Passion Rising

by JA Huss

  I said, “Are you SURE?”

  And she looked at me, took a breath, and said, “I go where you go.”

  So. Here’s the last thing I want to say ...

  Everything I know about love... Everything I know about kindness... Everything I know about commitment, and dedication, and generosity, and sexiness, and passion...

  In other words, everything I know that made it possible for me to write these books...

  Hell, everything I know that makes it possible for me to wake up every morning excited and hopeful and ready to take on another day...

  Everything that gives me the courage to keep climbing when I get tired...

  All the art I create... All the music I hear... All the colors I see... All the joy I find...

  Is because of her.

  Laura, you are my heart, and I thank you for everything.

  I have not the words to tell you how much I love you. But I hope you will accept all the words within the pages of these books as a woefully inadequate start. There will be many more.

  I also hope you know...

  I would walk through fire for you.

  I would fight back the raging sea.

  I will never flag.

  I will never waver.

  I will never not be there.

  There is no measure of space or time that I would not cross to find you.

  Always.

  I go where you go.

  OK, my turn.

  What a wild trip it’s been these past 12 months. Today it’s April 9, 2018 and it has almost been exactly one year since Johnathan and I started talking on the phone about our first collaborative project together (which was The Company pilot script). I remember that he and I were both in the middle of buying houses. Which is funny because we were commiserating on all kinds of shit that comes with house buying. He smashed his hand in a ladder while he was doing work on his house. That was the topic of one of our very first phone conversations. Thinking back on all that’s happened in these twelve months I find it almost incredible.

  We wrote a pilot script and made a deal with MGM, he came to visit me in Colorado, we wrote four books together, we met up in Vegas TWICE, and I went to LA to see him. Oh, and he narrated three audiobooks for me. Taking Turns (which was nominated for an Audie Award this year), Turning Back, and Anarchy Missing. And that doesn’t even include all the projects we’ve done in our solo careers.

  So we have been a couple of very busy motherfuckers.

  And in between all that work, we had to forge a friendship as well. Which came pretty easy if you ask me. Despite his admission that he is “more demanding than you or anybody you know wants to deal with” he is also incredibly easy to like. I don’t know if it’s because he’s super funny, or he’s a good storyteller (he can talk for hours!) or if it’s because he’s an actor, so everything that comes out of his mouth has a sort of dramatic flair that most people just don’t have. I’d call him charismatic, but I have a personal dislike for that word. So I’ll call him charming instead. He is utterly charming. Even when he’s mad at me. lol I mean having arguments with Johnathan is like no other fight I’ve ever experiences. They are big, and loud, and colorful, and heated, and emotional, and then…. they are over. Like somehow we always come to a consensus (or maybe we tire ourselves out like children?) and things just… go on, ya know?

  So we had this argument a few weeks ago. I honestly don’t even remember what it was about. It was dumb, whatever it was. We were both tired, he was sick as a fucking dog, I was trying to finish up Pleasure of Panic and whatever... But it was all in email and let me tell you, we are writers, right? We can write some fucking emails. But the next time we talked he called me and I was in the car and he was all… “Uh… so…”

  And I was all, “Fuck it. So we had a fight. Who cares? I got this new idea for a book. Let’s talk about it.”

  And we did.

  And I think that was the moment when I knew this was all real. Not the books, those are obviously real. But US. As partners.

  So early on—this was like last fall—Johnathan gave me the title of a book to read about partnerships. It’s called Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs. I listened to it on audiobook while I was in Vegas. So I think of Vegas now when I think of that book. And this guy who wrote it, Joshua Wolf Shenk, is a friend of Johnathan’s wife, Laura. And this was just after we finished The Company pilot script. I think we were in the pitching phase at this point. And we were already writing Sin With Me, but it was in the very early stages so all the stuff that comes from writing four books back to back hadn’t come up yet.

  And I loved that book. I loved hearing about how other people collaborate because this was my very first collaboration and I knew nothing about the process. We’d gotten through The Company script, which was very easy as far as my part went. Because he did almost all of it. I was more of a guiding force in that project.

