Jessica Werner's Blog

“Benjamin” is on his way! Pre-Order now!

A little while ago I told you guys about the awesome news of a companion novel for my Ashwood Falls Series being worked on. And it’s almost here! “Benjamin” is written by my friend and fellow Author Jonathan Snyder, who was inspired by my series to write his own story.

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“I know where you’re trying to go, Benjamin Holly. The question is: Will you make it there alive?”

You have met those in Ashwood Falls and the lives they live protected by those things on the outside but what about people who have yet to make it there or do not even know of its existence?

Benjamin Holly is one such man. Alone in the world and trying to find the place he sees in his dreams, he struggles to stay ahead of a darkness that’s following him.

Join Benjamin as he faces his nightmare in a little tourist trap where he must make decisions that could affect him and an entire race forever.

 

You can pre-order “Benjamin” now on Draft-2-Digital and it will be delivered to you on February 23rd! 

I am also working hard on Ashwood Falls: Shadow Warriors, the second installation of the Alana trilogy! Stay tuned and subscribe to get the latest news!

 

New Ashwood Falls Novella in the works!

There is one thing, that brings a lot of excitement into my life as a writer: When someone enjoys the world I create so much, that they want to participate in and add to it. One of these people is my dear friend and fellow writer, Jonathan Snyder.

Just as I have written ‘Enemy of my Enemy’ for his world, he is working on the novella “Benjamin” that will take place in the Ashwood Falls world! Read more about it below!

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“I know where you’re trying to go, Benjamin Holly. The question is: Will you make it there alive?”

You have met those in Ashwood Falls and the lives they live protected by those things on the outside but what about people who have yet to make it there or do not even know of it’s existence?

Benjamin Holly is one such man. Alone in the world and trying to find the place he sees in his dreams, he struggles to stay ahead of a darkness that’s following him.

Join Benjamin as he faces his nightmare in a little tourist trap where he must make decisions that could effect him and an entire race forever.

 

Plan is to publish the novella in early 2018. Keep your eyes open!

I’m my worst enemy!

“It’s been so busy at work!”

“I had a family emergency!”

“Family life is just so stressful!”

“The President grinds my gears!”

These and more things I have heard when it came to the question “Why aren’t you writing?” from friends or generally on social media. No judgment from me at all, it’s all legit. Promise!

Though when I am confronted with that question, none of the things above is applicable. I got no job, or family or even a president. My reason is much simpler, and for the very same reason more shameful to me, because I can’t blame anyone.

My reason is myself.

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Sure there are some legit reasons here too like that I’m fighting with depression or get sick, have a bad writer’s block, sometimes there is a lot on my plate but most of the time it’s something else. So this is me:

“But I want to play a game!”

“Friends want to play Overwatch and I don’t wanna miss out!”

“Oh this show I found on Netflix is awesome, let’s binge!”

“Wohoo, the plot in Roleplay is so much fun, let’s write this instead!”

So basically, the person standing in the way of writing is me! Now that sucks doesn’t it? Because that means that I’ll have to kick myself in the ass, and suckerpunch the distractions to get things going. So that’s what I’m doing now. I did some writing for my roleplay, I did some playing of Overwatch, I even watched a show today. So now I’ll sit down for an hour and write.

But boy, that kick still stings!

What is your enemy? Yourself? Family? Work? Time? Motivation? Did the muse visit your neighbour but shunned your house? Share your experiences with me down in the comments and don’t forget to join my email list on the right side to get a FREE short story prequel to my Ashwood Falls series!

Filed under: iamwriting, Stuff about me, Update, Writing Tagged: about the author, amwriting, iamwriting

FREE Short Story for Email Subscribers! Join now!

1517 was supposed to be a year just like any other for the demon Leandrus, but when a mysterious gypsy predicts his demise everything changes. Will he heed the warnings?

Leandrus is a short story prequel to the Ashwood Falls Series. Accompany Leandrus in his old days and see how he ended up where we met him for the first time in Ashwood Falls.

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While I wrote Ashwood Falls – Sra’kalor I got more and more intrigued by Leandrus. I wanted to know where he came from, what he had been up to before being summoned to Ashwood Falls. Naturally, I also wanted to know why he got to spend over 400 years in the void. These are just some of the questions that are being answered in Leandrus.

This short story is my gift to my subscribers!

All you have to do is click on the “Subscribe now” button on the right side and join my list. You will receive an email with the link to your own copy of “Leandrus“.

I hope you’ll enjoy this little backstory to one of the main characters of the Ashwood Fall Series and if you’re so inclined, tell your friends about it as well! We have enough room for all of you on my list.

