Tao of J.T. is the online blog of New York Times bestselling author and EMMY-award winning television host J.T. Ellison.
A Scottish castle, a love triangle, and a mysterious predator. Add a mug of steaming hot tea, and settle in: you have a busy night of reading ahead!
My 7th Lt. Taylor Jackson novel, WHERE ALL THE DEAD LIE, is only $1.99 on Kindle TODAY!
I hope you had a fabulous week! Things are starting to get back to normal around here, post-NO ONE KNOWS. I always breathe a sigh of relief when I'm able to get back to the page, to begin writing in earnest again. Writing is my happy place.
I've started laying the foundation for the next Taylor/Sam book (yep, they're TOGETHER in this one!). It's called ALL FALL DOWN, and you should see it in stores sometime next summer. Wanna see how I start a book?
I know. I'm a sadist. But don't pretend you hate it.
Anyway...
This is the coolest story. On Pen Pals, Brussels, and Hope: to Brussels and Back Again. The author, Roy Burkhead, is a good friend here in Nashville and the editor of 2nd & Church Magazine. You're going to love this.
GONE GIRL author Gillian Flynn is working on an HBO show for her novel, SHARP OBJECTS, and it's bound to be ridiculously good. SHARP OBJECTS is my favorite of her books.
Y'all know how much I love my adopted hometown of Nashville. This article does a pretty good job of chronicling why it's so great—and how much it's changed lately.
I know you enjoy good books as much as I do. Here's a whole slew of them: nominees for 2016's ITW Thriller Awards!!!
From Anne Shirley to Samwise Gamgee, these are the best travel companions in literature.
Wine and cheese: it's the perfect pairing after you've outgrown PB&J (or, for some of us, a great pairing in addition to PB&J). I'm always a sucker for a good pairing, and this article breaks it down for us.
In super crazy news, just in time for Shakespeare's 400th death anniversary, a new copy of the First Folio was found. In a house. During an estate inventory. Can you even imagine??? This is why you always check your books before you take them to Goodwill.
The secret of life from Steve Jobs in 46 seconds. Need I say more?
The age-old question: how many grapes are in a bottle of wine?
In the middle of all the NO ONE KNOWS promo hullabaloo, I got word that my first little book, the one I hid in a drawer for ten years, FIELD OF GRAVES, was chosen as a SIBA Spring Okra Pick. Y'all. I can't tell you how much this means to me. It will be in your hands June 14. Taylor's back!
I wrote a blog from the heart this week: How Loss Shapes Us & Makes Us Stronger. I hope it helps you find some solace, to move past whatever is weighing you down.
I got to talk to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Geraldine Brooks, for A WORD ON WORDS, and she was so delightful! Why a war correspondent chose to write about an ancient king was quite fascinating.
That's it from me! I hope you have the loveliest spring week, and I'll talk to you soon!
Xoxo,
JT
Several years ago, during a very trying time in my life, I was watching a documentary on the Buddha. Ostensibly, I was doing research on a novel I was planning to write. But something happened to me that day. I heard the following quote:
“There is no knowledge won without sacrifice,
and this is one of the hard truths of human existence:
in order to gain anything, you must first lose everything.”
It stuck with me.
I was having an "all is lost" moment, and I felt such peace when I realized:
Okay, I have to do this, I have to hit bottom in order to find a way to rise any further.
This idea compelled me to find a way to drag myself back to the page, and I ended up reading THE ARTIST’S WAY, which I’ve discussed here before.
Slowly but surely, I pushed myself back into a seated, then standing, position and started writing again.
I found my lost voice.
It was soon after this that I found yoga, in the form of a lovely writer friend who offered to teach me privately in her home.
To say the experience was revelatory is an understatement.
My body did things I wasn’t aware it could do. My guru was kind and gentle and calm and funny, and I was hooked. Absolutely hooked. I felt like I’d connected with myself, with the universe, with the bloody earth, in a way I never had before. I could actually feel my feet touching the floor for the first time. The third session, as I lay weeping on her floor in savasana (a rather common thing, I’ve learned), I felt lighter than I had in years.