  And this Powers of Two book was really about figuring out one’s role in a creative partnership. How you get inspired by each other, and bounce ideas off each other, and yes, argue and fight with each other so that what comes out of these messy conversations and feelings is something unique. Something only the two of you can do together. It’s not me, it’s not him, it’s us.

  And that’s not something you can just decide, ya know? You can’t just say, “OK, I’m in charge of this and your job is to do that.” I don’t think it works that way. It definitely didn’t work that way for us and the reason that kind of division of labor stuff doesn’t work in creative partnerships is because I think pain is part of the process. Which is ironic because I just wrote a book called the Pleasure of Panic. And there’s a part of me that thinks I don’t get pleasure out of things that come easy. It’s the challenge I’m looking for. It’s the angst of figuring things out. It’s the panic when you fuck things up and have to try and fix it. It’s the new idea that comes out at the end that makes you better than you were before.

  I am definitely a better person today than I was last year and Johnathan is the reason why. Every conversation, every joke, every laugh, every fight, every email—all of it made me into Julie April, 9, 2018. And she’s way more exciting. Way more knowledgeable. Way more open, and informed, and accepting than Julie April 9, 2017 was.

  Being creative isn’t easy—either alone or with a partner. You take ideas you have in your head. Ideas that come packaged up in emotions, and feelings, and the past—and you have to make that into something new. Something beautiful, but also sellable. And doing that alone is hard, yes. But doing that with someone else leaves you feeling incredibly exposed and vulnerable.

  Because you have to discuss things. You have to get to the bottom of what meaning you’re giving to these words.

  Now… maybe what we did in this series isn’t groundbreaking for anyone else but for the two of us—it is. It’s raw, and it’s real, and it’s filled with feelings.

  Not what YOU, the reader, are feeling.

  But us, the writers.

  We are in these pages. For better or worse, here we are.

  And I couldn’t be prouder of it.

  The main theme running through these books, for me anyway, was that your past doesn’t define you. That’s the big one I was trying to get at. I kinda love this theme and if you’ve read my solo books then you know I hammer this one home a lot. And the reason I do that is because it’s true as long as you believe it’s true. And I know that there’s lots of readers out there who read books to escape their real lives. It’s a little vacation for them. A time when they don’t have to worry about bills, or kids, or husbands, or housework, or jobs they hate and circumstances they can’t control.

  I know that. I know what these books mean to people.

  I sell a fantasy life. But beyond that I sell an experience. A way for a reader to do things they’d never do, be places they’d never go, make decisions they’d never make, and then face the consequences of all those choices as one of m
y characters.

  And now you get to do all that with one of OUR characters.

  :)

  When I started this whole collaboration thing I wanted to do it for my fans. I wanted to find new fans too, but mostly I wanted to give my current fans something more. Something brand new. Something exciting, and different, and cool. And Johnathan was—and still is—the perfect answer to what I was looking for.

  I hope you fell in love with the journey of Tyler and Maddie. I hope you changed your mind back and forth about them several times before you landed on a decision. I hope the cliffhangers were the sweet kind and not the frustrating kind. I hope the end was what you were hoping for.

  And I hope that you’ll come back for more.

  Because there’s power in twos. And we’ve got more messy feelings to put on the page.

  JA Huss

  April 9, 2018

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  Johnathan and I would like to thank all of you for reading our fourth book together. We have more books planned (the next one most likely releasing in mid-July.) So keep you eye out for that. Click that link above to be added to the newsletter list and we’ll make sure you’re the first to know about the next release date. :)

  And if you’ve got a minute, and you liked the world we created, and the story we told, and the characters we gave life to… then please consider leaving us a review online where you purchased the book.

  We are not traditionally published – WE ARE INDIE.

  And we rely on reviews and word-of-mouth buzz to get our books out there. So tell a friend about it if you have a chance. We’d really appreciate that.

