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#224 - Jaysea Lynn
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Fantasy romance author and TikTok sensation Jaysea Lynn joins this episode to discuss her storytelling journey—from creating a series of comedy skits on TikTok to writing a prequel novel based on that series, nearly self-publishing, and ultimately becoming traditionally published!
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Transcript
Importance of Writing and Plot Holes
00:00:00
Speaker
Ooh, a spicy question. love it. Because the writing is sort of everything, right? Like you can fix plot holes, but if the writer... So some readers love that and some readers are like, but I wanted more of this. So it's kind of, it's kind of a gamble.
Introduction to JC Lin and Her Work
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast. On today's episode, I am speaking with a contemporary fantasy romance author and creator of the acclaimed TikTok comedy drama series, Hell's Bells.
00:00:27
Speaker
It's JC Lin. Hello. Hello. Thank you so much for for joining me across the world, across different time zones. It's been fun learning how to coordinate that with everybody, but this is really fun. I'm excited.
00:00:40
Speaker
Fun is, it's so stressful to me, but let's not get into my issues and my worries.
Discussion of 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'
00:00:45
Speaker
um Let's talk about your upcoming novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls, which is out on the 6th of May, I think in the UK and the US.
00:00:56
Speaker
Yes. Tell us what it's all about. What what can we expect in the story? So it started as a prequel to my TikTok series, which is set in the afterlife. And that had been going for several years by the time I decided to start writing.
00:01:11
Speaker
And it was originally going to be like five chapters fun thing on Patreon. And just like the TikTok series, it kept going because I went, oh, no, there's more here. So I just kept developing Lily and her story as she passes away from cancer and arrives in the afterlife and sees that it's not nearly what she
Lily's Journey in the Afterlife
00:01:30
Speaker
expected. And as she like gets to navigate what all that means and how she's still dealing with the like processing everything that had happened to her in her life and how she had died.
00:01:40
Speaker
And eventually she does go down to hell a little bit out of spite. And she realizes that her years of customer service can really do some good there. She didn't know spend all those years for nothing. And now she gets to talk back. So she starts something called the help desk, which is just customer service in hell, but the customer's 99% of the time, always wrong.
00:02:00
Speaker
So, and then she gets to explore the whole world and see that there's deities there. And she gets to meet Belle, who's a demon and general and a prince. And there's some other fun characters that make an appearance as well.
00:02:11
Speaker
Okay. Can i surmise from this that you have some experience in the service industries? Oh, my entire career. I think I've only had a couple of jobs that weren't considered service. I worked in industrial construction and then I worked on a fishing boat in Alaska. And I think that's the only non-service jobs I've ever had since I started working at 16.
00:02:36
Speaker
Okay. Wow. So would it be safe to say that a lot of the sort of um anecdotes and stories from this are close to things that you might have experienced in obviously highly fictionalized versions of things that you might have experienced in your time and working in service industries?
00:02:55
Speaker
Yes and no. There's some personality types that were... It was the personality type that really made it apparent. And you have those people who are going to complain about anything, no matter what they can.
00:03:07
Speaker
But I came up with the series on TikTok while I was working at a fabric store during COVID during the holidays. And I just had one customer go off on me on the wrong day.
00:03:18
Speaker
i was like, you know what? I think that I know where you guys could be wrong. And that's where this whole thing started. But yeah, I've seen some pretty ridiculous stuff in my time in customer service. It's what bonds us service industry workers together.
00:03:32
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. I having been in that world for a bit myself, I fully understand what you're talking about. Um, so the, let's talk about the TikTok series.
Evolution of 'Hell's Bells' on TikTok
00:03:42
Speaker
Hell's Hell's Bells. That's the series, right?
00:03:44
Speaker
Yeah. And when we say series, it's, it's not like a long form, um, story. It's like, lots is it lots of short sketches? It originally started out as a bunch of short little sketches. And again, it wasn't supposed to last for very long. But now it's kind of grown into long form story in little pieces.
00:04:07
Speaker
and think the longest episode I have is like eight minutes long, but most of them are in the realm of like three-ish minutes like one to three minutes so trying to tell a story and be entertaining in one to three minutes but also giving character development and plot and hinting at world building so it is a long form story now but the early episodes don't really reflect that we're like 600 plus episodes in now wow yeah i mean i guess it's like three and a half years in Yeah, if that if they're all like three to eight minutes, how is there a cap on how long a video can be on TikTok?
