Why Aqueous is a Black Dragon

Hi all!

You may have looked at the title to this post and thought: "What? Why does that matter?". But there is a reason why Aqueous, a dragon character from my Elemental Dragons series, has black scales. 

This was a deliberate design choice.

I didn't choose him to have black scales because of Toothless from the 'How to Train Your Dragon' series or because it was my favourite colour.

I chose it because black animals are the least likely to get adopted.

Aqueous - created by Stevcelazarevsk on Fiverr

In animal shelters, black and black and white cats are always the first to be put down. The same goes for dogs too. This is because they aren't seen as 'pretty' enough and their dark fur doesn't show up in pictures as well as animals with different coloured fur. It sickens me that people would choose to disregard an animal because it doesn't show up in their selfies, but unfortunately that's what people are like.

So, I decided that Aqueous would be a black dragon.

Why? So then people might think twice about adopting a black animal.

Rocky is black and white and Mishka is black. But despite how beautiful they are, if they were in a shelter they'd be looked over more.

By making the main character bond with a less 'desirable' dragon, I wanted to highlight the issues that shelters face. In Elemental Dragons, Aqueous is an extremely rare dragon - he's the first black common dragon to have bonded with someone. This makes him special, and throughout the books people make comments about his appearance as they've never seen one like him.

By making Aqueous special I'm hoping that it will encourage people to adopt black animals, so then they can have their own little 'Aqueous'. People need to see that there's nothing wrong with black animals, they just need to get the right lighting when taking pictures of them. This shouldn't be a factor when adopting, but unfortunately with the rise of smart phones and social media this has become more prevalent. So many people have spoken out about this issue and I wanted to incorporate it into my books somehow. 

When I told my boyfriend about this issue, he decided that he wanted to adopt a black cat instead of a tabby one. This is how we ended up with Mishka.

Mishka - as a black cat she would be less likely to get adopted in shelters.

My favourite advocates for this are Cole and Marmalade, who constantly share facts about black cats and gorgeous pictures of their cats. I've linked one of my favourite articles here if you want to check them out.

Do you have a black pet? Feel free to share pictures in the comments!

That's it for this week, I hope that I've educated a few people on this issue. If one person thinks twice about adopting a black cat after reading this, I know I've done something right.

See you next week!

My Writing Toolbox

Hi all,

This week I'm going to talk about my 'writing toolbox', the resources and websites I use to help me with my writing, editing and publishing. Before I start, I just want to point out that I'm merely discussing these resources, I'm not being sponsored to write about them.

Writing.

Lenovo Laptop.

I write and edit all my books on my laptop, which is currently a Lenovo. Although I now write more often on my phone, I still use it for short stories and editing.

Huawei Phone.

Because I can take this everywhere with me it's what I use to do most of my writing and jot down ideas. I also use it to put all my writing events in my calendar so I can keep track.

Microsoft Word.

All of my books are in Microsoft Word. This is an industry standard for most agents which I why I started using it in the first place. For me it's easy enough to use and it isn't much hassle.

Evernote.

I've downloaded this on my phone and kindle to jot down ideas on the go. Eventually I started using it to write for NaNoWriMo which gave me enough flexibility to write on my lunch break and while on my commute.

Storage.

OneDrive.

All of my books and resources are stored on my OneDrive. It's easy for me to link everything up and I can download it onto my kindle. I have everything separated into neat little folders which keeps everything organised.

Editing.

Findaproofreader.com.

This website was recommended to me by a fellow writer on Twitter. I used it to post an ad asking for an editor for my book and got plenty of replies. I eventually went with my editor, Nicola.

Root-and-branch-editing.com.

This is the website of my editor, Nicola. She's helped me out a lot and cares about my story. I hope to work with her again in the future.

Cover Design.

Derangeddoctordesign.com.

I discovered DDD through another author's blog and booked them right away. I have booked them to do all the covers in the Elemental Dragons series, the two I've got back so far have been gorgeous.

Fiverr.

I've used Fiverr to find someone to write a blurb, create posters for my books and design the cover for the Elemental Dragons Short Story Collection. The people I've worked with so far have been lovely and I would love to work with them again!

Cover Animation.

@byMorganWright.

I recently asked Morgan to animate the cover for Blood and Water and the result is gorgeous! I'll be posting them more often on my Twitter.

Formatting.

Reedsy BookEditor.

I found this online tool while looking up ways to format my book. The best part is that it's completely free! The interface is easy to use and it takes no time at all to upload my books.

Website.

SquareSpace.

