is a captivating new epic fantasy book series for adults. Not recommended for the most sensitive readers because of the explicit content, though! But if you don’t mind severed heads and intimate scenes, keep reading.
I’m trying to get along with my old laptop. It’s not going too well. As she’s all I’ve got for a computer right now, I have no choice but to tolerate her slowness in performing whatever small task I ask of her. She’s not utterly useless, though. She has kept my old files safe.
I was supposed to work with the second book of BC, so, obviously, I did anything but. I made some drafts of the cover for the paperback version of Runecursed -which is actually more important atm than writing the sequel. I went outside and wandered aimlessly about the garden, smiling at the budding cherry trees and first liverleaves that grace the forest floor where our yard morphs into a wood. The spring takes her time this year, but every day, she paints more green upon the shades of dun and speckles it with timid hues of blue and yellow.
As I came back inside, I eyed through the texts I produced when I returned to writing a few years ago. I call them Tomatos for the technique I used to get over the massive writer’s block I suffered back then. Most of them seem like scribblings of a stranger today. I don’t recognize myself in them. Some are decent, however, and I thought why not sharing those with you. The keywords for this first text were historical fiction, prose, arty, and third person (male voice), and the time was 45 minutes. Enjoy! (Or just feel vicarious embarassment as I did toward myself when reading some of the texts.)
Everyone who’s ever tried their hand at writing knows it’s hard work. Writers work because they have an inner urge to tell stories, not because they expect to earn big financial profits. Many of us never get noticed by the public. Still, we keep writing because the words are like air to us -we couldn’t survive without them.
However, telling stories is that much more rewarding when you know people read and enjoy them. Sometimes the continuation of a story can depend on a simple question “When will the sequel come out?”. Most published writers are hungry for reviews on their book(s), and though I agree that reviews are important, not just in the sense of them drawing the readers’ attention but also in helping the writer to develop, in many cases, the knowledge that someone is waiting for your story to continue is all that’s needed to ensure that the sequel will come out.
Personally, I owe a gigantic THANKS to the readers who have reached out to me letting me know they’ve enjoyed my story so far and are hungry for more. Without you, the second book might never see the daylight. So, from the bottom of my heart: thank you ❤
PS, the release date of Slavemarked is set at
the 1st of march 2023
Psst, if you haven’t yet read the first book, check out https://jpaspenn.com/ for the direct links to get it!
Long time, no blogging. I’ve been busy with summer and the sequel. When one lives in the countryside in an old house with a vast garden, the summertime doesn’t mean lazying in a hammock, binge-reading books. Would that it did!
Despite all the work it requires, I love our house. This is where I’ve finally found the peace of mind to write. When we lived in the town, I was always too stressed by the constant ruckus of traffic and neighbors to concentrate on anything creative. We aren’t utterly isolated here either, but our 1920′ house is a place where the silence dwells.
As said, I’ve been working with the sequel, and it’s coming along nicely despite my protagonist disagreeing with pretty much everything I’ve planned for him. He might be right, though. Maybe I should just let him have his way, but I fear that if I did, he’d end up dead before the series is even half-finished.
A snippet from the sequel. All rights reserved.
Anyway, I’m happy with how the second book is coming along. I’m prone to think that it’ll be miles better than Runecursed. There’s more action, and the overall atmosphere is many a shade darker even though this
is what I’ve been listening to while writing. I don’t usually listen to music with lyrics when I write as I tend to get distracted by the vocals, but FAUNis an exception to that rule. I don’t know German (at least not enough to understand but a word here, another there), and their singing voices sound more like some otherworldly instruments than human voices, so it remains in the background, inspiring me.
I could rambble about music as an inspiration forever and link a dozen bands that I’ve listened while writing but the time is limited -although, fortunately, it seems it’s going to rain again today which means I can remain inside and work with the sequel instead of having to go mow the lawn- so, I wish you all a great day and fantastic Pride Month!
