Jennifer Priester's Blog, page 3
May 10, 2021
While continuing to sort though all of my photos, I got t...
While continuing to sort though all of my photos, I got to this one and noticed I could see my reflection in Merveille’s eye and decided to play with it. I like as one of the more unique photos I have taken, but I don’t think it has any selling potential which is what I’m going through all my photography for right now. I will be keeping it in my personal collection though and might use it for other projects for fun.
May 2, 2021
The revised print edition of Travels With Max by Janet Be...
The revised print edition of Travels With Max by Janet Bennett is finally available on Amazon!
This was my first layout design work for another publisher. While all I had to do was add some new content to the book, rearrange a few pages, edit the back cover text, and add a banner to the front, it proved to be a bit of a challenge getting the revised edition ready to publish!
To start with, I didn’t have the original fonts used in the book and because Adobe is not going to support the original fonts used soon, I had to figure out the closest supported fonts to what was used. Shortly after, I had to get a new computer as my old one was no longer willing to work. The next challenge was the cover which I started off with no access to the original InDesign file of the cover so I was unsure of how to proceed with the requested changes. Luckily, the files I needed were located and the biggest challenge became making sure the banner was placed exactly where and how it was requested. Simple stuff in the end, but the process of getting there…well, let’s just hope future layout design work goes smoother. I actually have one more author who might be publishing with my company and am going to be working on revised cover designs for a few of my books, so my next projects are about to begin!
Anyway, if you are interested in checking out the revised edition of Travels With Max you can find the link below the image of the revised edition cover!
Travels with Max: How My Dog Unleashed My Life: Bennett, Janet: 9780981904108: Amazon.com: Books
January 29, 2021
After a long, complicated process, my two new websites ar...
The first site, is my personal one. It includes my books, art and photography as well as info about my Redbubble site, including all of the art and photography available, and photos of some of the products available. It also includes some personal information; including my inspiration for various stories, and some questions I am frequently asked. If you like word search puzzles and/or coloring pages, you can find some on my site, all of which are free to download. Right now, there aren’t any simple coloring pages on my site, but I am working on those. For now, there is one detailed one and some stylized coloring pages. I am also currently working on pages for selective mutism and social phobia which will include my personal experiences with each.
http://www.jenniferpriester.com
January 8, 2021
Word Search Puzzles Now Available
Word Search Puzzles Now Available
Today, I continued working on both my websites. I have been constantly updating and adding to both sites for a while now.
Now that all the important updates have been made; including A&M Moonlight Creations new store and my Redbubble store, I decided to focus on adding new free content to the site.
I am working on other activities, such as coloring pages and crossword puzzles, but for now there…
Word Search puzzles are now available for downloading and printing through both my website, and my compan’s website.
9 new word search puzzles were added to the A&M Moonlight Creations site.
November 1, 2020
Halloween Art
It’s a little late, but Happy Halloween! I thought I would share some of the drawings I have done this past month.
First, is this horse. I was specifically working on it as something special to share for Halloween. It is based on a photoshopped photo that I created for one of the calendars for the equestrian team I was involved with back when I was still riding horses.
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The next three were created for contests. The idea of this first one was to create a geek themed jack o’ lantern. I chose to create a Doctor Who inspired one, except instead of just drawing the TARDIS as if it could become a jack o’ lantern, I decided to make it a Halloween box. The idea was that it would be a giant jack o’ lantern that is bigger on the inside. What is inside mine? Halloween of course!
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This next one was meant to be a superhero or villain combined with a movie monster. I chose Beast Boy for my hero and a gremlin for my movie monster. This was the result I got.
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This last one was a coloring page that was provided for everyone. The idea was to create a Halloween costume for Superman. My idea didn’t work as planned. It turned into an oddly entertaining super fail. I planned on keeping Superman’s basic costume as it was and just using Halloween colors instead of his usual ones. To enhance the look I wanted to add a jack o’ lantern mask and bat wings. You can sort of tell what I was trying to do with the mask, but my wings don’t look anything like bat wings. Still, it was fun to try!
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October 31, 2020
More About Selective Mutism
As October comes to an end, so does Selective Mutism Awareness Month. I admittedly did not do nearly as much as I meant to. The plan was to make a post about SM once a week, however this didn’t happen. Ironically, I am a writer with SM, but writing about SM does not come naturally to me.
Although October will be over before I post this, I have decided to do one more Selective Mutism Awareness post. I’m going to grab 10 random photos about SM and share them here. I think for next year I will create the posts early and preschedule them so I’m not struggling to think of something in the moment.
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October 12, 2020
More than a Writer
Besides being an author and the owner of the publishing company, A&M Moonlight Creations, I am also an artist and photographer. Although this post is not about selective mutism, photography and drawing are two of the things I do to help manage my anxiety. I might talk more about this later as I am planning on making at least one more post about Selective Mutism before Selective Mutism awareness month ends, but the focus of today’s post is something different.
Today, I would like to announce that my Redbubble store is officially open for business! It can be found under the name of priesterjen. My original shop name animalsandmagic was too long, as was my full name, so I went with the version of my name I use on Instagram and Pinterest.
The full link is here for anyone that might be interested;
https://www.redbubble.com/people/priesterjen/shop
Both my artwork and photography are available on many different products. You can see all the designs that are available, as well as some of the various products below.