That particular session, my guru told me something wildly profound — the universe will give you what you’re seeking. Not only that, the universe wants to give you what you’re seeking.
Had I gained this wisdom when my world was falling apart, there was no way I would have been able to understand or appreciate it. On the other side of the empty crevasse, it was more than inspiration. It was the path back.
I watched a stunningly beautiful short video this week about a dog named Denali, and the impact he had on his master-human person-best friend’s life. The video is from Denali’s point of view. It is about loss, the kind of soul-wrenching loss reserved for losing best friends, whether human or animal. It is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.
We are all marked by loss. We are made by loss.
It is how we handle loss that allows us a path forward when we get mired. It is how we bear loss that proves to us we’re capable of anything.
We will not be broken. We will not be torn asunder. We will breathe through this pain, hug those we love, and fight our way back to the page and share our feelings with another. In that, we will conquer loss.
If you can find your peace, wherever it might be — meditation, yoga, a book, a song, sex, pizza—if you find your peace, you will find your voice. Find your voice, you will find your heart. Find your heart, you will be able to share it. Share it, and you’ve done your job on this earth — to love, and be loved. To care and be cared for. To breathe. To create.
My guru lost her best friend today. I know she is in pain, is beyond devastated. I dedicate this piece to her, and to her Sunnie, in the hope that this loss gives her another path to her incredible voice.
As she once told me, when I was holding on by a thread, “Don’t try to steer the river.”
Wise words for us all.
How were your weeks? Did you get April Fools'd that much??
It's been an interesting week in Nashville. Just wanted to do a PSA: I gave my fur babies some Advantage Multi (by Bayer) for fleas/ticks, and a few hours later noticed the kitties just seemed...off: dilated pupils, drooling, ataxia, lethargy, etc. I called their vet, then poison control, and we ended up at the emergency overnight vet. As it turns out, bad reactions to this product are common. SO common, in fact, that Bayer Veterinary has a quick-dial option on their answering machine to report this very problem. Thankfully, Jameson and Jordan are ok, but I'm livid. Why is this product still available!?!?? It's beyond me. So be vigilant, pet parents.
Anyway. PSA = over. Without further ado...
It's always such a pleasure to talk to ITW about my latest book, and James Ziskin was no different. Here's our interview, where we talk Nashville, switching narrative POV, and TV.
Fellow winos, here's something Amy and I will be sipping on this spring: Grüner Veltliner! They say it's like sipping spring in a glass (grüner, after all, is German for "green").
This I love: author Beverly Cleary is turning 100 years old, and she's just as sassy as ever.
What does it take to launch something new into the world—and get people to hear about it? You'd be surprised. Creatives, you should tune into this one.
JK Rowling published some of her rejection letters on Twitter, and it's a great reminder to budding creatives to never give up.
An intriguing editorial in The Washington Post: eBooks are not the answer to a literacy crisis.
This TED talk by Brené Brown was a huge inspiration for me this week, and I hope it is for you, too! WATCH: "The Price of Invulnerability"
Also inspiring: Why Your Critics Are The Ones Who Count
QUIZ: can you name the most commonly used words in English?
These are the top 10 bookstores in the world, and they're breathtaking.
What's really going on when someone seems "too sensitive"? The answer may surprise you.
My A WORD ON WORDS interview with author Geraldine Brooks aired this week. In honor of her retelling of King David's story in her book The Secret Chord, we discussed how to live like a king (minus the murder). She's delightful!
And on the Tao, I did a roundup on all the things (well, at least all the things at that moment) that'll been said/written about NO ONE KNOWS. As crazy as it seems, there's more to come! Like the fact that two days ago, my lovely friend and brilliant author Ariel Lawhon and I got word that both of our books were selected as Book of the Month Club picks for April!!!!
We are just a teensy bit excited.
Alright, y'all, that's it from me! Enjoy yourselves, stay out of trouble, and I'll talk to you soon.
Xoxo,
J.T.