I eyed through my old writings this morning. Poems I wrote in the year 2000. They are pregnant with teenage anxiety, the woe of someone who feels like she’s been born in the wrong time and place, among all the wrong people, none of whom understands her. The pain was real back then, but today the laments I had the guts to call poetry just make me chuckle.
Pathetic as they are, a few of my poems were published in one of Finland’s biggest newspapers. I don’t know if that can be called an achievement as they probably published every poem, think piece, etc. they received, but to me, it was a huge step even to send my texts there. Although I’ve dreamed of becoming an author since childhood, I’ve always been shy to share my work with others. That hasn’t changed after publishing Runecursed. My heart still skips, for fright as much as joy, every time I see someone has purchased the book or is reading it through KU.
I’m stepping out of my comfort zone every time I publish anything, but here I go again. Here’s a piece of my history as a writer (the Finnish original as it was published in the paper on the left). I tried to make the translation sound as clumsy as the original is to preserve the authentic feel.
This is a post I’m all but intimidated to write. The gentleman I’m going to talk about has had such an enormous effect on my life through his work that I fear the words might turn inadequate in expressing it. Nonetheless, I will try, for I wouldn’t be writing at all (I might not even be anymore if not for his music) if not for A. W. Yrjänä, a Finnish musician, poet, and author. No worries, I’ll call him Mr. Y henceforth, so your brain won’t get stuck wondering, “How the hell am I supposed to pronounce that?”.
In the first part of the series, Why Do I Write, I talked about Tolkien and how he’s the reason I write fantasy. However, had I not discovered Mr. Y’s music, I wouldn’t be writing at all, save maybe in a diary. Y is the singer/basíst/songwriter of a Finnish rock band CMX. They’ve been making music since the late 80s and are still thriving. I found them in 1998 when their seventh album, Vainajala, was published. I hated the single ‘Ei yksikään’ when I heard it for the first time. Still, it kept ringing in my head until I gave in and bought the CD.
I didn’t fall in love straight away. I was 14 and had been “kept in a barrel” till then, and the themes of the songs didn’t quite unfold to me. I liked the album enough to buy the older ones, and in those, I found pieces in sync with my rebellious teenager mind.
I found out that Y had published a book of poems in 97 and asked for my mom to buy it for me for Christmas. She did, and I plunged into the pool of poetry. I swam there for many years, thanks to Mr. Y, and scribbled some poems myself.
Unlike Tolkien, Mr. Y’s work has never had an off-putting effect on me. I looked up to him and wanted to become as brilliant a writer as he is, but instead of his brilliance making me think, I’ll never reach that level, so why would I even try, I was encouraged by his music and poetry. Not just to keep writing but at one point also to keep living.
I wallowed in quite deep waters back then. I was lonely and never allowed to go anywhere in the evenings and weekends, so all I did outside the school was read, listen to music, and roam in the woods with our dog. CMX became my lifeline. When I felt like crumbling, I listened to them, and the ocean surrounding me seemed a little less murky.
The brightest beacon in the blackness of my youth was their double album Dinosaurus Stereophonicus (2000). In there, I found the comfort and gentleness I so craved for. Listening to DS felt like being enfolded in the arms of someone who cares about you and wants you nothing but good. It was like an embrace of a dearest friend. (I warned you that I have no words to describe the enormity of Mr. Y’s influence on my very existence…). When our world felt like the last place to be, I locked myself in my room and listened to CMX, Y’s words and voice that ensured me that life could be something other than frost and thorns one day.
One of my favorites from the album Dinosaurus Stereophonicus.
Though my life today is anything but bleak and loveless, I still turn to Mr. Y when I’m doleful or discouraged. When I feel I suck at writing, I read a few poems of his or listen to one of the albums. His words are my happy place, an endless source of inspiration and motivation.
One of my favorites from the latest CMX album, Alkuteos (2018).
