, but… okay, I was a bit of a slob. Must be summer, because it looks like my closet threw up and covered my bedroom in the vomit of journals, clothes and CDs. I’m surrounded by posters of Jonathan Brandis and Christian Slater. They’re everywhere. Even on the ceiling. Holy crap! There’s the picture of me and Brandis. My parents had that blown up to poster size! I haven’t seen that thing in ages. 

Eee! And my Chucks! Wow… yeah, these are totally demolished. Must be last marching season’s troopers. Multiple holes in the inner sides of both shoes from countless hours spent wearing them to marching band rehearsals. Soles worn to butter-softness and thinner than a supermodel’s photoshopped soul. Scribbles and scrawls written all over them. Tons of “anarchy” symbols, too. Holy wow, these were the best shoes of all time.

And my phone!!! I’d forgotten all about this phone! I just HAD to have it—along with the blue and black lava lamp—when I went birthday shopping at Spencer’s. Sure, it wouldn’t stay mounted to the wall and ended up just sitting there on the floor, open and clunky, but it was still better than some clear plastic thing from 1991. Do you have any idea how many hours I spent on this phone talking with my BFF Susana about how cute Jerry Sobota was? Guh! Sure, he said he didn’t *like* me like me, but I carried that torch, dammit. And we won’t even go into how often I talked to my boyfriend on that phone. This phone was pimp! 
 
Guys guys guys! My drumset is here! Jet black Ludwig Rocker LTD. Zildjian cymbals (10 inch splash, 14 inch crash and 20 inch ride), 2 black tambourines and Yamaha hardware. “Animal” (muppets) plush lives in the bass drum. Most often played while listening to Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Offspring and Aerosmith.

Oh, my gods, AEROSMITH! I loved them! There’s all my t-shirts that I hung on the wall. And EVERY. Damn. CD the band ever produced. And the music books of Get A Grip and the Greatest Hits album. And my bass guitar ready to learn Cryin’.

*spins in circles* Holy crap, this like some crazy time capsule! And my beanbag…My Weezer flag! And my copy of “The Crow” graphic novel. (Totally need to get that signed by James O’Barr when I see him at Phoenix Comic Con this year.) My notebooks of poetry and stories, all tied together with keychains….damn, I lost those in a flood a few years ago! And the Woodstock ’94 pictures I drew and hung on my door? And that stack of notes passed between classes from Susana, Pam. I used to sign all of them the same way: TLATEOTTMBY – “The Light at the End of the Tunnel May Be You”. Got that from an Aerosmith song and loved it. It was my thing. More notes…and a huge stack from my boyfriend.

Oh, dear, my boyfriend…. *blushes* There’s the necklace he gave me that I wove a hemp cord for because the original chain broke. 
 
Dude! Why did I hate myself so much as a teenager? Sure, I had some issues, but I played drums like a freakin’ deranged octopus. I had stellar friends, great taste in music and just as much fashion sense then as I have now. Nothing much has changed, honestly. I mean, physically there are grey hairs and more pounds and a bad back from all that marching band and drumline, but I’m still the same. I’m worlds away from who she was—who she thought she would be—and yet, I am her. And she was pretty damn cool. I should leave her a note and tell her that…
 
Wait… *transmission begins to fade* Guys, can you hear me? I think something’s happening. The room’s getting…it’s clearing out…Everything is gone. Oh, no…I’m looking out the window and there’s like eighty feet of snow on the ground. This paper on the window says “condemned”.
Where’s my stuff? Where the hell am I? Guys? GUYS?!!! Hurry….wherever you are, start singing “No Rain” by Blind Melon. Maybe it will create some sort of conduit—I’ll sing, too—and I can come home. Home to my daughter, my husband, my ohana, my cats and the me I’ve become. I’ve got sequels to WILD CARD to write. Hurry. If you’re there…sing for me!
*blast of light…static* 

Um…I’m in my house now. My real house. At my computer in 2014. TyGrr is being insane and my daughter left her breakfast dishes on the floor. Again. *sigh* Wow. That was close.
So, I was supposed to do a guest post for you on Urban Fantasy Investigations, but…well, after all that, I think I’m a little discombobulated. (I love the Spell Check recognizes that word. Just sayin’.) I’m going to sign off now. 

And remember…the light at the end of the tunnel may be you. Goodnight.

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After a misspent adulthood pursuing a Music Education degree, JAMIE WYMAN fostered several interests before discovering that being an author means never having to get out of pajamas. (However, she can eat/spin fire, tell you a lot about auditioning to be a Blue Man, and read/write in Circular Gallifreyan.) As an author, Jamie’s favorite playgrounds are urban fantasy, horror and creepy carnival settings. When she’s not traipsing about with her imaginary friends, she lives in Phoenix with two hobbits and two cats. She is proud to say she has a deeply disturbed following at her blog.

Jamie’s debut novel WILD CARD (Entangled Edge, 2013) is available wherever ebooks are sold. You can also find her short story “The Clever One” in the anthology WHEN THE HERO COMES HOME 2 (Dragon Moon Press, August ’13). Jamie has contributed to the SF Signal’s “Mind Meld” feature as well as the flash fiction contests on Chuck Wendig’s blog.

Find Jamie and her books

Website / Goodreads / Twitter / Facebook

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Wild Card

 It was bad enough that gods gambled with human souls, but Catherine Sharp’s soul just had to be won by the Greek goddess of Discord, Eris. As if working a dead-end tech support job didn’t suck the life out of her as it was. Now, Cat finds herself performing random tasks for the goddess in her free time.

But when Coyote, the Native American trickster himself, claims to have won her own soul in Mayhem’s weekly poker game, Cat wants in on the action. With five sneaky gods upping the ante, Cat needs to find a way to collect the winning chips that could save her soul.
Marius, a handsome yet irritating satyr with his own debt to Eris, might finally come in handy for something. If they play their cards right and work together, Cat and Marius may just get their freedom back. If they don’t kill each other—or fall in love—first.

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