  Much love,

  Julie & Johnathan

  www.HussMcClain.com

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  Johnathan McClain’s career as a writer and actor spans 25 years and covers the worlds of theatre, film, and television. At the age of 21, Johnathan moved to Chicago where he wrote and began performing his critically acclaimed one-man show, Like It Is. The Chicago Reader proclaimed, “If we’re ever to return to a day when theatre matters, we’ll need a few hundred more artists with McClain’s vision and courage.” On the heels of its critical and commercial success, the show subsequently moved to New York where Johnathan was compared favorably to solo performance visionaries such as Eric Bogosian, John Leguizamo, and Anna Deavere Smith.

  Johnathan lived for many years in New York, and his work there includes appearing Off-Broadway in the original cast of Jonathan Tolins’ The Last Sunday In June at The Century Center, as well as at Lincoln Center Theatre and with the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab. Around the country, he has been seen on stage at South Coast Repertory, The American Conservatory Theatre, Florida Stage, Paper Mill Playhouse, and the National Jewish Theatre. Los Angeles stage credits are numerous and include the LA Weekly Award nominated world premiere of Cold/Tender at The Theatre @ Boston Court and the LA Times’ Critic’s Choice production of The Glass Menagerie at The Colony Theatre for which Johnathan received a Garland Award for his portrayal of Jim O’Connor.

  On television, he appeared in a notable turn as Megan Draper’s LA agent, Alan Silver, on the final season of AMC’s critically acclaimed drama Mad Men, and as the lead of the TV Land comedy series, Retired at 35, starring alongside Hollywood icons George Segal and Jessica Walter. He has also had Series Regular roles on The Bad Girl’s Guide starring Jenny McCarthy and Jessica Simpson’s sitcom pilot for ABC. His additional television work includes recurring roles on the CBS drama SEAL TEAM and Fox’s long-running 24, as well as appearances on Grey’s Anatomy, NCIS: Los Angeles, Trial and Error, The Exorcist, Major Crimes, The Glades, Scoundrels, Medium, CSI, Law & Order: SVU, Without a Trace, CSI: Miami, and Happy Family with John Larroquette and Christine Baranski, amongst others. On film, he appeared in the Academy Award nominated Far from Heaven and several independent features.

  As an audiobook narrator, he has recorded almost 100 titles. Favorites include the Audie Award winning Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff and The Last Days of Night, by Academy Winning Screenwriter Graham Moore (who is also Johnathan’s close friend and occasional collaborator). As well as multiple titles by his dear friend and writing partner, JA Huss, with whom he is hard at work making the world a little more romantic.

  He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Laura.

  JA Huss never wanted to be a writer and she still dreams of that elusive career as an astronaut. She originally went to school to become an equine veterinarian but soon figured out they keep horrible hours and decided to go to grad school instead. That Ph.D wasn’t all it was cracked up to be (and she really sucked at the whole scientist thing), so she dropped out and got a M.S. in forensic toxicology just to get the whole thing over with as soon as possible.

  After graduation she got a job with the state of Colorado as their one and only hog farm inspector and spent her days wandering the Eastern Plains shooting the shit with farmers.

  After a few years of that, she got bored. And since she was a homeschool mom and actually does love science, she decided to write science textbooks and make online classes for other homeschool moms.

  She wrote more than two hundred of those workbooks and was the number one publisher at the online homeschool store many times, but eventually she covered every science topic she could think of and ran out of shit to say.

  So in 2012 she decided to write fiction instead. That year she released her first three books and started a career that would make her a New York Times bestseller and land her on the USA Today Bestseller’s List eighteen times in the next three years.

  Her books have sold millions of copies all over the world, the audio version of her semi-autobiographical book, Eighteen, was nominated for a Voice Arts Award and an Audie Award in 2016 and 2017 respectively, her audiobook, Mr. Perfect, was nominated for a Voice Arts Award in 2017, and her audiobook, Taking Turns, was nominated for an Audie Award in 2018.

  Johnathan McClain is her first (and only) writing partner and even though they are worlds apart in just about every way imaginable, it works.

  She lives on a ranch in Central Colorado with her family.