As I'm sure you've noticed by now, my website is created using SquareSpace. Despite not knowing what I was doing I managed to create my website quite easily, though I'm still learning and adding new features!

Mailing List.

MailerLite.

I use MailerLite to send emails and build my mailing list. I find it quite easy to design emails and create templates, which saves time when sending my newsletter out every month. You can sign up here: 

https://www.subscribepage.com/jessicaturnbull

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed! See you next week.

Animals in my Writing

Hi all!

This week I'm going to talk about animals in my writing. There are animals in books that I'm currently writing now and also ones in future works I can't wait to write about.

Cats.

If you've read Blood and Water you'll already know about Normie, the Siamese cat that Hazel and Wes adopt. Cats are one of my favourite animals, and I usually include at least one in my books. I started off writing about my cat, Rocky, and his adventures and I'm not planning on keeping them out of my books now. In the Curse of Anubis series, which I have yet to write, the Egyptian goddess Bastet is one of the main characters. She is an Egyptian Mau cat in each book.

Rocky having a rest in the garden

Panthers.

In Celestial Plague one of the characters, Raya, can shift into a panther. The panther is called Damisa and is her inner voice, the other half of her that shares her mind. Of course as a cat lover I thought about making her a cat, but I decided that a panther is much more intimidating and more interesting to write.

Foxes.

As another one of my favourite animals I hope to include a fox in one of my stories. I haven't got any plans for one yet, but hopefully one day! The closest I've gotten to writing about one is a kitsune in a short story I wrote over a year ago.

Snow Leopards.

If you read my blog post about my author logo you'll know that I hope to write about snow leopard one day. The writing group I attend gave us an interesting prompt yesterday which I think I can squeeze a snow leopard into.

Wolves.

This animal will make its debut when I write one of my standalone books, Street Rats. I think wolves are beautiful creatures and I would like to give them the spotlight in one my books at some point.

Dragons.

The big one! My favourite mystical creature of all - dragons. The Elemental Dragons series is full of them and if you love them too I suggest you give Blood and Water a read.

Winter - a character from the Elemental Dragons series

I hope you enjoyed this week's post. I'm thinking of doing a sequel post to this one in the future about the monsters I'm planning on writing about. Let me know in the comments if you'd be interested!

See you next week.

My Favourite Book Series

Hi all,

On Twitter I asked what you wanted me to write about this week, and my favourite book series won! (Spoiler alert - it has cats in it).

As I've mentioned before, I'm a huge fan of Warriors by a group of authors who write under the pen name of Erin Hunter. It is by far my favourite book series, one that I continue to read today.

It's about cats who live in a forest in one of four Clans. The first book is 'Into The Wild' and has carried on going since then. 

My Warriors book collection - with my ‘published works’ shelf at the top

Each series follows the perspective of one or multiple characters. My favourite is the 'Dawn of the Clans' which is technically a prequel to the first series. My least favourite is 'The Power of Three'.

My top three favourite characters are as follows:

Russetfur.

Hollyleaf.

Tallstar.

I started reading the books in 2005, when I was about eight years old. Although I took a break for a few years when I turned eighteen, I rediscovered them last year and caught up with all the books. At the time of writing this there are over eighty books in total, with more still to come.

Warriors really inspired my writing, as most of my original stories were about cats. I used to go on the Warriors Forums under the name RussetstarOfCloudClan (inspired by my favourite character - Russetfur and my made up Clan, CloudClan). Although most people just called me Russet. I wrote about my OC, Russetheart and had a spin-off series called Like Lightning, Disaster Strikes. Although reading those stories back now makes me cringe, writing about Warriors really helped my writing to grow and improve while I was trying to find my style.

Mishka wouldn’t make a very good warrior…

Warriors fanfiction inspired me to keep writing and I hope that one day people will love my books as much as they love the Warriors series. I've laughed and cried so much reading these books, and certain character deaths still pull on my heart strings when I re-read some books. I want people to feel that roller coaster of emotions when reading my work too.

I will keep reading Warriors until the authors stop writing books. I absolutely love the series and nothing has matched up to it since I started reading it.

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading and will check out Warriors if you haven't already.

See you next week!

My Author Logo

Hi all!

Last year I made a blog post about author logos, the pros and cons of having one. I did also write that I'd consider getting a logo on the future. 

If you follow me on Twitter you may have seen my post about an author logo. I wanted to get one done to use on my website, media kit (which I'm still working on) and business cards.

My logo was designed by maadi7899.

Most authors have logos which contain pens, quills, books etc. I wanted to go with something different to stand out. 