The Night’s Muse Poetry – I want to see you

I am sure I’m not the only person who lies in bed and their brain doesn’t shut up. I have that happening about every night. One thing that does not happen as often is that words I feel are not my own come into my head and refuse to leave until I wrote them down. It happened maybe a dozen times in my whole life. It still feels kinda special.

Last night was one of those moments. The words repeated themselves over and over until I finally gave up, grabbed my Kindle from the nightstand and started writing what that voice shouted into my mind. Once I started it became a whisper, just loud enough for me to hear. Afterward, I put the Kindle back onto the nightstand and fell asleep within seconds.

These moments are as magical as they are strange. But as it seemed to be important enough to cost me some precious sleep, I wanted to share the result with you. Hope you’ll enjoy.

Let’s talk about: Tools of writing

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Writing is a really personal process.

The internet is filled with advice, must haves, must dos, should dos and checklists on what to do to write a novel, short story or even blog posts. Hundreds or even thousands of blog posts and articles about how to plan, how to outline, how to write, even how to edit your writing. The truth is: there is no ONE way. For every author, you ask what they use you might get just as many different answers. Something that works for me, might not work for you and the other way around. As sucky as that is, everyone needs to find what works for them and then stick to it, or adjust it until it feels natural, perfect for YOU.

You do You!

I’ve been listening to several podcasts recently (including The Journeyman Writer and Self Publishing Podcast) and I did find that a few things worked for me while others didn’t but worked just fine for others. In one of the Journeyman Writer episodes, Alastair Stephens and Lani Diane Rich talked about the tools they use for their writing and that made me think about what I use. So I thought I’d share a little of that with you!

 

Research 

Google.com

Yep easy as that. No matter what I am looking for that is where I start. Be it images, articles about certain subjects and more.

Pocket

Pocket is a nifty little add-on that I use way too often. When I find a site that I believe to be helpful I pocket it. That means it lands in the app waiting for me to read later. Kinda like bookmarks but to me, it goes faster, and once I don’t need it anymore I just click the little “read” button next to it and it gets removed from the list. And the search function makes it much easier for me to find the article again. I use it on Firefox, but I saw that Android, iPad/Phone and Kobo apps are available as well.

 

Outlining and Writing

Scrivener

I started writing when I was really young and the only way I could write was on paper. Throughout the years I moved that to Microsoft works, then Word and Libre Office. I’m a huge huge fan of local copies, so I never made the jump to Google Drive for my writing (I use it just not for that ;)).

But last year a dear friend of mine told me about Scrivener and I thought it was awesome. I grabbed the trial and tested it, and fell in love. Then for my birthday, I received it as a gift and I’ve been outlining and writing in it ever since. I know some folks have trouble with it because it gives you a lot of options and frills, but I enjoy to be able to mark scenes by Point of view, keywords, move them around, make these little cards with summaries of the scenes, move them around if I have to and so on.

The whole folder for Character bios, Location sourcing and what not is fantastic and helps me personally to keep an overview. Before starting to use Scrivener I had a whole folder with subfolders for everything on my hard drive, but now I have them all in one program and it is way easier for me to look things up.

Evernote

I have told you about Evernote in another blog post and I still use it on my kindle, since I can’t put Scrivener on it when I want to write while being out of the house (haha as if I left the house) or in bed. The ability to sync the Kindle app with the desktop app to get my writing from one to the other makes it really easy.

 

Background Noise

This is one of those things that seem to be different for everyone else. Some need quiet, some want music that pulls them into the scene or character. Me? I need my TV running.

I can’t deal with quiet, then I start to think, and stop writing and start to look around… and I stop to write.

And music has the effect that I want to sing along, or in the case of instrumentals hum along, then I start to google about the artist, the lyrics, the sheet music… you get the drift.

But TV, I can have that running all day (actually I do) and write without being distracted. I know what I wrote and still know what has happened in the show I ran in the background. I might have to say that both is on the same screen. I have no physical TV, I have Netflix and I only have one monitor. So Netflix is in a small window in the upper left corner, while Scrivener is open across 3/4 of the screen. I also have learned to write blind with the typewriter so I can write and at the same time watch the show. Though I don’t do that often. Mostly I listen and when it sounds like something’s happening I look up to the small window and that’s it.

For many, it would be confusing or pull them out of the mood, but I need it to get really into it.

 

Graphics

I love working on graphics myself. Be it locations, characters or my covers, I try to do as much as possible myself. Not only because I’m broke af, but also because I have loved doing that for many years. I use graphics not only for covers but also for visualisation. Not that helps me to get into the mood and character.

Poser & Photoshop, Illustrator

Poser is a program in which I can put scenes, and characters in a 3D environment and render them. In Photoshop I do the rest.

