Creating Alien Planets

Hi all,

This week I'm going to be talking about alien planets. I recently created one for a short story but I now intend to use it for a short story collection! The collection will be about the Gods, Goddesses and Deities of this planet. The collection will probably take a while to complete, as this is a side project of sorts. I intend to get individual stories published elsewhere and then combine them all into one book.

Here's a quick profile of the planet:

Planet name: Vusuunah-RM89.

Colonised by: Humans. 

Type: Earth-like.

Technology: Minimal.

Trade Routes: None.

Alien Species: Many, most undocumented.

Alien Fauna: Many, most undocumented.

Human Settlements: 216.

Because of this, I wanted to make a post about how to create a believable alien planet. So, let's get started:

How far is it from other planets?

You need to keep this in mind if you are planning on having multiple planets and worlds. If your planet is out of the way, it's unlikely that it's going to have good access to trade and newer technology. This also means that your characters may not be able to visit it as often as other planets.

What is the climate of your planet?

Is it similar to Earth, with different areas? Or is it all the same no matter where you go? You can have areas that are extremely hot and areas that are terribly cold, you are not bound by rules stating it has to be a certain temperature. You can also make it a warm tundra, or a freezing desert. It's up to you.

Is it colonised by humans?

Not all planets have to be colonised by humans - you can have alien settlements as well. Depending on who has colonised it you need to think of the following factors: clean water, climate and oxygen. If your species doesn't rely on these three things as much as humans then you don't have anything to worry about. However, humans are extremely unlikely to attempt to live on a planet that has rare access to clean water and oxygen. Your planet has to be hospitable.

Have any species been wiped out?

If your story focuses on humans, have they purposely or accidentally wiped out alien species? Across history humans have been known to hunt animals to the point of extinction, or destroy their habitat so much they die off. If humans colonise new planets, this behaviour is unlikely to stop. For example; an alien species relies on a certain habitat to survive. Humans think this is the perfect habitat to settle in, and start destroying it to make room for farmland and cities. With nowhere else to go, that species will die off.

Is anything toxic to humans?

Of course with alien planets almost anything you like can be toxic to humans. If that's the case, settlers are unlikely to live there.

Are there any enemies?

Is there a rival species that yours constantly battles with? Is their way of life different? You need a good reason for these species to constantly fight. It could be as simple as one burned down another's house. It doesn't have to be a deep rivalry that has spanned generations.

Are there different cultures?

When you think of earth, your mind doesn't go to one specific culture. On a different planet with separate settlements they'll each have their own cultures. Try to include a few in your writing, or at least allude to more if your focus is only on one.

Is anything worshipped?

My short stories focus on the origins of certain Gods, Goddesses and Deities. If humans move to a new planet, they are bound to find new things to worship. If your species has a religion, or multiple, think about how this effects their day-to-day life.

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

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My Writing Playlist

Hi all!

This week I'm going to share my writing playlist with you all! The songs on this playlist are ones that have inspired current or future stories. They're a lot different than my regular music taste, but I love listening to them to get my writing going!

Pools - Glass Animals

Wolf - First Aid Kit

Pigeon - Cavetown

Bellyache - Billie Eilish

Let Me Down Slowly - Alec Benjamin

Heartless - The Fray

Viva La Vida - Coldplay

Give Us A Little Love - Fallulah

Crazy - Glass Animals

The Good In Me - Jon Bellion

Hollow - Cloudeater

El Tange De Roxanne - Moulin Rouge

Tourner Dans Le Vide - Indila

My Way - Chase Holfelder

Free - Mother Mother

That's it so far, but I'm sure this list will grow as I keep writing! I may revisit this list if I discover anything else I love.

With a lot of these songs I usually imagine battle scenes or confrontations, which is why they usually start off slow with a big finish. I'm hoping to do a write a few Sci-Fi stories inspired by these songs once Camp NaNoWriMo is over.

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed! What songs are on your playlist? Tell me in the comments!

See you next week!

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Pros and Cons of Pen Names

Hi all! 