00:04:44
Speaker
Yeah. in the When I first started out, it was one minute and then it got bumped up to three. And now you can do up to 10, but I usually try and stay in the ballpark of like three or four minutes for the episodes now. But and they've definitely gotten a little bit longer as we've gone on. But I've had a couple of like character weddings, like really big episodes. I think there's only like two or three of those that are like eight, nine minutes long.
00:05:10
Speaker
Okay. And this is because this is TikTok, this is video. So this is all like performative as well. You're kind of, um, you're appearing, you're acting, you're playing multiple characters. It's, it's, it's, it's a whole production.
00:05:22
Speaker
It's a complete one-man band situation. And it's hilarious to me that it's as successful as it has been because it's just me acting to a piece of tape on different walls. And I've got the cheap Amazon horns and I have no acting training and I'm using the green screen effect on TikTok. It's very low budget.
00:05:40
Speaker
It's like high heart, low budget. That's how the series works. But somehow it's been, you know, it works. It's a formula that I'm not going to mess with. Yeah. I mean, if it ain't broken, and I mean, obviously there's something very charming about it. Something being very like homemade and, and um, on a low budget.
00:06:01
Speaker
Yeah. And the, People who were have been following me for a really long time really put up with a lot because I used to live on a sailboat for several, several years for most of my 20s. And you can hear in many of the episodes early on like boat noises, because I would be in a marina or there'd be a windstorm and you could barely hear the dialogue because the wind's screaming through the rigging and everything. And it was like, okay, yeah, this is just, you know, it's the screams of hell, guys. It's fine.
00:06:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's well-boding. It's definitely not boat. that but That's the production value. Exactly.
JC Lin's Passion for Storytelling
00:06:34
Speaker
um So was this your first kind of foray into storytelling? Is this the first time you've you' tried to sort of actually write a story with characters and and character development and themes and things? so It's definitely the first time I've followed it through. I've been like, I've always been puttering around writing and coming up with stuff like since I was a little kid, like my parents found the first thing I typed, which was a like 500 word creation myth when I was like six or seven.
00:07:00
Speaker
um So I've always been telling stories and writing, you know, fan fiction or doing other little one shot stuff off on the side. But I never really followed a story through from beginning, middle, end, and then put the effort into it. I'd get kind of like a third of the way halfway through and then kind of bail because I'd have college or school or whatever else that I would just get sidetracked or I'd kind of intimidate myself out of following it through. But this one, it just kind of kept kept going and I felt strongly enough about it and confident enough about it that was like, no, I think I can like i can do this.
00:07:34
Speaker
I can keep doing this indefinitely forever. Here we are three years later. like We might not be doing Hell's Bells forever, but I can keep telling stories. But Hell's Bells is the confidence, the dropkick of confidence that I needed.
00:07:48
Speaker
Okay. At what point did you say to yourself, I could change, you know, expand the kind of medium of storytelling and I could turn this into a novel?
Transformation from Project to Novel
00:08:00
Speaker
I think it was probably about a year or so in And I'd written like that first chapter, which came to me really clearly. And I went, I'll just post this for fun because I'm no good at writing. And I'll just you know put on my Patreon for people who are there and see what happens.
00:08:19
Speaker
And then I kind of was like, well, I guess I could try to do a little bit more. And then I was like, well, now I need a plot for the whole stupid thing. so So I'm like, how can I torture my characters more?
00:08:32
Speaker
But have it make sense within the context of the videos. So it was probably a year or so in that I was like, yeah, I could do a little prequel. But I didn't anticipate it becoming what it is.
00:08:44
Speaker
Okay. you didn't You weren't expecting it to be you know a full long form novel, the whole thing? Oh, no. And especially not as thick as it is. Like when I ran the final word count on that first draft and it was, I think something like crazy, like 200,000, 200 words. And I went, Oh, it's a beefcake. Oh no. So when I did a big, huge rewrite on it, I got it down to, I think 189,000 and sent it off editor and I went, please butcher this. And she actually sent it back and went, I'm actually going to need you to write me more because it's too skeletal for what you have.