To give you some insight into what I’m talking about and to wrap up this post that I could well continue for a few thousand words more, I translated the piece above, Sulaneet muovisotilaat, for you. Now, this is very sketchy a translation, but I believe it’s better than ravaging the lyrics with something like Google Translator.
So, here you are! Enjoy one masterpiece of Finnish rock lyrics.
I still ask myself on a regular basis; why do I write? I always come up with three reasons (besides the fact that writing is the only thing I’m any good at), three authors whose works have inspired me so much that I wanted to become an author myself.
!Runecursed, the ebook, is FREE WORLDWIDE on MAY 7th and 8th on Amazon!
Before we get to the first of these three gentlemen who are to thank (or blame) for this obsession of mine, I must give credit also to my mother, who read tons of books to me when I was little. She’d take me to the library, we’d pick up the books together, and she’d read them to me in the evenings. So, I was already more than familiar with the written word when I went to school and learned to read and write myself.
I started writing stories as soon as I learned the alphabet. My first “book” is written with hyphens which means I was in the first grade of elementary school when writing it. It’s about ponies. I was obsessed with ponies back then.
At this point I wish to point out that this is not an author nor book review. This is rather a part of the tale behind a tale.
So much for the rambling. The first man to thank (blame) for my decision to become a published (fantasy) author is none other than John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. His work has inspired tens of thousands of fantasy authors, artist, and musicians, so I’m just one fish in the sea. Still, his books are the reason why I write fantasy.
I read Lord of the Rings for the first time when I was around 12. I loved it. It was amazing, inspiring… The best book I had read so far. It was also disheartening. I wanted to write a book as brilliant one day but was convinced that I could never do it. I wasn’t good enough. (Well, obviously. I was twelve and just finished my second “novel” about ponies and ponygirls.
(Un)Fortunately, I was damnably stubborn already back then, and instead of ditching the pen and finding another hobby, I kept writing. I didn’t write much fantasy, for I knew I could never be as fantastic as Tolkien. I created imaginary worlds, though, drew maps, and invented creatures and characters. I also weaved stories in my head but rarely put them on paper.
During the three years of junior high school, I read every Tolkien book I could find in the local library and bookstore, most of them twice or thrice over. I read tons of books from other authors, but Tolkien remained the one to whom I kept returning. I’ve re-read my copy of LotR, so many times its cover has been broken.
Then I went to high school, and we make a time jump to the present. I still don’t think I could one day write like Tolkien, but it doesn’t keep me from writing fantasy anymore as it did when I was a kid. Still, his influence is evident. It lances through my world-building, plotting, wording… When writing, I catch myself rambling page after page about small things that even I’d find irrelevant and tedious as a reader. And that’s saying a lot, for I love, love, love details! It’s more than a little irritating, and though I was determined to write like Tolkien when I was twelve, today, I struggle free of his influence. Not all of it -I enjoy myself in a Middle-earth type of world and like the archaic language- but I could definitely jabber less.
Nonetheless, I owe John not just my passion for writing fantasy but also my interest in folklore and mythology. He showed me the door to a world that I might not have discovered otherwise, at least not at such an early age. Of that, if anything, I’m grateful.
Lastly, to close the circle in a way, something else Tolkien-inspired that has inspired me (Yes, there’s a lot of music behind my writing even though I cannot play a chord myself. I will be returning to the subject at some point, for music is the fuel that keeps me running.):
Today I thought to write a “few” words about how I crawled up from a writing slump. Though nowadays writing comes almost as easily as breathing to me, it hasn’t always been so.
When I was young (meaning the time when I was still in school, a long time ago…), I spent all my spare time writing and reading. After graduating from the university of applied sciences, the everyday life of an adult hit me full in the face, and I pretty much lost my interest in reading books and writing stories. I did read but not near as much as before, and my attempts to write were only occasional, and I lacked the fervor I had once possessed.
A few years ago, I was in a situation where I had more time for my interests. After a while, I started reading more and felt ready to return to writing, too. Only to realize that I cannot concentrate on it any longer.