My last project of making a map for Ashwood Falls was started in a program called RPG Citymap Generator, but after the initial 5 minutes with that program, I spent several days in Photoshop to make it mine.

Illustrator is another graphic program, basically the Photoshop of Vector images. I don’t use that as often as Photoshop but for example, the “Enemy of my Enemy” cover was made in there.

Stock sites

And sometimes I use stock sites. These are sites that provide stock images to use in your own pictures. Some need to be paid, others are free. There are way too many to list here, but when you google for Stock images you will have a lot of results including websites that list 10, 20 or more of the best ones.

 

My friends and partner

At the moment I don’t have beta-readers (hope to get them, though), but I have friends I bounce ideas off. When I get stuck or need another set of eyes to know if a plot works they are the ones to get bugged by me. I feel lucky to have friends who don’t sugarcoat things and tell me if something I wrote sucks, otherwise that wouldn’t be any help. My partner even reads through my whole draft in that little time he has to find plotholes, inconsistencies or anything else that jumps at him.

I’m forever grateful for their support.

 

That is pretty much my writing tool cabinet. Does it look anything like yours? If not what would I find in your cabinet? Let’s chat and let me know in the comments!

Filed under: Creativity, iamwriting, Let's talk about, Self publishing, Stuff about me, Writing, writing tips Tagged: i am writing, iamwriting, writing, writing tools

Free eBook for a limited time!

Every year Smashwords does a special event called “Read an Ebook Week” with tons of discounts for fantastic books from every genre. This year’s week has started and I’m proud to announce that you can now receive a FREE copy of my book “Enemy of my Enemy”.

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Larenssa always dreamed of a life as a strong warrior. All of her young life she trained to be ready and bring honour and glory to her tribe. Passing her initiation rites posed a challenge, but it pales in comparison to what she will endure during her personal hunt.

From now on until March 11th you can get a copy of “Enemy of my Enemy” for absolutely FREE from Smashwords.com and follow the adventure of Larenssa yourself. Simply use the code FC74V during checkout and the discount will be applied!

Grab it here!

Feel free to share the special with your friends and on your social media and share the love.

Also if you like “Enemy of my Enemy” I would LOVE if you’d take the time to write a review on Smashwords or Goodreads.

Thank you all for your support!

 

Filed under: blood in space, Discount, ebook, Free, Gift Tagged: ebook, free, free ebook, gift, giveaway, iamwriting, limited time, novelle

How Star Trek and Doctor Who improved my story telling

I’m a huge geek.

I grew up with Star Trek – The next Generation. As it was aired for the very first time in Germany I was 8 years old and was hooked from the first episode, despite the strange Cheerleader attire of Deanna Troi. I remember running home from school to not miss the episode that would start at 2:30 pm, only minutes after my last class. I made it every time. After that, the story just went on with Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and even Enterprise. The only show I didn’t really get into was TOS, but I loved the movies – so that’s something.

Of course, it didn’t stay with Star Trek. Series like Lexx, Firefly, Stargate and many more followed but for the most time of my life, Star Trek was my bae. And then came Doctor Who. I had never seen the original series at the point or even heard of it – yeah Germany is lacking great geek stuff. I was hooked from the first episode – again. While we were waiting for new seasons we had to get our Who fix and watched the movie, borrowed Jon Pertwee episodes from a friend and enjoyed them thoroughly. I have loved every Doctor I have seen so far, even the “unpopular” ones.

Part of the Assimilation² Cover. The copyright of this image’s publication belongs to IDW Publishing, under license from CBS Paramount Television and/or Paramount Pictures.

While I watch a lot of TV and movies, these two shows have shaped my life. They were teachers, friends, lifelines and more to me, the characters became a second and then third family. And I still am fully immersed through my cooperative writing Star Trek Role-playing Group Starbase 118. When thinking about how I started my writing to where I am now I can honestly say, that these two shows helped me with my writing. But why?

Those of you who know the shows might know already. Both Star Trek and Doctor who have strong characters with their own plot-arcs, developments, and goals. And then there are characters without these elements so you can see the difference right away. For example, Worf had much more story than for example Geordie. Or Doctor Who’s Mickey has more of an arc than Donna’s mother. And I am a huge fan of character development and stories. So observing the series’ ways to develop their characters has been a huge help to find ways to do that.

These shows also have relatable and likeable characters, just as much as characters that we can really hate on. I believe that Star Trek and Doctor Who both have fantastic plots that develop and evolve characters throughout single episodes, seasons and the whole show. The writers even managed to bring in Villains that we can relate to, that make us understand how they tick, why they became who they are. Who wouldn’t understand the intentions of Gul Dukat when it comes to his daughter, while at the same time hating on him for it. One of the favourites among my friends was Garak the Tailor, who was dubious and loveable at the same time. Who did not shed a tear when realizing the true driving force behind The Master, while being shocked by his maniac attempts to take over Earth? Or when Rose finds out what is in those Dalek tanks, I admit I cried and felt sorry for them. That is some great villain writing right there.

