Jennifer M. Zeiger's Blog, page 14

One Down, One to Go!

I’m popping in really quick to let everyone know that the rough draft for the next adventure book is complete!!!!

WordPress and my forgetfulness kind of ruined the surprise of which adventure I’m working on because I was updating things on the website this week and WordPress posted to Facebook already. But in case you missed it,  the book is titled Mystery of the Golden Shells. It’s based on an adventure that posted last spring that received a great response. I’m not sure if I’m sold on that title yet, so I’ll let you know if anything changes there.

Next comes the personal editing stage. That should only take a couple of weeks and then I’ll be back to writing the Hidden Mythics II rough draft while Golden Shells is out with beta readers. That’s the tentative plan at least.

Thanks for joining me on this writing adventure!

Until next time, blessings,

Jennifer

 

Soul Days and Steam Days

There’s a moment when I walk into my office each morning, coffee in hand, when I see the sunshine streaming through the windows and feel the day open up before me, full of possibilities. It’s a beautiful, soul calming moment.

Then I open my computer and the work begins. Sometimes that beautiful soul-moment stays with me, riding into a story through the typing of my fingers. And sometimes it becomes elusive, hiding in the steam of my coffee and threatening to dissipate just as quickly.

The beautiful, soul-moment days are wonderful, but rare. They’re valuable gems that I can think about and find encouragement to keep writing.

The elusive steam-days are more common, and they often find me still sitting at my desk eight hours after I originally sat down, struggling to eke out my 1500 word goal for the day.

I’m fighting those elusive steam-days lately. I shifted from working on Hidden Mythics II to working on the next adventure book. My plan, and timeline, make sense of this, but my writing brain does not love it.

This is what it is to be a writer. To make anything of it, you have to embrace the beautiful soul-days and the elusive steam-days together and find joy in the process because if you don’t, the latter will steal your ability to sit down and find the soul-days. Or even steal your desire to write at all.

I find, when I hold a finished product, that I value it all the more because of the depth soul-days and steam-days give it when mixed together. I worked for that finished story.

The adventure book I’m working on right now is clouded in steam-days, but I will love it all the more down the road because I fought for every word.

Blessings,

Jennifer

P.S. As a quick detail update, HM II is sitting just over 81K words. I will pick back up on the rough draft of this as soon as I finish the adventure book rough draft.

The next adventure book is slated to be around 28K words. I have 4,500 so far and counting =)

Neither book has an actual title yet that I’m satisfied with, so I’ll share titles as soon as I have something figured there.

Quaking Soul Review from The Lily Cafe

I tried to reblog this yesterday but it somehow never showed up… not sure what I did wrong, but the following review made my day.

Follow the link to read Kat’s review of Quaking Soul at her blog The Lily Cafe. I can’t say how encouraging it is for me as I work on the sequel.

Book Review: Quaking Soul by Jennifer M. Zeiger

It’s Like a Muscle

Logically I know that if I work out regularly, my muscles will grow stronger. If I practice piano regularly, I’ll slowly improve my sight-reading, my playing, and even the muscle memory in my hands. If I write regularly then…

I’m amazed that we treat our brains differently than we do the rest of our bodies. They’re not muscles, exactly, but like muscles, if we regularly expose our brains to something, they will get better at processing, at taking things in, and at sharing that information back.

I logically know this about writing. The more regular I am in the practice, the easier it gets. But there’s a resistance if I’ve been away from it for a while. And just like working out, if I can break through that resistance, everything flows a lot easier from there.

As I wrote last time, my daily goal every weekday is to write 1500 words. That’s a lot of words streaming from my brain, down my fingertips, through the keys, and onto the computer screen. The first few days were looooong! It took hours to reach my goal and I was barely able to get in other work afterwards.

But after a few days, those 1500 words came in four hours instead of five, then a couple of days later, those four hours were down to three and a half, then down to three, and now, as of this post, I wrote 1800+ words in three hours and I’m writing this post before lunch.

I’m not saying I won’t have rough writing days or that there won’t be days that still take me six hours instead of three. But I am saying it’s only been a week and a half of this schedule where I make writing the first priority of my workday…and I’m already seeing a massive improvement in how my brain spits stuff out.

Hopefully, that’s an encouragement to you too. That if you break through the resistance to even start something, you can see improvement in a short period of time.