This week I'm going to talk about pen names. For those that don't know, a pen name is an alias an author, or a group of authors, write under instead of their legal name. An example of this is Erin Hunter, who is actually multiple authors writing under one name. Quite a few authors actually use pen names, so I thought I'd make a post explaining the good and bad parts of using one. 

Pros. 

It hides your identity. 

If you don't want to use your real name, you can use a different one. It doesn't have to incorporate anything from your name either. 

You can have multiple. 

For authors that write in different genres, this is a plus. I want to write Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Horror, but for different genres I need to consider different pen names. 

It can be anything you want. 

It's your pen name, so you can choose whatever name you want. No-one can tell you what you can and can't use. 

It avoids confusion with fans. 

Writing under one name for multiple genres can confuse your fans. If they follow you for your thriller series, most of them aren't going to be interested in your historical fantasy. With pen names, you can have multiple aliases that allow you to write in both without confusing fans. 

Cons. 

It won't protect you legally. 

If you steal someone's work or write something that's copyrighted, a pen name will not protect you. Although it is what readers will see, any legal action will require your real name. When signing up for Amazon you have the choice of using a pen name, but the setup process will require your real name. Having a different name does not make you untouchable. 

Having too many.

You need to decide what genres require different pen names. Although it's easy to create as many as you want, you then have to manage all these names and the income from them. This can make paying tax tricky and updating readers on new releases. 

Creating social media accounts for each one. 

Although you might just decide to lump everything into one profile, if you write drastically different genres you will need separate ones. This means you have to update more than one social media profile every so often to keep readers engaged. 

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

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Designs of my Winged Characters

Hi all! 

This week I'm going to talk about something a bit different, winged characters. There's a great blog post about them already, detailing little quirks and what it would be like to live with them. Link here: Tumblr Post

However, in a lot of books winged characters are given the same generic design, white angel wings or black demon ones. I used to go with angel wings but then realised I could branch out, so I thought I'd share some of the designs of my winged characters. None of these books are published yet by the way, but there won't be any spoilers! 

Damayanti by @KanizoArt - dragons are the first winged characters that I started writing

Shannon Pennylove - Celestial Plague. 

In the Celestial Plague series winged characters are scrutinised for being clumsy and useless on the ground. Despite having wings, she's also afraid of heights so she is teased even more for this. I thought I'd give her hybrid wings that would make her stick out more. Her wings are: bat-shaped with cream and brown ombre feathers. She's a mix of her parents, one has bat wings and the other has bird-like wings. Instead of giving her one or the other, I thought I'd just mix them together. 

Eularia - Street Rats. 

Eularia lives in a parallel universe where technology is only used by the elite. I've given her a four wing design, two large ones and two smaller ones beneath them. They're shaped like pigeon wings, but the top ones are blue while the bottom ones are a mix of black and white and aren't useful for flying. This book is a long way off from being written so the wings are the only aspect of her design that I have so far. 

Unnamed characters - unnamed Sci-Fi. 

This book is in the very rough stages, I only came up with the idea from a dream I had a few weeks ago. Winged people live in the sky, but rely on a factory that generates all their electricity which they use to fly. I went a bit wilder with this design, as I thought that since electricity is such a large part of their lives that they would incorporate it into their wings. They're metallic, with a featherless membrane that is either neon blue, neon green or neon orange. The wings are implanted in their backs when they're young and grow with them. Without electricity they can't fly. 

In short, don't be afraid to go a bit out there when designing wings. Seeing something exciting and new is better than the same design over and over. 

Do you have any winged characters? Let me know in the comments! 

See you next week! 

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How I use Mythology and Folklore in my Writing

Hi all! 

This week I'm going to talk about Mythology and folklore and how I use it in my writing. A lot of my work is greatly inspired by ancient myths and folklore, so I thought I would go through some of my series that contain it. 

Elemental Dragons. 

This series, of course, has dragons of all species in it. From hydras to Wyrms. I spent a lot of time researching which dragon species I could use for this series. For example, in Elemental Dragons the hydras will regrow heads when cut off, just like in the Greek myth. I've always been fascinated by dragons and wanted to make sure I wrote them the correct way, with a little bit of wiggle room to change them as I saw fit. Even in this universe they study myths through Dragon Mythology classes. I

Years.