At first I wanted to go with a dragon, but I realised that dragons would tie me to fantasy. I also want to write sci-fi and horror so I didn't want to link myself to just one genre. Next I thought about using a cat, but I couldn't decide between Rocky and Mishka. I didn't want to favour one over the other.

Sleeping Mishka (Left) and sleeping Rocky (Right)

So, I decided to use a snow leopard.

Why?

Snow leopards are one of my favourite animals. They're beautiful creatures and I've always been drawn to them. When I was younger I sponsored a snow leopard called Bagira for a year and I loved receiving updates on her every few months.

The leopard on my logo I have now named 'Bagira' in tribute to her.

This will be used as a header on my website and media kit. The business cards have already been designed, I just need to get some printed. I'll carry a few on me in case I meet someone who is interested in my work.

I'm glad I got it done, as now I can use it to promote my books. I won't be putting it in my books however, as it's more for behind the scenes stuff. It also puts me one step closer to completing my media kit.

If you want to get a logo designed, make sure you know what you want. You'll be stuck with it for a while so you have to make sure you actually like it.

That's it for this week! Do you have an author logo? What do you use it for? Feel free to answer in the comments.

See you next week.

My 2020 Writing Goals

Hi all,

Following on from my year in review last week, I'm now doing my 2020 writing goals. They are as follows:

Write two books.

I'm hoping to write Celestial Plague Book 3: Purgatory and Years before the end of 2020.

Publish two books.

Elemental Dragons books 2 and 3 will be coming out this year! Venom and Earth in April and Glass and Ice in October. I will also be entering both of them in Cover Wars.

Get three covers designed.

I've already booked Deranged Doctor Design to do the covers for the next two Elemental Dragons books, but I also want a cover for the Celestial Plague Short Story Collection.

Edit two books.

I would like to edit Elemental Dragons Book 4: Cinder and Fire and Celestial Plague Book 1: Nirvana myself before passing to my editor.

Write four short stories.

I haven't written a short story for a while and would like to get back into it. I'd also like to start dabbling in horror.

Get a short story published.

I would like to get one of my short stories published in a magazine or anthology.

Read 15 books.

I've already set my goal on Goodreads and I'm hoping that I'll be able to find time to read again, even if it's not as many books as last year.

Participate in Camp NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo.

Having a goal to work towards seems to work well for me, which is why I'll be doing NaNo again this year! I'm aiming for 50K each time, nothing crazy.

Thank you for reading! I would also like to thank everyone who voted for Blood and Water in Cover Wars, it came third!

See you next week.

2019 Year in Review

Hi all!

Seeing as next week's blog post will be my 2020 writing goals, I thought that I would do a year in review for the last Sunday of 2019! 

Published Blood and Water.

My debut novel came out this year with the next one out in April 2020! It's been a great experience self publishing and I want to thank everyone who bought my book.

Sold 40 books.

I've sold 40 copies of Blood and Water, thanks to everyone who bought one!

Wrote three books.

I set a goal for writing two books this year, but I managed three! 

Elemental Dragons Book 4: Cinder and Fire - 88,000 words

Celestial Plague Book 1: Nirvana - 83,000 words

Celestial Plague Book 2: Heaven - 83,000 words

Participated in July Camp NaNoWriMo and November NaNoWriMo.

I finished Cinder and Fire during Camp NaNo and Heaven during NaNoWriMo. I said last year that I would participate again, and I've enjoyed it. Now I'm just taking a break until the beginning of January to start working on Purgatory.

Hired editor for two books.

My editor, Nicola, has edited two books for me this year. Elemental Dragons Book 2: Venom and Earth and Elemental Dragons Book 3: Glass and Ice. Venom and Earth is almost ready for publication as it is in the formatting stages, while I have only recently got the edits back for Glass and Ice. Next year I will be asking her to work on the final book.

Two cover designs.

Both Blood and Water and Venom and Earth have come to life this year thanks to Deranged Doctor Design! They both have gorgeous covers and I've already booked the next two books to be designed by them next year.

Entered Blood and Water for a book award.

I've entered Blood and Water into the Wishing Shelf Book Awards. Wish me luck!

Read 30 books.

I've read 30 books this year, most of them being Warriors books. I've already got a little pile going ready to be read next year.

That's it for this week, come back next Sunday to read about my 2020 goals. See you next week!

Perfect Cheap Gifts for Writers

Hi all,

I've seen plenty of posts about gifts for writers and I thought I'd create my own little list to help people out! I've seen some ideas range from cheap to ridiculously expensive. Like most people, I don't have loads of money to spend on just one present, so I thought I'd focus this post on cheap ideas rather than really elaborate ones. Although everyone has their own little quirks and hobbies, most writers would love to receive any of the following:

Mishka in her Christmas outfit last year

Books - The most obvious one. Who doesn't love books?