Now, is the writing any good? I guess time will tell.

Blessings,

Jennifer

P.S. As of this post, my rough draft is up to 63,395 words. My goal is 100,000 but Quaking Soul topped out at 138K in rough form, so we’ll see if 100K is enough to finish the sequel =)

Achievable or Not?

I’ve had this very strange, and lovely, phenomenon happen in the last couple months.

Readers, not many but a couple, have contacted me asking when the next book will be out. EEEK! I never in my wildest dreams thought this would happen. I dearly want to give these readers more to read.

Here’s the kicker, they’re not asking for the same book. Some are asking about the next Hidden Mythics book, others the next adventure. As much as I’d love to be, I’m no Brandon Sanderson. I don’t crank out a couple books each year. Neither do I want to be a Patrick Rothfuss – although if I could write like him, I might change my mind – I don’t want a decade or more between each novel. And I’ve found, for dreams to come true, they have to be turned into goals with a timeline.

That’s why, each January, I sit down and  lay out each year’s goals using the SMART method. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound).  I’m intentional about everything from working out to hobbies to work life. It’s worked pretty well for me to keep writing and publishing, and still be able to maintain a healthy home life.

What it also shows me is if I’m trying to take on too much. That’s what I found this year. I WANT TO DO IT ALL. And if I try, I’ll burn out by the end of February and succeed at none of it.

All this to say, my writing goals for the next couple months look like this:

Finish the rough draft of Hidden Mythics II by the end of February, which is about 1500 words every week day.Write the rough draft of the next adventure book by the end of March, which is also about 1500 words every week day depending on when I start writing.

This is a lot for me but I truly want to produce these two things in a timely fashion and I’m slowly honing what’s a good publishing schedule for me. We’ll see if these fall into the A – achievable- of the SMART method or not.

What you may notice is I didn’t put blogging in there because it’s, well, more writing. I know adding more into the goals above will stretch the possibly-achievable into the disheartening-snowball-of-falling-behind.

I love interacting on the blog, so I will be posting some during this time. However, here’s the heads up that it’ll be sporadic. I may re-run an adventure or post about how the writing is going, but I don’t guarantee it’ll be all the time.

For those who have followed me for a while, you know I’ll return when the schedule allows. I’ll check in and start a regular posting schedule when I figure out how it fits in the above craziness, or after the above craziness calms down into the slow slog of editing. Whichever comes first.

Thank you all for joining me on this journey of writing and publishing =)

Until next time, blessings,

Jennifer

On the Doorstep of December 2021

I’ve started this post three or four times. Sometimes the writing just flows, other times it comes in dribbles and it’s hard to express all that’s brewing inside my mind. This is one of those times. I know what I’d like to say, but it’s not appearing in the words I type.

Perhaps keeping it simple is in store for now.

I’m watching the wind break leaves off the trees outside, making them flutter to the ground in a flurry my family has started calling Carolina snow, because, well, this area of South Carolina so rarely sees snow that the plethora of leaves is as close as we get.

Life’s changed in the last few years. The Holidays surprised me this year simply because there’s no snow to herald their arrival. In years past about this time, my husband and I would head out to the national forest for our Christmas tree. We’d pay $5 for our permit, go spend a day searching for the perfect Charlie Brown style tree, chop it down, and haul it home.

It’d fill the house with its pine or spruce scent all through December and seemed to be our landmark for when the Christmas season truly started.

Last year, after moving, we asked people where we could go to chop down our own tree. We got one of two responses. A clear look like we were crazy or the address to a tree farm where we could pay more to chop down a tree than we would to buy a fake one.

To borrow from a popular, cultural reference, we were definitely not in Kansas anymore. (Or in Colorado or Washington, where ever the place may be.)

With so much that’s different, it’d be easy to wallow in the things I miss.

Yet, life’s much the same as well, filled with the simple things that bring joy. My cat’s still curled against my back as I write, my dog’s diligently guarding the side of my desk – and snoring – and a cup of coffee lets off its fragrant mist of steam while I work.

The house smells of recent cleaning and home baked pumpkin bread. The heater’s not kicking on because it’s seventy degrees outside, but there’s still a slight chill in the air that signals the changing season.

I might not get a crisp white Christmas, but everywhere we go, there’s beauty and blessings if I choose to see them and I’m reminded that so much of life’s experience is in how we view it.