00:09:20
Speaker
what i'd sent so it's back up to i think 199 000 where it's a thick it's a doorstop you need to kill bugs it's there that's and this is this ah this is your debut novel as well that's massive for a debut novel which as everything I was Googling, cause I was like, well, yeah, I could try and publish this, but like traditional publishing never really entered my thoughts. I saw your first novel's gotta be under 90,000 words. And I was like, well, I've done more than twice that. So that's already out. And I didn't want to deal with the whole rejection process. I was like, self-publishing is a big thing. It's a big responsibility. There's a lot of pieces to it, but was like, you know, I can self-publish this and really take, you know, shoulder the risk and all of the work.
00:10:07
Speaker
um and just see what happens. And then I did that. And then I started getting some very interesting emails. Did you
From Self-Publishing to Book Deal
00:10:13
Speaker
email ah agents or editors or where did you decide?
00:10:18
Speaker
Okay. Who did you email? I emailed no one. So what happened was I was self-publishing it and I was going to drop the ebook on like New Year's Eve of 2024, December 30th of 2024.
00:10:35
Speaker
And I was, it's got the pre-order set up and I reached out to Gwenna, who's also known as Mama Cusses on TikTok. We've been mutuals for a while. And i went, hey, do you want an art copy of my book? Like you don't have to. And she was like, yes, please send it over.
00:10:49
Speaker
And then I get an email from her four hours later and she goes, do you mind if I send this to my agent? She's, i don't think she's taking clients right now, but I just feel like it's a book she'd enjoy. And I went for sure.
00:11:01
Speaker
What's the harm spread the, spread the joy. and then 12 hours after that, I got an email from what became my agent. And she was like, this is amazing. Let me help you out here. Let me to help you just get an audio book deal.
00:11:15
Speaker
And then I started getting um emails from editors who were like, hey, do you want to talk about Trad Publishing? And I had no plans of it. i It's just the pre-orders had done so well that it kind of got on people's radar.
00:11:30
Speaker
So my my calm Christmas did not stay calm for very long. i think I had Christmas Day and then it from pre-orders on December twenty second to ah ebook pub day on December 30th.
00:11:48
Speaker
That's all it took for me to get an agent and start a trad publishing auction. So I'm very confused how I got here.
00:11:57
Speaker
I'm still kind of politely baffled as much as I can be very grateful for it. But it was definitely a whirlwind that I did not expect at all. Wow, that's amazing. So you literally basically sent it to a friend and they were like, I'm just going to you know, don't worry about it I'm just going to send here. And then it all just picked up from there.
00:12:17
Speaker
Yeah, it was just, I think she'll enjoy this. And I was like, for sure. Why not just get it out there? Because I just thought my followers would enjoy it and it wouldn't really go much beyond that.
00:12:29
Speaker
Yeah. um But then other people were like, hey, no, we've read it and this is good. It's big, but it's good. That's amazing. And you know what, it goes to, um i think you were in such a good headspace where you'd written something and you thought, oh, my friend's going to enjoy this.
00:12:46
Speaker
Because I was talking to an author the other day, and one of the pieces of advice that often gets um given around in publishing is write what you would want to read.
00:12:57
Speaker
which I think can be helpful, but to some degree is a bit too hyper-focused on you. You know, like, it's like, well, we don't really know what, it's hard to judge when you're so close to it.
00:13:10
Speaker
So it's hard to be like, I, do I want to read this? I don't know. I wrote it. So I like it. So do I want to read it? But her take was, She writes stories that she thinks her friends would like to read. So if you had a story you thought, my friend's really going to like this, I think you were set in such good stead to to give that to someone if for it to be in in a good place.
00:13:31
Speaker
Yeah, it was, it was nice for me, because I've had such a crisis of confidence for so long about so many things. But I was like, it's already a story that's out there. I've been doing hell spells for long enough and looking stupid on camera for years at that point.
00:13:48
Speaker
So I was like, you know, I surely I can send the book to a friend. But, and it also helped that it had taken shape on Patreon. So I knew that the hideously bad first draft, I mean, it wasn't as awful as it could have been, but looking back on it now, i'm like, yeah, we made a lot of changes in a year between finishing the first draft and hitting send on that pre-order.
