Book Two: Age of Axes

Well folks, it's really happening. I've moved onto book two, and I'm calling it, Age of Axes. Wahoo!!:) Here's to hoping it will take a lot less time than Fimbulwinter, especially since now I am not in school, and I have the plot and world and characters all thought out already:) (No, Fimbulwinter isn't published yet, I am still working hard on editing it. My goal is to have it in the hands of publishers by the end of the year!)
In this second book, we really pick up the steam. With some new monsters and new characters thrown into the mix, I am expecting it to be much faster-paced and action intensive than the last one. Here we go!:) I am including below a short synopsis, as well as a tiny snippet from what I've written so far.

Synopsis:
They’ve done it. Janna and Klara have stolen Thor’s hammer from a city of blood-thirsty Berserkers. Yet, the dangers have only just begun. If they are going to revive the Gods in time for the Ragnarök, there are several weapons they have yet to locate, and they are proving to be much more difficult to get than the last.
The company must battle ever-mounting threats, as the magical wall keeping their enemy at bay slowly begins to crumble. Giant snakes, child ghosts, fire giants, and Loki’s monstrous children are only half the danger. Nations and brothers have begun to turn on each other, just as the prophecy said. In this age of betrayal, no bond is sacred.
But they are not alone. In the midst of it all, the members of the company that have the mythical weapons begin to remember more each day about the life of their respective Gods. Strength and skills they never had come flowing back into them. Torbijor has bonded with the hammer, and begins to realize a destiny he had never dreamed, and young prince Luka will stop at nothing to make sure he doesn’t get it. But will the strength of Thor be enough to give Torbijor what he really wants? Janna must venture far away into the frozen land of Jotunnheim with ambassador Jörgen, and there is no telling how adventure may change them both.
Will the company be able to assemble the strength they need to save the world in time?

Snippet

“I’m…not sure how this is done—“ she said, looking up and down the sides of the horses. Where had Torbijor gotten such a good stake from?”

“Here, I’ll do that,” Torbijor approached, and took the reigns from her. “Janna, listen to me,” He said. “I don’t want you to go in there. You should stay here and wait with the horses.”

“What?” She replied. “No.” she shook her head. “I’m coming with you—this is my quest too. I have to look after Klara.”

“I will do that,” he said, putting his hands on her arms. “You weren’t meant for dangerous stuff like this.”

She pulled out of his grasp. “That’s sweet, Torbi. But I can take care of myself as much as any of you can.”

Torbijor crossed his arms over his chest and cocked one eyebrow. “Oh really?” He began listing off on his fingers. “Eirik has been battle-trained probably from birth, as has Besnik, I’ve been boxing for years, besides which, something about this hammer…” He shook his head lightly. “It’s strange. I feel as if it’s speaking to me, telling me things I used to know.” He shrugged then. “Maybe it’s like they said, I could be one of the aesir?”

Janna snorted. “One day of holding a golden hammer, and you think you’re a God?”

Torbijor ignored her and continued. “And that guy Nils, who knows. But he’s big, and judging from those scars on his arms I would say he can take care of himself.”

“But what about Klara?” Janna interjected. “I am way more capable than Klara…”

“Klara is one of the aesir,” Torbi said, “She has the golden bow. If she wasn’t capable when she started this quest then she is now.” He took her hands. “Healers have to stay at home, Janna. Or who would there be to come back to?” He looked into her eyes, and Janna sighed. His big, brown eyes framed with dark lashes begged her to stay and wait for him. But she felt her stomach begin to twist. 

She was strong. As strong as any of them—and she was already out on this adventure. If she was going to be a part of it, she wanted to be there for all of it.

“I’m coming with you.” She said firmly. “I think I’ve proven that I can take care of myself by now.” 

Perhaps something in her face told Torbijor she was serious, because at last he finally sighed.

“I just… if anything happened to you, Janna, I couldn’t forgive myself.“ 

“I’m going,” she said firmly.

He sighed again. 

“Fine. But stay close to me.”