As many of you know, December’s my time to step back, enjoy the family time, and to soak in the good things without getting distracted by the craziness of life. I encourage you to be intentional this season as well. We’re bombarded with the things that have changed, usually cast in the worst light possible, but that doesn’t mean life’s not filled with blessings.

For me, that means this next month will be blog free, although I doubt it’ll be writing free. I’ll return in January for the start of a new year with more adventures to explore.

Until then, may you have an amazing and blessed Christmas season.

Blessings,

Jennifer

Thankfulness

As today is Thanksgiving in the United States, I thought I’d pause to thank everyone who’s encouraged and supported me so far in my writing journey. I’ve grown to love the interaction on the blog and even have people I consider friends but who I’ve never met simply through blogging. It’s a wonderful thing.

So thank you. I pray you have a wonderful day with friends and family.

Blessings,

Jennifer

Crazy Muscle Memory

Our memories, particularly our muscle memories, are the craziest things.

Last week I posted about a Jake Weidman tedtalk on penmanship. As a fun exercise, and as something to practice together, my dad and I have started to work on our penmanship. We’ve played around with different pens—fountain pens with their inks, gel pens, regular ballpoint bens—just seeing which ones are easier to work with when you’re trying to keep a better grip and have flowing script.

My dad’s settled on gel pens and I’m torn between a decent fountain pen and a gel pen, but either way, it does weird things to the brain. I’m finding that as I’m writing during the day, I unconsciously start mixing print with cursive. This isn’t something I’ve had happen to me before. I have to pause and think about the letters I’m creating.

The crazier part to me, however, is my dad’s writing. His handwriting has always been messy. Readable, but messy. But as we’ve started practicing, his penmanship is better than mine. This beautiful, flowing script was hiding somewhere in him all these years and no one, not even my mom, knew it!

But he learned penmanship in school. I learned cursive, sure, but not to the degree he did. And now, decades later, that muscle memory is still in him. How cool is that?! It just encourages me that the time we put into practicing anything is not wasted. It might atrophy, but it’s still experience our brains and bodies can use later.

Blessings,

Jennifer

Night Creature – Throw Fuel to Gecko

Welcome to the last post in the Night Creature Adventure!

You can read Part One, Part Two, and Part Three or here’s a quick recap:

You were standing watch on the keep wall during a terrible snow storm when you saw a figure slip over the parapet. When you investigated, you found a gecko-like creature clinging to the inside of the keep wall, melting the snow around it.

You helped the creature off the wall and gave him a blanket. He informed you then that he’s running away from a frost troll that’s headed for the keep.

Seeing as how the gecko’s a fire/warmth creature, you asked him for help and he sent you for fuel to help him burn. You got a load of wood from the guard station but when you got back to the top of the tower, you found the gecko out on the wall facing the frost troll, who’s about to squash him with a giant hand. Reader’s voted to throw the gecko wood instead of shooting arrows at the troll.

Let’s see how the story ends!

Night Creature – Throw Fuel to Gecko

As the troll’s heavy hand starts descending, you drop the bag of wood and dig out a log.

“Hey!” you shout and toss the log underhand toward the burning outline of your new friend. In the haze of the blowing snow, he looks like the flickering flame of a small torch.

He glances your way in time to see the log flying through the snow. Instead of catching it, he opens his arms wide and lets it smack him square in his narrow chest. Even over the wind, you hear the thud.

The log ignites with a dull roar. Your friend spins and launches it into the troll’s hand, where it lodges and hisses.

Guessing the gecko’s intent, you have another log sailing his way as he turns back toward you. Again he hugs it and the log roars into flame. The log must have also contained a large section of sap, because immediately after the roar, there’s a loud pop!

That’s when the alarm bell starts chiming in the keep. Shouts sound from below as you pitch another log down the wall and arrows zip through the snow.

Relief hits you, and then you see one of the arrows graze the gecko. You realize the keep guards don’t know who’s friend or foe, so they’re going to shoot at both creatures on the wall.

The gecko goes down onto his knee, clutching at his leg and completely missing the last log you tossed.

You throw the bag of wood back over your shoulder and take off running down the wall. Arrows keep zipping past, taking chunks out of the frost troll’s arms and face. Someone has the presence of mind to start lighting the huge beacon fires on the towers. The troll shies away from their light, but it still seems intent on the small flaming creature kneeling before him.

