J.A. Andrews's Blog

Lastlight is LIVE!

LASTLIGHT IS LIVE!THE FINAL BOOK IN THE AENIGMA LIGHTS TRILOGY IS FINALLY HERE!

 

Every step of their journey has brought Kate and Venn to new mysteries. Every answer led to new questions. Every victory to a new troubling problems.

 

In Lastlight, they have one more chance to figure out the truth behind the events of the White Wood, solve the riddle of Renault’s cursed ravine, and finally open the aenigma box,

 

Half treasure hunt and half rescue mission, this epic fantasy adventure is a tale of puzzles, mysteries, and the kinds of friendships—both old and new—that shape the soul.

 

Find your copy here!

 

To celebrate the publication of Lastlight , I thought I’d share some fun promotional images. As an indie author, I have access to a variety of promotional images that I can input my book into.

Most of them are very nice.

 Some of them are…well, you’ll see. I’ve done this with several of my books, and it never ceases to amaze me how vast the…let’s call it “variety” of promotional pictures is. Without further ado…

Here you go:

Introducing Lastlight’spromotional imagesfor every occasion.

 

Now that you’ve seen how amazing Lastlight looks in the wild,you can get your very own copy!

Click here

 

Happy Reading, everybody!

Janice

 

Raven's Ruin

The second book in The Keeper Origins is out!

Raven's Ruin is the continuation of Sable's story as she comes up against the looming threat of the Kalesh Empire, and a good number of threats closer to home!

Dragon’s Reach is LIVE! (and a fun intro through promotional images…)

HELLO!

GUESS WHAT?

DRAGON’S REACH IS LIVE!

I know! It’s been forever.

But finally, dear reader,
let me introduce you to
Dragon’s Reach!

The truth is neither plain, nor simple.

Sable, a reluctant thief from the slums, can feel truth when people speak.

Unfortunately, no one else can sense the lies in the offers of peace from the Kalesh Empire.

With the Merchant Guild, the Northern Lords, and the powerful Dragon Prioress all entangled in the lies, there may be no one to hear Sable’s truth.

 You can find your copy here!

 

 

Here’s something FUN for you:

One of the fun things about being an indie author is that I get to do my own promotional stuff.

There are places that generate amazing promotional images with your cover.

 

Some are so pretty I want to share them.

Some are too funny to keep to myself.

Some are…well, you’ll see.

Here you go:

Introducing Dragon’s Reach
A study in promotional images

I first saw that last one three days ago, and I’m still chuckling about it!

 

Now that you’ve seen how amazing Dragon’s Reach looks in the wild,
you can get your very own copy!

Click here

to start the story of how an orphaned thief escaped the slums,
united a nation,
and brought a mighty Empire to its knees.

 

Happy Reading, everybody!

Janice

 

The post Dragon’s Reach is LIVE! (and a fun intro through promotional images…) appeared first on JA Andrews.

Moving cover!

Happy Friday!

Book Progress:

Dragon’s Reach (Keeper Origins Book 1) is off to the editor! I don’t envy her the task because, well, the book is long. And I’m a bit sloppy sometimes in my typing.

New Year’s Resolution Help

Happy New Year’s Eve!

Last year I figured people might need help making New Year’s Resolutions. 

So I made this little thing, and it seemed a good time to bring it back out. 

Personally, I resolve to keep fighting with ornery orcs.

The post New Year’s Resolution Help appeared first on JA Andrews.

Christmas present idea

Hi!

It appears that this year is hurtling toward its end at breakneck speed.

Every year I’m surprised by the way the last quarter of the year tilts downhill and sends us spinning faster and faster into the new year. It’s as though the years are only interested in having nine months, but since we insist they give us twelve, they just rush through the last three the way a student rushes through the end of their lunch so they can get to recess.

I guess that means that past years are all playing on some playground together somewhere. If they are, I hope 2007 has stopped being such a bully, and that 1988 finally got over the idea that perming her hair was a good idea. 

Since 2019 is inhaling it’s pudding, trying to finish up, I thought I’d point out that there’s a holiday coming up that has developed a bit of a connection with gift giving. You may not have noticed, but somewhere along the line Christmas became a time of giving presents to those we love. And sometimes random people we don’t really care about. 