Vouchers - I personally love receiving vouchers for book stores or Amazon. It means that I can fill up my to be read pile again.

Magazine subscriptions - Tying into my blog post last week, buying a month or two subscription to a writing magazine is a great idea.

Book posters - Some authors sell posters of their books. If the writer is a huge fan of a certain author, consider a poster!

Bookmarks - Like posters, most authors sell bookmarks of their books.

Notebooks - Writers can get struck with an idea at any time, so a notebook is a great thing to have on hand.

Food - Get them some of their favourite food or a voucher to their favourite restaurant. Creatives need fuel to keep writing!

Stickers - Some people love decorating their laptops with little stickers to personalise them. There are loads of writing related ones you can buy.

Book merchandise - Whether they're published or querying, you can get some of their manuscript printed on mugs or scarves.

Art - If you're a great artist, you may want to consider doing some art of their book. Maybe one of the characters or your favourite scene.

Supply Kit - Maybe combine a few of the above into a basket or box to gift the writer.

Support - This one is free. Support the writer by encouraging them to keep going. It's the most important and valuable gift you can give them.

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed! I also hope everyone has a happy holiday as well, whether you celebrate or not!

See you next week.

NaNoWriMo - November 2019

Hi all!

As promised, this week I will talk about how I got on with NaNoWriMo this year. This is the second time I've participated, but I had heard of it previously.

For those who don't know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. You are given a month to write 50,000 words. You can track your progress on their website and fill in your daily word count and when you are projected to finish. There are also forums to connect with other writers, who you can add as buddies.

My progress each day according to the tracker

This year I participated with the second book of the Celestial Plague series: Heaven. I had finished the first draft of Nirvana the month prior and wanted to write Heaven for NaNoWriMo. Before November 1st I'd already written 20K of my first draft, so I hoped that I could complete the entire first draft by November 30th.

By the end of the month I had written 61,908 words, bringing my overall total to nearly 83,000!

My overall word count

Last year I did an entire first draft in 30 days, which was tough. This year I decided to just write what I could.

My method:

- Goal: 2,000 words a day. (60,000 words by the end of the month).

- Write on my phone during my commute to work (bus): usually write between 600-1000 words.

- Write during my half an hour lunch break: usually write between 700-900 words.

- Write during my commute home (bus): usually write between 300-600 words.

- Anything left over I write at home.

My average word count

I found a method that works for me and also means that I don't have to cram words in when I get home from a long day at work. This way when I get home I can relax. Although the whole process is difficult, I still love participating. I love having a goal in front of me and a chart to tell me how I’m doing. I’ll definitely participate again next year, as well as Camp NaNoWriMo.

Did you participate in NaNoWriMo? Did you hit the 50K target? Let me know in the comments!

See you next week!

My Least Favourite Genres

Hi all!

A few weeks ago I did a post on my favourite book genres and I thought it was about time I posted the sister post: My least favourite genres.

Readers will always have genres that they don't particularly like, which is okay. We're all allowed to have preferences. Just because one reader doesn't like the genre, it doesn't mean there isn't someone out there who loves it! The following are the genres that I very rarely read and I'm not a huge fan of:

Romance.

I know romance is one of the most popular genres out there but I just can't get into it. I'm not a huge fan of romance being the centre of the plot and really struggle to read romance books because of it. While querying I was stunned to see how many agents would only consider romance and some agencies were built entirely on the romance genre. While i don't really see the appeal myself, I won't put anyone down for liking romance or writing about it.

Medieval.

Again, another genre that I just can't get into. Although some books do this quite well, others do not. I prefer books set in modern times to those set in the medieval era. Plus, I think it's a hard genre to write in due to people have warped conceptions of medieval times. A lot of things that people have seen on TV or at school just didn't happen, or it happened in a very different way.

Magic.

I used to love books about magic when I was younger, but I'm not a huge fan of them now. I've just found that there aren't many I can get into, as I don't like the magic system or the magic itself. Maybe one day I'll get back into them, but if not I don't really mind. There are some that I've read recently which are really good, but it's not enough to get me back into the genre.

Non-Fiction.

I'm just not a fan of many non-fiction books as I just love fiction so much. I'd rather pick up a fiction book and escape to a different world rather than read a biography. I will read non-fiction for research, such as Egyptian mythology books, but apart from that I don't really touch them.

That's it for this week, I hope you've enjoyed it. See you next week!