Every episode has its own timeline. The introductions, getting to the meat of the story, continuing with a plot twist (something happens that causes them trouble) and the way to get out of it, and then the fading out/resolution. But as every fan of almost every show knows, there is not only the timeline of each episode. But a timeline of the season, or series of episodes that belong together. Writers do the same, nobody wants to give away everything too early, or drag things out too long. If you are writing a series, you want to make sure that the first book doesn’t resolve the problem already. Star Trek TNG did not have it that much, other than multi-episode plots, but where you can see that really well is in Star Trek Deep Space Nine, especially in the last season. And Doctor Who has a lot of that as well, even more so.

Another element that I really enjoy is returning elements, be it bad boys or allies. In Star Trek, we have the Borg, Klingons, Romulans, the Dominion, Cardassians, Breen and many more of these returning baddies. In Doctor who we see the Daleks, Cybermen even the Autons return a few times, and not to forget other characters like Bonny, Mickey, The Master. To me, it is the element of “Oh hey I know them!” that connects different stories together making it all obviously the same universe. It brings together the whole history of the show.

And last but not least, movies, as well as TV-Shows can teach us a great deal about pacing and structure of a story, for single episodes, multi-episodes and seasons. We learn about stages in the story (introduction, twist, climax, fade out), for short-term plots and long-term plots. We learn how to foreshadow, how to bring in surprises and how to come to a satisfying conclusion (at least most of the time).

When you start writing, one of the advice pieces you’ll get over and over is to read a lot. Who wants to write, needs to read. And while I agree with that, don’t underestimate the teaching power of some great Television.

Do you have favourite shows that do this for you? Maybe some other shows or movies taught you a lot about writing or helped you to put your story to life? Tell us in the comments, maybe you’ll bring a gem into the lives of other writers like my friend brought Doctor Who into mine.

Filed under: Creativity, iamwriting, Stuff about me, Writing Tagged: doctor who, i am writing, iamwriting, inspiration for writing, star trek, writing

My new best friend – Evernote

You have seen it on this blog a few times – not as many times as others had to read or hear it from me in person but nevertheless – that I have not found the time to write much. That was one of the reasons that around Black Friday I decided to get a Kindle Fire. While it is full of awesomeness by itself, I wanted something I can carry around with me to write on.

Yeah yeah, I know. There is the magical invention of pen and paper, but let’s be honest here among us. I have not written much by hand in many years, apart from shopping lists, I can barely read my handwriting because my brain is so fast my hand can’t follow – in contrast to my fingers when it comes to typing which still is too slow but much faster than whatever I could get onto paper. Also if I write for more than two minutes my hand is going to cramp up and hurt like a … you get the drift. So typing it is. I have no laptop, nor can I afford one. So the Kindle has become my writing buddy.

The first apps I added were Office apps, trying them out to see which works best for me. And it was pretty annoying to write a bunch and then having to send that file per email to my computer. I could have used google drive, but I didn’t find any free program that allowed to actually edit the files on Drive itself, which again meant to send emails with documents. And then I learned of

And then I learned about the existence of Evernote. Why has nobody ever told me about that before? I am looking you there!

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I am able to not only write on my Kindle but sort it all nicely into Notebooks (like folders). These I have sorted by current writing, plot ideas, writing for my roleplay and notes for like Second Life creation ideas (I also have a ToDo folder but I have not used it yet). And the best part is that after I’m done I simply safe and next time I go to my PC I start the Desktop app and have it all there. No more sending emails around to get the files to where they need to be.

Okay, actually the best is, that it’s free. But function wise it’s that you can sync it between your devices. I’m quite sure that there is a lot more in this app than I have discovered yet, so make sure you check it out. Since I got my writer buddies I have written more than in the last 4 months combined. Most of it at night in bed, when I couldn’t sleep. it already has been absolutely worth it.

Maybe you want to tell me about your little Evernote Tricks. What else am I missing? Do you have writing buddies that you absolutely recommend? Let me know down in the comments!

 

Filed under: iamwriting, Tools, Writing, writing tips Tagged: Evernote, iamwriting, writing, writing apps, writing tools

Update time! What have I been up to

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It is about time I update you on what I have been up to! Because I’ve been busy! Things had slowed down last year, but for Black Friday I had the chance to obtain a Kindle Fire for a good price. That helped me to write more again, as I was not bound to my desktop anymore. Most of the time when I’m in bed already and can’t sleep I just whip out my Evernote and write a few lines. Makes me feel incredibly productive.