I'm currently writing this Young Adult Sci-Fi for Camp NaNoWriMo. The characters all pray to Mother Earth and build machines to sacrifice people to keep her alive. The machines are named after goddesses that represent Earth or are linked to it in some way. They are Sif, Terra, Pachamama, Prithvi and Gaia. I'm still writing this one so I'm sure I will add more as I go along, depending on what the story needs.

Damayanti - by Danielle English @KanizoArt on Twitter

Damaged Goods. 

I have yet to start writing this series, which will be a Young Adult Historical trilogy. The first book is set in ancient Greece, where belief in the Greek gods are rife and people mould their lives around them. Then the next two books are set in more modern times, but people still believe in the Greek gods and it shows how that has changed society. Greek Mythology has always been my favourite and I knew at some point I would write something about it.  

Curse of Anubis. 

As you can probably guess from the series name, this set of books will contain Egyptian gods. Most notably Bastet, Thoth, Anubis and Set. I haven't started writing this series either, but I can't wait to get into it. It will be a Young Adult Horror/Dystopian about a zombie apocalypse. Some Egyptian gods will descend to try to help people during the outbreak, while others are trying to prolong it. After Greek Mythology, Egyptian would come second for me and I still want to do a bit more research before starting this series. 

Mute. 

I'm planning on starting this book during July 2020 Camp NaNoWriMo. It will be my first attempt at New Adult and Horror. This book centres on university students making a video game. They accidentally summon a wendigo, a creature that feasts on human flesh. I'm in the final stages of researching wendigos now as I want to make sure I write them scary enough for people to want to continue reading. 

Elemental Dragons Book 2: Venom and Earth is out Tuesday 14th April. If you haven’t purchased a copy yet but want to - please visit my ‘Books’ page!

That's it for this week! I hope you enjoyed reading, see you next week! 

Why It's Okay That Your Partner Doesn't Read Your Writing

Hi all,

There was a thread on Twitter about significant others reading your writing a few weeks ago. The responses were mixed, but it's still bothering me so I wanted to offer my opinion on the situation. Some are saying that your partner absolutely must read all of your work, while others say it isn't necessary.

No, my boyfriend has not read my books.

Does it bother me?

It used to, as I thought that he had to read my work to support my writing career. After all, how could he support me if he had no idea what my writing was like? But now, I don't care.

I'm more into fiction books, whereas my boyfriend doesn't really read them. He prefers news articles and politics, which isn't really my thing. He has attempted to read my book, but hits a block a few chapters in. He says it's good, but he just can't get into it as it's not his genre, which is fine.

A lot of people were saying that your partner should read all of your work. I don't agree with this however, if it's not their thing you can't force them to read through it all. They won't enjoy the experience and will try to avoid reading it. Some people were going to the extreme by saying you should dump partners that don't read your work.

This shouldn't need saying, but don't do this.

There are other ways to support your writing apart from reading it. My boyfriend encourages me to keep writing and celebrates with me whenever I get a good review or feedback. He's also there when people didn't like it, assuring me that their opinion is subjective.

Support doesn't equal reading.

Everyone is different and they will show their support in different ways. Don't shame them for not reading your work. Also, just because you do something for them, doesn't mean they owe you reading a whole book in return. 

Especially don't take relationship advice from people on Twitter who have no idea what your relationship is like. Seriously.

There are other ways to support you instead of reading your writing:

Reviewing your books.

Sharing your book related posts.

Attending writing events with you.

Giving opinions on your cover.

Helping you pick your author photo. (Or taking it, in my case)

Holding your hand while you hit 'send' on a query or 'publish book' on Amazon.

Recommending your book to people.

Buying books for you.

Pushing you to keep going despite setbacks or rejection.

However, if your partner is critiquing unfairly, belittling or humiliating you, that is a different matter. That is not a healthy kind of support.

That's it for this week, see you next week!

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!