CHAPTER ONE READABLE ON THIS SITE UNTIL 4/28/2022
I could start a story, write a few hours in a mad spree, and the next day find out that I had no interest in continuing with it. There were also days when I wanted to write but couldn’t figure out a subject. However, I came up with a solution that I decided to share if some of you guys are struggling with a similar problem.
I turned to the internet and searched for techniques and exercises that might help me overcome the block. I found them aplenty, of course, and picked a few that seemed best suited to my need. I admit that I don’t remember whether any of their names had anything to do with tomatoes (and am too bloody lazy to google the original technique for you), but I named it such, nonetheless. I have a hunch that I combined two or more different techniques, or at least customized one to fit my needs.
Anyway, here’s how I made writing a habit again and regained my creative spree. It’s simple and cheap, just like all the best things in life.
You need at least five sheets of paper in different colors, scissors (Optional. You can tear the paper in slips as I did.), a pencil, and a see-through jar large enough to fit your hand. And, of course, a notebook, laptop, or anything else to write into/with.
Pick a color and write the times on the slips (This isn’t necessary. You can decide to write for an hour every day.). I shared my tomato (one hour) in four chunks. Then write genres, styles, categories, and narrator persons, each on their own color. You can write down as many or few of each as you like. Fold the slips in two, so you can’t read them when picking them up from the jar or box or in whatever container you decide to keep them.
The second edition of Runecursed is now available for pre-order on Amazon!
When it’s your chosen time of the day to write your tomato (to me, it was in the morning), take your jar and pick randomly one slip of each color. It’s easier to concentrate if you set up a timer that alarms when your “chunk” is full (unless you’ve decided to write for an unlimited time which is also fine). Then you’ll write based on the keywords you picked. For instance, if you picked up ‘a quarter of a tomato’, ‘first-person male/man’, ‘a poem’, ‘science fiction’ and ‘humorous’, your task is to use fifteen minutes in writing a humorous SF poem in the first-person male voice. Very simple, fun, and at least to me, it worked like magic.
The trick is that the technique frees you from figuring out the subject, point of view, etc. You can just concentrate on creating. Writing for a specific time can be liberating to those whose creativity is disturbed and restricted by the duties of everyday life. After all, an hour isn’t a long time (and if you’re extremely busy, you can decide to write only a quarter of an hour daily). You can write your tomato while having lunch or in the evening when you might otherwise watch TV or just lounge on the couch doing nothing.
As said, to me, writing “tomatoes” worked wonders. I didn’t need to do it longer than a month or so to regain my drive and make writing a daily habit. If you’re struggling with writer’s block or new to writing, go ahead and try!
PS. Just to make clear: I haven’t invented this technique, so if you happen to know who did, be kind and inform me! I’d be happy to give the credit to whom it belongs by mentioning the original source.
It’s a bumpy road this path of a writer. I never imagined otherwise, I’m too much a realist to have harbored any wild expectations of success. Nonetheless, I’ve been second-guessing most everything about the book lately, wondering whether I was too hasty in publishing it, whether I should take it off market and make some changes to it.
What would those changes be, I don’t know. Improving the grammar (there’s always something to correct no matter how many times you edited the script), adjusting the layout, maybe rearranging some of the chapters… Though I am in a bit of a slump right now, I’m not unhappy with the story itself. Maybe I should be though? It’s hard to know when you get little to zero feedback. I know it’s not perfect (it can never be that) and am well aware that it’s not for everyone, but it is very close to what I aimed for.
The original picture shutterstock.com.
Still, I’m constantly struggling with the thought that perhaps, I should ditch my pipe dreams and return to just reading books that others, people who actually can create stories, have written. I know there’s no going back to the point where I was content with writing just to myself with no intention ever to even consider exposing my work to others. It’s either to keep writing with the purpose of publishing or trash my quill once and for all.