An arrow zips past your stomach and you flinch away, slipping on the icy wall, before regaining your balance.

By the time you reach the gecko, he’s hunched over with his thin arms shielding his head. Flaming blood leaks from a gash across his temple, you’re guessing from another arrow.

Since he’s still aflame, you shove a chunk of wood into his arms, ignoring the burns this causes on your hands and arms.

He blazes up and holds out a hand for more wood.

The troll screams as the gecko’s fire grows and an archer, who takes advantage of the gecko’s light, shoots the monster in the eye.

You’re down to two logs of wood left. You shove them both into the gecko’s arms and spin to go get more.

You’re only two steps away when you hear him say, “No. No need.”

When you look back, you see the troll turning away, ambling off into the blowing snow and taking the heavy winds with him.

The archers pause at this and you take the opportunity to grab a shield to protect the gecko.

He hunkers down and seems grateful for the cover.

***

The captain stares at you, disbelief in his eyes from your report. You’ve just come from hiding the gecko in a storage room near the kitchen because, as soon as the guards realized what he was, they started debating about who gets to sell him.  He seemed to appreciate the warmth from the ovens, so he snuggled into the linens and fell asleep when you left to report.

“A flame gecko?” the captain asks.

“Yes, sir.”

“Go get him.”

You open your mouth to protest, but at the look on his face, you spin on a heel and head back the way you came. He follows behind and you wonder if he wants to claim the gecko for himself. With the rumors flying around the keep, he shouldn’t be as surprised about the gecko as he seems. Reaching the kitchen area, you swing open the door to the pantry and peek inside.

“Hello?” you call.

No answer.

“Um,” you say, embarrassed. “He’s gone, sir.”

“What?” The captain pushes you aside and starts tearing the pantry apart. By the time the cook comes to investigate, he has bags of flour and coffee everywhere. If there’s anyone in the keep besides the captain you don’t want to anger, it’s the cook. The captain takes one look at the cook’s red face and spins on a heel. “Clean this up,” he hollers as he leaves, “and you’re on wood duty for the next week.”

Sheepishly, you begin putting back the pantry under the cook’s watchful eye, then you head out to chop wood for the day. That evening you check the linen closet and find it empty of the gecko. You hope he’s simply moved on and that someone didn’t find him.

It’s two days later, in the evening, when you stomp your way into the empty guard station, blowing on your frozen hands in an attempt to warm them. Chopping wood in the morning isn’t so bad as the sun starts to warm things, but the evening shifts make your fingers feel brittle.

You lay some of the dry wood onto the embers and turn to grab the bellows to work the fire back to life. There’s a whoosh. You spin to find the logs ablaze and a set of bright blue eyes peeking at you from the flames. They wink and the gecko skitters under the blazing wood. Only a few moments later, there’s a contented sigh.

Placing another large log in the blaze, you retreat to the cot for a warm night’s sleep.

The End

You made a new friend! Thanks for participating in the adventure this month

Blessings,

Jennifer

(If you enjoy these adventures, check out my newest adventure book, Discarded Dragons!)

Pen or Computer…That is the Question

I’ve always hand written my stories. There’s something about the feel of pen and paper that speaks to my creative processes. However, as I work on my next novel, I keep trying to write it on my computer. It’s obviously faster than handwriting and, if I can get my brain to accept this form of writing, I might be able to finish a rough draft in half the time it’s taken me in the past.

But I keep walking away feeling like the writing lacks a depth I’ve had in the past. Do my fingers just move too fast for my creative mind? Am I forcing myself to write off the top of my head instead of actually crafting my sentences? I’m not sure. I am finding that sometimes I walk away with a headache and all the desire to write has drained out of my fingertips.

Recently, my sister shared this tedtalk by Jake Weidmann with me. If you have a few minutes, I highly recommend it. A part of his talk addresses the fact that handwriting engages parts of the brain that typing does not. Perhaps this is why the writing feels different to me when I’m working with a computer versus pen and paper.

Or perhaps my brain is just stubborn and I need to push through. I’m not sure yet, but I’m finding my current writing process encompasses a smattering of both computer and pen with paper. Somewhere in there, there’s a balance. I’ve just yet to find it.

How about you? Do you prefer pen and paper or a computer?

Blessings,

Jennifer