The Composer Project

The Composer Project

So here's how it happened:

My sister Bonnie, who is a fantastically talented violinist with a master's degree in performance from the University of Maryland, opened up a new music school in our home town Alpine. The Medley Academy of Music. She already had a large studio of violin students, so she also hired several teachers (of various instruments) to teach under her and provide lessons, classes, and performance opportunities. Furthermore, she also bought out the local youth orchestra, the Timpanogos Chamber Orchestra (TCO). In other words, she's kind of a big deal.

As a result of this endeavor, Bonnie decided to dedicate her basement as a music studio, and set about deciding how to decorate it--which is where I come in. While sneaking some free food from her fridge during my lunch break one day, she asked me how she should decorate her spacious, but bare studio space. She had one silly little painting of Mozart and a couple black note laminates. After looking a while, I had the idea, "We should get you more composer paintings to go with your Mozart!" And so online we went, to try to find more composer paintings. 

To our consternation, there were none. Wherever we looked, you just couldn't buy something like that. Like, maybe you could print an enlarged version of the portrait they have online, but nothing as stylized as the Mozart she already had. 

That's when I had the idea, that I would make it myself. I had done it before when there were other paintings I wanted, but could not find. And so for Christmas that year, I set about painting my first composer portrait as a present for Bonnie.

Johann Sebastian Bach, Dec 2015

One of my favorite comments on Bach was, "He looks like he is saying, 'Did you practice this week? Grrrr.' Perfect for a violin studio:)"
I tried to make him look classical and prestigious. Also I listened to the MOST GORGEOUS organ pieces by Bach while I painted him!! I could die and go to heaven, I love the organ so much--something I first figured out in the Churches in Vienna a year ago, but happily brought home with me to America:)
Then, I gave him to Bonnie and she liked him so much, that she commissioned me to paint an entire timeline's worth of  composers!! 16, to start with--though I didn't promise to paint them all in order. Obviously I was super stoked--I love the composers too--so I set to work on my next one right away.

Ludwig van Beethoven, Jan 2016

Beethoven was next. I tried to tie the two paintings in together using some metallic colored paints for the background, doing their hair with thick globs of paint, and adding a touch of glitter to their outfits. Cause they're composers, they are allowed to be eccentric.

Beethoven was rather a grumpy man. Being deaf, but also a fantastic musician, you can imagine how frustrating it would be to play something and not quite be able to hear it. He is reported to have broken many piano strings slamming the keys too hard in an effort to hear them. Beethoven was a genius, but a frustrated man.

When I brought Beethoven to Bonnie's house, her students got excited and said, "You got another one??" Because the composer wall is what they look at during each lesson. Bonnie said it is really fun because as each new one appears on her wall, she gets to tell her students all about them, and introduce them to some of their music. Perrrrfect:)

Johannes Brahms, Feb 2016

For Brahms, I had gotten so much positive feedback about the textures in my paintings (I knew texture was something Bonnie loved) that Brahms may have gotten a little wild.  However, he was super fun to paint, and also ended up being my favorite so far.

Brahms composed some killer violin concertos, which I slobbered over as I painted. He also was an incredibly stable and kind man, which is pretty rare for composers.

There is a beautifully tragic story involving him and Robert Schumann, which I will sum up for you. Schumann, a famous composer, opened his door to a knock one day to see young Brahms on his door asking to be taken on as a pupil. He was so clever on the piano and dedicated to his work, that Schumann and his lovely wife Klara gladly took the boy in. They were as happy as anything, Klara and Robert desperately in love, and their adoring young pupil learning quickly, until a mental illness drove Robert to commit himself to the insane asylum so as not to hurt his beloved Klara. He died not long after. Brahms, always in love with Klara from afar, asked her to marry him--but she was still dedicated to Robert. And so the two simply remained close friends for the rest of their lives.

I did this painting quickly, and only ended up taking 6 hrs to paint him start to finish. That makes ME excited because it means I am getting faster! In the past, to make any sort of decent painting I took the better part of three whole days to finish it. To finish Brahms in 6 hrs means I might be able to start cranking the composers out much faster, and start and finish one in a day. Wahoo!!:)

Here is the start of the timeline for her wall--soon to get much, much longer.