In Iceland, there’s a national tradition called Jolabokaflod, or the “Christmas Book Flood.”

“The culture of giving books as presents is very deeply rooted in how families perceive Christmas as a holiday,” says Kristjan B. Jonasson, president of the Iceland Publishers Association. “Normally, we give the presents on the night of the 24th and people spend the night reading.” (link) 

This, of course, is a fantastic idea, and our family adopted it last year. We all exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve and spent time reading by the fire. It was lovely, and we plan to do it again this year.

In that spirit, I wanted to offer something:

If anyone purchases a paperback copy of one of my books between now and Christmas, I will send you a free signed bookplate to stick in it. 

(For those of you, who like my daughter just said, “What’s a bookplate?”, it’s a small, printed label that you can stick on the title page of the book.) (Note to self – talk about cool bookplates in future email.)

Just contact me with which book/s you bought and who you’d like the bookplate/s made out to.

I will point out that it’s completely acceptable to get yourself a Christmas present. Just call it “Practicing Self Care” and it’s suddenly healthy instead of selfish. 

Cue that fast-talking guy who reads the limitations at the end of commercials: This offer is good for anyone in the US, or Canada, or any of the other countries that happen to be on planet Earth. Internationally traveling bookplates can not be guaranteed to be delivered by Christmas, but the author will do her best.

I hope the end of your year is flying in a good direction!

Happy Reading!

Janice

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Do you have a favorite book quote?

So here’s a fun thing I found this week. 

Apparently this has been available at least through Kobo’s e-reader for a while, but Amazon just announced that if you read Kindle books on an Apple iOS device (iPhone or iPad) you can take the passages you highlight and put them on sharable images.  

I grabbed my own book and looked up popular quotes, and it was so easy.

(You can find out more on how to do this here. )

Do you have favorite quotes from books? 

This seems like a fun way to add things to your Instagram or Pinterest boards, share quotes you like on other social media sites, or just save them for your own use.

What are some of your favorite book quotes?

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Is there anything better than humor?

Is there anything better than humor?

Wait, don’t answer that. 

There are.

There are things better than humor.

All those truly, deeply good things in life:

-The kind of love that comes alongside you and wraps around your soul.

-The idea of redemption: The way something broken and torn can be not just healed, but molded into something even more beautiful and strong and whole than what it used to be.

-Real, honest friendship.

-Hot coffee in the morning with vanilla creamer.

 

 

BUT, is there anything better than humor at making all things better, just by adding a dash of it?

Yes, I hear you, coffee works here too.

 

 

But humor makes almost any book, movie, tv show, or life event better. No matter how serious the subject matter, a little humor can make the entire thing…better.

This week my husband and I stayed up WAY too late this week watching hysterically funny videos by the Holderness Family. (I recommend Adulting and the Dad Song if you’re looking for a place to start.)

I happen to think humor should be sprinkled liberally into all of life.

If you’ve read my books, you know I think humor should also be sprinkled liberally through all parts of a story. The light parts, the heavy parts, even the sad parts. Because there’s just something about a laugh that lightens your heart.

In the spirit of humor, here’s one more video of Dad Jokes that made my husband and I laugh hard enough the kids were worried: Dad Jokes

 

 

My favorite joke from the video:

My Friend: What rhymes with orange?

Me: No it doesn’t.

And, since we like words around here, a few grammar jokes to wrap things up.

Thanks to Stephan for sending me a long, very funny list of these:

A bar was walked into by the passive voice.
An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.
A question mark walks into a bar?
A synonym strolls into a tavern.
At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar — fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.
A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony.

So, hit me up with the best joke you’ve heard lately in the comments!

 

 

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My writing process – in pictures.

I recieved an interesting question from a reader this week about my writing process:

“How on earth do you create these stories?  I’ve read your blog and info etc on some of your processes i.e. how you don’t see scenes as many others do etc, but that just makes me wonder all the more.  Do you figure out the plots and then fill in the conversations etc?”

So, I thought I’d answer both in words, and with some beautiful, skillful, impressive illustrations.

 

Without further ado…my writing process. In words and pictures.

 

Step 1) I always imagine my step one should be me envisioning an amazing story with complex characters and interesting themes that resonate with the human condition.