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October 1, 2020
It’s October Once Again!
October is a special month for me, and no, it has nothing to do with Halloween! October is Selective Mutism awareness month. A little over three years ago, I didn’t even know it had an awareness month. I hadn’t even really been aware that there were other people with it! Logically, I should have known to be diagnosed with something, other people had to have it as well, but growing up I never knew anyone like myself so as far as I knew, I was the only one.
Selective Mutism is a highly misunderstood condition due to the lack of awareness about it, which is why every year I do what I can to help spread the word and the correct information about it. Especially in the United States, very few people know enough about it to help those that have it. There are many misconceptions about Selective Mutism, one of which is that it’s only a childhood disorder. There’s more awareness now that it can continue into adulthood, as it did for myself, and even occur later in life. Child psychologists are finally learning how to treat SM in children, however at least in the U.S., there are no adult psychologists that understand the condition.
One of the reasons why I do my best to participate in spreading awareness about my condition each year is due to my experiences with it. If there had been more awareness, some of my negative experiences with SM might not have happened. I also might not have Selective Mutism today if more had been known about it when I was a kid.
When I was growing up with Selective Mutism, it was believed that when someone with SM didn’t talk, it was a choice. Most people believed that I was always refusing to talk, when I couldn’t. A lot of this had to do with pressure. The problem is, pressure to talk makes it harder to do that. Trying to force someone with SM to speak whether it’s done through bribes or threats the result is usually negative as that only adds more pressure. I never did understand why teachers would think I would choose punishments or failure instead of answering them.
There were many times throughout my school years, when I would have done anything to be able to talk like everyone else. For instance, why would I have chosen to accept punishments for things I didn’t do if I could have said something? Like many kids who are different, I was bullied often. For some reason, a favorite bullying tactic was to get me in trouble for things I didn’t do. I clearly remember one time I had to stay indoors during recess writing over and over that I wouldn’t erase my name off my papers, when it had been the kid sitting in front of me that did it. I remember having to watch him do it, unable to say anything or do anything about it and just having to accept the punishment for it. Another time I got in trouble for writing my name on the wall of a bathroom stall. I never did understand how it was possible it could have been written in my handwriting when I hadn’t done it. I did know who did it, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
Group projects were always a challenge. Usually I didn’t bother trying to participate because I knew they wouldn’t even try to involve me anyway. The teachers never understood this and usually put me in groups with some of the same kids I was always being bullied by so of course I chose to stay at my desk instead of even physically joining the groups. One of the biggest problems with Selective Mutism is being unable to explain it to people because most teachers and therapists will not allow speaking through writing and not being able to speak out loud means having no way of communicating. I remember one particularly bad group project where I did my part of the project by ding the research and taking the notes I was required to, but they couldn’t read my writing so they decided to redo it all. It was a video project and they also didn’t allow me to be part of the video. Instead they told the teacher I didn’t do the work and had refused to be part of the video!
I only ever had one good group project and that was with a group that understood I work best by doing rather than talking. I was doing really well in math that year and when my group would get stuck on a problem, they knew they could just ask to see my work because I had usually solved the problem by the time they got to it, and my answers were usually right so for once in my life, I was actually able to really contribute something to a group even if my method of doing so wasn’t usually accepted by people. Usually, the group dynamics are simple. If you don’t talk, you don’t have anything to contribute. I never would have dreamed that I could be a valuable member in a group.
I’m going to stop for now, however I hope to continue writing about Selective Mutism and sharing my experiences throughout the month, both the positive and negative, to bring a better understanding to this extreme anxiety disorder.
For now, I’m going to end this by sharing a Selective Mutism awareness page on Facebook. This page was specifically created by a member of a group I’m in to publicly spread awareness of SM.
The link to the page is below:
https://www.facebook.com/raisingSMawareness/
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August 16, 2020
Long Overdue Update
The day no one thought would arrive is finally here! I am actually in the process of updating my websites. The one I’m starting with is my personal page. So far, I have updated the homepage to include myself as an artist and photographer. If you happen to visit my website, www.jenniferpriester.com, ignore the homepage background as I will be changing that. A few minor text changes are also in the works, but the majority of it will remain the same as what’s seen in the photos below.
The pages for the artwork and photography are still in progress so what’s on the homepage is all that’s there at this time, however I’m working on figuring out the best layout design for those pages based on the options I have to work with.
Also included on the homepage are actual working links to all my other sites and social media pages! I finally figured out why none of my links were working, so that alone was major progress with my site and I will now be able to fix that problem on the A&M Moonlight Creations site and the Mortal Realm Witch Series site as this was an issue across all my websites.
Besides, art and photography, I am also working on putting up the links to my stores. The link to my Redbubble store is up now and I’m creating a page on my site for some sample products available from my Redbubble store. The link to the A&M Moonlight Creations store is coming soon.
Also coming soon, is a mental health awareness section featuring selective mutism and social phobia. I haven’t figured out how to add both the photos and text in a way to make it personal and engaging without overwhelming the page with text yet, so at this time all I have is the idea of what I want to do.
[image error][image error]I apologize to anyone who started reading this, hoping my announcement was going to be about a new book. I do have many works in progress and will continue to publish books in the future, however at this time, my focus is on making sure all my websites and social media pages are up to date before moving on to new projects.