00:14:13
Speaker
yeah it kind of helped that I'd done my least favorite thing, which is learning in public. I keep ending up doing that. um But, it helps that I was like, well, it can't get much worse. that You guys have already seen my first draft.
00:14:27
Speaker
In terms of, you so you said you, you'd basically got it essentially to the finish line in terms of self-publishing. Um, you just decided not to cross it at the last second, but what did you, did you do a lot of research? Did you do, you know, a lot of, had a lot of work gone into that in terms of getting it ready to self-publish and like, if so, where, where did you look like, how did you learn how to do that?
00:14:50
Speaker
There was an insane amount of research that went into that. And then there was a lot of more like work that went into it. So I did a lot of the... I looked into Trad Publishing went, it's too beefy. I'm not willing to cut it you know down by 120,000 words. like I'm willing to do a really healthy trim, but I don't want to you know completely shred it.
00:15:09
Speaker
Mm-hmm. So I started looking up like lists of how to self publish what's an ISBN number what okay how do we get those what's you know Amazon pre order what does that look like ebook who do we go for print books all this stuff so it was I say it was a crash course but at times it really felt like more crash than course.
00:15:28
Speaker
because you kind of don't know what you don't know until you're into it. And I was all gas, no breaks, trying to get it done in a year while filming and while planning a move and having some other life stuff happen.
00:15:40
Speaker
So I found a website called Reedsy, R-E-E-D-S-Y, because I was like, I need an editor. i know that. Um, And i found, and was able to query a bunch of editors and kind of learn that process. And I got, I stumbled onto Katrina and she was wonderful. She did so much work on this beefcake and she helped guide me through the kind of what publishing looks like and talked me off the ledge of,
00:16:06
Speaker
you don't need to spaz out about this, this, and this. This is spaz worthy. This is not. um So she was wonderful and very, very helpful for the developmental and line edits. And then I had to find another editor for copy editing. I found someone else to do the formatting that was all on Reedsy, that marketplace.
00:16:24
Speaker
um So that was where I spent a lot of my time and seeking that help. But I spent a lot of time on Google, which as we all know, can give conflicting advice. So there were some tears over the course of 2024, but all worked out.
00:16:40
Speaker
um but it all worked out Yeah, I mean, it worked out sort of spectacularly well in the most unexpected way, I imagine, from what you were expecting. But it sounds like you did the right thing in terms of you provided yourself with all of the things, at at least in terms of the editorial portion, all of the things that a traditional publisher would supply you with, as in those different stages of editorial, each kind of step along the way.
Experience with Traditional Publishing
00:17:08
Speaker
Once you'd signed with Simon & Schuster, um did you go through another round of editorial and do all of those stages again? That was part of the conversation we had because I did technically self-publish it as an e-book.
00:17:24
Speaker
um It did come out as an e-book on December 30th, my version of it. um So the book was out there. So we didn't want to run through and chain do major content changes. We ran a couple of copy edits on it.
00:17:36
Speaker
and Okay. But that was the extent of what we did there. So there wasn't any real big, you know, people's names didn't change, places didn't change, the plot beats didn't change. It was just like, let's make this as grammatically correct as possible for it being a really solid doorstop.
00:17:57
Speaker
for it being you know a really solid doortop
00:18:02
Speaker
200,000 words was a lot for them to go through in, you know, the few days that they did it, but the, everyone really pulled together and I've been so like grateful for the whole team. Everyone's been so wonderful.
00:18:16
Speaker
And did you keep the, and presumably you had the cover lined up and ready to go? would did that all stay between self-publishing and the traditional publishing? The cover is essentially the same. There were a few minor tweaks that they made to make it a little bit more punchy and everything.
00:18:33
Speaker
But I bought the rights from the incredible person who did it at Story Wrappers. And so everyone like loves the cover. I love the cover. and It was kind of hard for me to go. Why are you changing the font of my name?
00:18:46
Speaker
We want it to stand out. But I was very overstimulated at that point because my whole life had just changed in like six days. And I was like, the font of my name is ah it's a bridge too far. i don't know how if I can handle this.