My next project will be Pyotr Tchaikovsky, which I am excited for, because I love me some good Tchaikovsky music to listen to:) Sleeping Beauty, baby!! And then perhaps I'll allow myself a Vivaldi painting, haha, which will be fun because he was known as "the red priest" because he was a priest at a catholic girl's school and had SUPER bright red hair! Which, if any of you know me you know I LOVE red hair. And at some point, I have a sketch planned out for Liszt, who will be hysterical to paint, because obviously I am going to do a profile painting of him. He thought he was just soooo handsome, and loved his profile so much--that he started the tradition of having the audience see the pianist from their profile while they played! Haha!

Anyway, it should be a blast! Let me know what you think!

How I became Jessie of the Nine Fingers

I wrote this post last night very late, after the traumatic ordeal it explains. And staying up late for Jessica is like being drunk for someone else. Also my Dad and I have been reading a book on how to write like Charles Dickens so...Maybe that will explain a few things for you:)

And now, ladies and gentlemen--the story of how I became known as Jessie of the Nine fingers.

I returned home this evening with nothing much more on my mind than an eagerness to once again be united with my cozy, comfortable, crade-like bed. However, as I finally made it to my room, and in my bed-time preparations casually glanced in the mirror, my eyes caught sight of an enormous black spot on the wall behind me that had not been there before. I whipped around to have my worst fears confirmed; a spider. And one of such large proportions it might by a cat be mistaken as a most hideous, terrifying sort of mouse. I nearly screamed then, but managed to choke it down.

My mind raced through my options. Yes, boyfriend Wilson​ was already gone--would it be any use calling him back? No. It had been nearly 10 minutes since he had dropped me off, by now he was already home in his own, safe, spider-free sanctuary. And my roommates were surely asleep by now, so--no. This hideous monster was to be my demon to face. Alone. I summoned my courage and locked away the disgust that tried to creep it's way up my throat as I picked up a large boot.

Now, as part of my preparations for bed, it is my custom to put my hair up into a bun on the top of my head, so as to keep it dry while I wash my face. As all this drama is happening, I still have a rather hasty, loose bun atop my head, which at any moment is in danger of falling out. (And there is make-up smeared across my face, but that part is not important.)

In an attempt to keep my panic at bay, I acted quickly, so as to get it over with sooner.

I stand on top of a chair--of course the little blighter is trying to take cover in the crack between the ceiling and the wall-- I raise my boot high, and mercilessly smash him with the toe of my mighty weapon. His legs twich. Something oozes--he is dead. And he was juicy, oh barf.

BUT that was the hard part you might say! The trial is over! Wrong.

I take a handful of tissues--more than I needed, environment please forgive me--and I wipe off the boot, and throw it back with the other shoes. I'll try to forget about this the next time I want to wear it. Then I take more tissues and go back for the spider's enormous carcass.

As I raise my tissues high to scoop him up, (fighting more and more disgust every moment) suddenly, I feel a faint, but definite brush on my neck.

This is where I lose my cool. In less than a moment, I know that the spider had a friend, or a lover, that was lurking on the ceiling, and the moment I was focused on something else they dropped down on me to take their sweet revenge on their beloved's killer. Even now I don't scream, but gasp--and my hand jerks, just an inch away from the spider's awful corpse--and the jerk is enough to put my hand directly into it.

The spider guts. My precious little pinky finger has been dipped into the most vile substance I can imagine on this precious earth!! My disgust cannot be contained anymore, and I scream at last. Standing on the chair, one hand claws at my neck, and the other is held aloft in horror, black and blue blood tainting it's once lovely skin. It is bedlam.

After a moment, my clawing hand grabs a hold of something soft, and I sigh. The vengeful arachnid was nothing more than a tendril of hair that had fallen out of my bun and brushed my neck. That cleared up, I look to the mess on my hand, and I stare-- horrified. Rarely have I been so disgusted. Leaping off the chair, I sprint to the bathroom and begin to wash.

Once, twice, three times. My pinky looks fresh, and smells like pine-scented soap, but I know it is not clean. It can never be clean.