Step 1

 

 

Real Step 1) What I really get is a snippet of a scene with a character. Often it’s dialogue, but it might be just an image or an emotion.

Real Step 1

 

Now I have to figure out who that character really is and what happened to get them to that scene in the Grand Masterpiece

So I spend a good amount of time plotting it out, it all looks like it’s going to work and then…

 

 

Step 2) I write out the story.

Step 2

 

(No, not by hand. Unless I’m REALLY struggling. Then the old pen in hand connection actually does help…)

The dialogue is by far the easiest, followed by setting description. The hardest parts involve the narrative parts of getting characters where they need to go without too many, “Dick and Jane went there. Then there.”

And the single worst part is describing those characters physically. I’ve mentioned before that I don’t see pictures of them in my head. I feel emotions and motivation for them, wrapped in a nebulous tall or short cloud. That’s it. I am forever forgetting what color hair my characters have, and it’s painful to put in physical descriptions of them.

Just imagine them however you want, people!

But my early readers always seem to want to know what these characters look like. #weird

 

 

Step 3) As the story gets going I get the haunting suspicion I’m missing that Grand Masterpiece mark from Step 1. By a really long way.

Step 3

This suspicion always turns out to be true.

I have always missed it.

By a really long way.

 

 

 

Step 4) Ponder

 

Step 5) Get glimpses of what’s missing. Discover new depths to characters and relationships.

Edit.

Always in orange pen, because it’s still easily visible, but less judgey than red.

 

Step 6) Repeat steps 5-6 ad nauseam

Step 4. And 5. And 6.

Over and Over.

 

Step 7) Get real editor to edit and beta readers to make sure I didn’t break the thing entirely. Edit again based on their responses.

Step 7 (yes, it looks identical step 2. Give me a break, I’m not an artist.)

 

 

Step 8) Publish. Wondering if the final work has anything even remotely resembling the first Grand Masterpiece idea.

Step 8.

 

 

 

 

So there you have it! My writing process in words and pictures.

You can see that I won’t be illustrating any of my own books in the future. But this little project does lead me to my Google of the Week.

 

The funnest thing I googled was, “Stick Figure Facial Expressions.”

Thank you, dear internet, for always providing answers.

 

Is my writing process as glamorous as you’d expected?  

I’m sure it was,

Nothing says sophistication like a stick figure.

I’d love to hear what you think of my writing procses, my glorious artwork, or anything else on your mind. It’s quite motivational when stuck in Steps 2-7, as I am now, to hear from people who care whether Step 8 will ever happen.

 

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Character – fiction or real?

I always find it interesting when fictional characters are based on real life people.

The trilogy I’m working on now is set in the same world as my Keeper Chronicles and will tell the story of the first queen. 

I’m basing her on the life of Empress Theodora from Constantinople. 

She was the wife of Emperor Justinian and, by all accounts, an intelligent, funny, powerful woman that helped run the Byzantine Empire. Writings about her are wrought with scandal and intrigue, and I’m really excited to incorporated parts of her history into the life of my main character. 

 

Did you know an interesting number of fictional characters are based on real people? 

 

For instance, Sherlock Holmes was based on a surgeon Sir Arthur Conan Doyle knew in real life.

“Conan Doyle based the character on a Scottish surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh named Joseph Bell. As a young man Doyle clerked for Bell, and the two maintained a correspondence throughout the remainder of Bell’s life. Holmes’s ability to draw conclusions from the observation of what most would consider to be minutiae, if they were noticed at all, was one practiced and often demonstrated by Bell.” – historycollection.co

  

And Professor Snape was too.

“J.K. Rowling based everyone’s favorite Slytherin on one of her former teachers, John Nettleship, who was surprised to learn of his role in the literary juggernaut. Nettleship, who passed away in 2011, was quoted as saying he was “horrified” when he heard what he’d inspired, saying, “I knew I was a strict teacher, but I didn’t think I was that bad.” He admitted he was “a short-tempered chemistry teacher with long hair…[and a] gloomy, malodorous laboratory,” and thus could see the connection. Considering Snape is arguably one of the most complex and interesting characters of all time, it’s not a bad legacy.” – barnesandnoble.com

Do you know of any other fictional characters that were based on real people?

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