About J. Marcus
Writing has always been a part of J. Marcus' life. His earliest journal entries start when he was seven years old. As the son of a carnival owner Marcus traveled much of the United States with his family at a young age. Being around the carnival life while still being sheltered from the harsher elements of that life helped create the writer's dichotomy. His experiences were always a mixture of observing the world but being apart from the lifestyle of living in that world.
His parents worked hard to provide as much of a 'normal' life for them as possible. They owned a home in Portland Oregon and the kids always attended school. Morgan and Eileen wanted to make sure their kids grew up with all of the possibilities that an education would afford them. Not have the world look at their children as Carnies.
For years Marcus was interested in many subjects, but over time none of them held a candle to writing. After leaving college Marcus tried a variety of jobs even being a news reporter for a mid-size rural paper. Retail management ended up being a great match for a businessman's son. Over the years he worked his way up from being a part-time Christmas temp at a department store to being a Manager of Human Resources for GAP Inc.
Throughout this career, which spanned a decade, Marcus maintained his love of writing. At one point his sister who was in high school at he time complained to Marcus that most books were just too predictable. The ones that weren't predictable left too many lose ends. She wanted to read something that would keep her interested to the end. Marcus promised to write her a story that would keep her not only interested but also guessing right to the end.
The project grew and grew in scope until Marcus had enough material for a book. This entire world, the entire story consumed his thoughts for years. At one point a major publisher began negotiations to publish the book. Marcus didn't like the way the negotiations were going and realized he would have to give up too much in order to see it published.
Years later, after getting married, he decided to try something new. He used some of the online writing sites to display some of his work. Foremost on his list were sections of the manuscript from the novel.
Short installments of his debut novel Darkness Within received much acclaim as more than 50,000 readers across the Internet tuned in to these thrilling dark stories. These original readers didn't know that what they were taking part in was a test of the material to be included in his upcoming novel.
"I'd been working on this novel for years and I needed some interaction with readers. I've been a very private writer and before this I didn't really like outside interference. The manuscript had ballooned to well over 1600 pages and I needed to test out some of the material."
The test went remarkably well. Bolstered by a newfound confidence in the direction he was headed J. Marcus set out to condense the original manuscript into a manageable novel. His goal was to give readers a quick paced thriller much akin to the visual dynamics of a motion picture. This would be no mere book in J. Marcus' eyes. He wanted it to be something readers would experience with all of their senses.
This is when the real work began. He gave the go ahead to his brother-in-law to start conceptualizing what the cover for the book would look like. Marcus worked with editors at breakneck speed. Finally condensing the first installment down to 240 pages Marcus was prepared to go to print with the novel. Just as he neared his deadline for final submission of the manuscript tragedy struck the family. Chris, his brother-in-law was one of four killed as a car horrifically struck them down as they walked down the street.
"This was a devastating thing to have happen to the family. It would be for any family. Chris was very close to us all and meant a lot to usWe were heading out of town to drive up to his college where it happened and it was the day of my deadline. It was so hard to even think about turning in a manuscript. I almost didn't do it. But I think Chris would have hated thatwe used to write each other about books and getting published. He had a story he had been working on that he wanted to see published. His cover should have been on the front of this book, but a madman took his life."
The process of getting the book published went smoothly and it was set for release on August 15th, 2001. Marcus celebrated the birth of his son Tristan Xander Ross just 14 days before the release of the novel, on August 1, 2001. Darkness Within is currently available for purchase in 25,000 bookstores nationwide.