And that brings us to now--when I type this post. The reader will understand that I had no choice. In order to save my own life, I had to take the brave, awful road, and remove any digit that had touched such a putrid substance. Was it horrible? Was it painful? Is it now much more difficult to type? Yes. But if I can only be remembered for some small bit of bravery, then I am happy.

May they sing songs of this day, when one girl conquered her fears, and paid the ultimate price for cleanliness. The girl known as Jessie the Nine-fingered.

Pantsers, Plotters and Finishing Draft 3!

So here's the scoop fam--I thought my book was going to be kinda easy.
If not after the first draft, then probably after the second, I imagined I would at least have things written down in a coherent way that I could be proud of. But let me tell you, I have just finished draft 3--and this huge baby just seems to have more and more poopy diapers as I go on.

I had a pretty good plan for my story when I started writing it. I remember I wrote out a list of 11 major plot points I planned to hit in the story as I wrote, and plowed ahead in my writing with more than just a creative fever. So I anticipated that things wouldn't get too ugly in the editing process. After all, it's not like I was just writing "wherever-the-wind-may-take-me". But HAHAHA. If one of you is a time traveler, and could go back and tell younger Jessica that actually, this was going to be a lot harder and longer than she thought, please don't. We don't want to discourage her.

Finally it's getting to the point where I don't think there are many major plot holes left, or maybe there are, but at least a good number of the character inconsistencies have been smoothed over. Or maybe they haven't.
Honestly it's exhausting work, editing. I confess, after going over so much content for hours and hours and days and days, I begin to see a problem and go, "Oh well. That's just how it's going to have to be then." Even though I know that is the wrong attitude.
The real solution, is just to work until my brain is fried, then take a break, and come back later when I have more energy and fresh eyes. Of course I don't want problems to stay, but it's just the thought of facing more brain work that keeps me from fixing it.

The moral of this story is that editing is going to be the more difficult part of the process, probably. But also the most rewarding. I get enormous satisfaction when something finally reads right or makes sense. Whether you plan ahead each detail to include, or let the tides of your imagination float you to your destination, it's still going to be work.

On that note, I wanted to share a funny analogy I heard about writers. Not everyone is going to write the same. Someone described writers this way once, and I think it's at least a little bit true-- there are two types of writers: ones we call "pantsers" and others called "plotters."

"Pansters" are those creative geniuses that can't be hampered down with a plan. It derives from the phrase, "Writing by the seat of their pants," or basically--making it up as they go--and there are many writers that flourish and become successful by this method. Their creativity flows best when it's running rampant across the page, leaving a trail of story that can be edited down later, hopefully to resemble something close to a coherent plot. These stories are probably the ones most able to break boundaries and delight readers with their unexpected twists and turns. I love a good panster novel.

"Plotters" on the other hand, must have a plan going in. I am one of those.

I start with a general plot, and then plan carefully what will happen and where I will go in each chapter. I mold people and events around to bring the book to a climax at the proper time. I may be slightly OCD in handling the book's progress.

And I thought being a plotter was going to make it easier for me in the editing stage, but I don't know man. It's still pretty hard. I'm hoping the inspiration of a New Year will be enough to kick me into gear and begin editing and writing faithfully again.

May all your writers out there struggling to edit your work feel sympathy from me now. I totally get it. It's awesome, awful, fun, and difficult--but rewarding. Carry on.

Castle Painting

And here we have the 7 frame picture progression of my latest painting. I had a really large space on my wall, and I knew I wanted to be painting stuff for my book--so I bought a giant canvas to fill the spot and then I had to decide what to paint on it. I've been trying out oil paints, so that's what this is! Was it ambitious for only my third oil painting ever? Yes, absolutely. I have learned my lesson though--from now on I am going to paint only very small paintings. This was really hard.

So for several weeks, I have been pondering and working on this puppy. With a little help from LDS general conference, now it is done!! It's amazing what you can do with 8 hours of guaranteed uninterrupted painting time as you listen to the Lord's anointed. 

Here is the finished product

And here is a fun photo progression of how it came about!