00:18:59
Speaker
I had to go for a walk and like eat something and calm down. But the cover is essentially the same as it was. It's just some minor tweaks. Right, right, And a lot of the time that's because they want the name to stand out so that it can be consistent across multiple books. It's all a brand building exercise and big publishers know exactly what they're doing when it comes to that kind of thing.
00:19:21
Speaker
Yeah, I had to learn how to trust that because I'd been clutching everything in my grubby little paws for so long. It had just been mine. And I was like, okay, well now it's a team siege. Like remember your teamwork, girl.
00:19:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it all worked out in the end and in a sort of, it sounds really interesting because yeah, you put so much work into it upfront and then it kind of all went in a different direction at the end, but it's all good, all
Desert Island Book Choice
00:19:47
Speaker
great.
00:19:47
Speaker
um and and And like i said, the top of the episode coming out May 6th, which I think will be out by the time this airs. um we are at the point in the episode where i uh ship you off and ask jc if you were stranded on a desert island with a single book which book do you hope that it would be i just turned around and looked at my bookshelves like that's gonna help me a lot of people do that oh what one I mean, how to build a raft is probably if we're thinking purely in terms of practicality. Yeah. um But i mean, Radiance by Grace Draven is one of my all time comfort reads. So if I'm just like, well, if I'm just gonna be chilling on a beach, it's not a super thick book. It's not a super dense book, but it's one of my comfort reads.
00:20:37
Speaker
So that one always kind of springs readily to mind. I mean, I can, there's a whole list of books that are like in my favorites, but one book, I think I would just stick with Radiance. Radiance. And how to build a raft if I have to be practical. Radiance slash how to build a raft.
00:20:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. So you said it's one of your one of your go-to comfort reads. How many times do you reckon you've read that novel? Oh, probably eight or nine. Okay. Because I tried to diversify my reading where I'm like, I should read Radiance again. I should actually read something else.
00:21:14
Speaker
I should like just try to, okay, there's other great books out there. So I try to limit, you know, if I'm really stressed out what I have a couple of ones on the comfort roster, but that's always one that I like to default back to just because it's such a good friends to lovers. And I like both the characters and the world is so interesting. It's, I love that book.
00:21:36
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah, no, I mean, it's nice to have a, that kind of comfort thing. Like a lot of people have it with a TV show where it's like, I don't know what to watch. I'm, everything's a bit overwhelming. I just want to put my show on and sit back and see that's a nice book and sounds great.
00:21:50
Speaker
Sounds nice. Yeah. Um, up next, uh, I've got some questions going a bit deeper on JC's writing as well as, um, some more TikTok and, and, uh, and, and Patreon things.
00:22:04
Speaker
That will all be in the extended episode available on my Patreon, patreon.com slash rightandwrong. um Yeah. You know, you're on a road. It's just, okay, what is, what's the headlights illuminating?
00:22:17
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. scar one
00:22:22
Speaker
um Amazing. And on that note, we're at the end of the episode. So thank you so much, JC, for coming on the podcast and telling us all about For Whom the Bell Tolls, which is out May 6th. I think this, this will be airing after that. So it should be available in all the usual places to anyone listening.
00:22:39
Speaker
um But yeah, thank you so much, JC. It's been so cool chatting with you and hearing all about your adventures with writing and and TikTok and publishing. yeah it's been great. Thank you so, so much. I've loved this. This has been great. I mean, I could keep gabbing about books forever. This is awesome.
JC Lin's Online Presence and Podcast Support
00:22:53
Speaker
um And for anyone ah wanting to keep up with what JC is doing, you can find her in all sorts of places online.
00:23:01
Speaker
ah She has a website, jclin.com and that's JC, J-A-Y-S-E-A. ah You can find her on TikTok at c.jar.later, on Instagram at jc.jar.later.
00:23:14
Speaker
ah You can find her Patreon, patreon.com slash see you later. That's S-E-A. And YouTube, she's also see later again, S-E-A. ah To support this podcast, like, follow and subscribe. Join the Patreon for ad-free extended episodes and check out my other podcasts, The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes.
00:23:30
Speaker
Thanks again to JC and thanks to everyone listening. We will catch you on the next episode.