I should keep all this to myself, I know, scribble these things into a paper diary and then burn it to destroy all the evidence of my moment of weakness. I would do just that if I wasn’t convinced that most of you who have aspired for getting a book published or published one yourselves have wallowed in the same swamp. Haven’t you? I know also that most of you have crawled up from the bog hole and kept reaching for your goal, was it to become a Nobelist or sell a few hundreds copies on Amazon, despite of all the second-guessing. I’m going to rise from the depths, too, even though, right now, I feel I might drown before reaching the surface.
I’ve returned to Braenduir. For five weeks, I didn’t touch the story practically at all. I had the third draft of the second book done, and I thought it was ready for the final editing. Turned out, it wasn’t.
In some point while reading through the first book one more time, I understood, the second part wouldn’t work the way it was. It was a depressing realization. Had I written over 200 000 words for naught?
I’ve been working with The Gods’ Drum for three years, written every day, a few rare exceptions excluded, half a dozen drafts, hundreds of thousands of words. Not once have I woken up in the morning with a feeling that today, I may not want to write.
Now that Runecursed is out, I’ve had much less time to work with the second book. That’s the downside of self-publishing; you have to do everything yourself from creating your masterpiece to marketing it to the masses (Pick up the slight sarcasm? You’re not mistaken, it’s there.). Fortunately, I like doing everything myself. I’d just need about 24 extra hours to my days to have time to write while trying to make someone read what I’ve written so far.
What I’m trying to say is that I experienced a slight writer’s block for the first time in three years. It was a chock. I knew I had to rewrite the second book, so, I sat down and got up to it. Turned out, I can’t write anymore. My head was swarming with ideas, good ones, even, but when I tried to type them down, nothing came out as I had intended it. Nothing worked. I was confused. What had happened to me? Had the so much time spent on social media (marketing my book) damaged my brain?
As I couldn’t write, I returned to doing other things. The ideas kept piling up in my head, the characters kept harassing me, asking why had I abandoned them, left them on the hold like that. I told them that despite of knowing where I want to take them, I’ve lost the ability to do it, and returned to my chores.
They didn’t leave me be. One of them, the one dearest to me, was especially persistent. I knew where I wanted to take him, what I wanted to do with him, but struggled with how to move him to where I needed him to be. You can’t just teleport your characters to a mountaintop unless teleportation is a common way of traveling in your world (like someone did on the eighth season…).
Break the pattern, he urged me. Just throw me there and worry about how I got there later. You know you want to.
So, I did. And found out that I can still write. I plunged headfirst in the middle of the story and have now been writing for three days, like a maniac around the clock. Thanks to my character’s persistence. (I know this sounds insane, but I also know that other fiction writers get it. We’ve all experienced the exciting and disturbing moment when our characters become something more than just paper and ink, when they become three-dimensional, and grow a mind of their own.)
What I learned from this little setback is the simple truth that most writers know…
So, if You are struggling with the writer's block, why not try writing it away.
In my first post, I wrote about what inspires me, and as there are more than one such thing, I thought to return to the subject today. Besides the nature, I’ve always been greatly inspired by music. I can’t make any music myself, none whatsoever. I was a nightmare to my music teachers with my utter lack of the gift of playing any instrument or singing back in the days I went to school. Still, I love to listen to music, mostly rock and heavy metal, but when writing, I often got something instrumental playing on the background.
The lyrics tend to draw my attention away from the work, so, ambient and electric are my choices if I feel the need of background noise. When just listening to music, however, I like it the better the more complicated and profound the lyrics get. I’m inspired by the tone and lyrics both and listened a lot of the Nordic ambient and folk music while writing Runecursed.
It’s the type of music I think could be played in the taverns of Nortenmoor or at the Conflux Nights’ celebrations in the north. I can easily imagine myself sitting in a corner table at the Three Widows with a tankard of mead, listening to the scalds playing something comparable to these songs.
Braenduir Chronicles 