Jennifer Priester has kindly
agreed to guest post here about her work, and share her inspiration for
becoming a writer in honor of her debut release, Mortal Realm Witch: Learning about Magic.
About The Author:
My name is Jennifer Priester and I am a reader and a writer of both
fiction and nonfiction books, most of which are about animals, the
relationship between humans and animals, magic, the supernatural, and
superheroes. My first published book is called: Mortal Realm Witch:
Learning About Magic, which is the first in a bit of a uniquely written
series called: Mortal Realm Witch. I love animals and have owned many. I
currently have a Chihuahua called Taco, two Mini Rex rabbits called
Chibi and Kojikaki, and a ten year old Goldfish called Pumpkin. Besides
reading and writing I draw and do all my own artwork for my books, ride
horses, watch TV/movies, play video games, and spend a lot of time with
my pets. I am also a book layout designer so besides my own I also take
other people's books out of word document and turn them into either
print books, eBooks, or both.
Guest Post:
Most of my inspiration comes from animals. At one time or another every pet I have ever owned, including my fish,has inspired either a fiction or nonfiction book. Many other animals both wild and domestic have inspired me as well. It is believed that the inspiration for using a Golden Retriever in my books, may have come from a friends Golden, although the personalities are different. Taco is probably the animal that has inspired me the most. Over time he has made his way into all three of my nonfiction books and has been various Chihuahua characters in 8 stories currently and will probably inspire even more over the course of his life. The animals that inspire me who I don't own are called anipals and every animal that has inspired stories, that I have photos of, have a special section made from them on my website as a dedication to them. Even when I am writing about humans and not animals, animals still often play a big role in shaping my characters, for instance in the creating of my character DWW, I gave her the ability to shape shift into a wolf naturally without the use of any magic. When I did this I was in no way thinking of making her a werewolf I just wanted her to be able to shape shift into an animal and because the wolf is my favorite, this is what I chose. When it's not an animal I have met or know in real life, I still occasionally get inspiration from them, such as because my favorite animal character on TV when I was younger was Wishbone, and he was a Jack Russell Terrier, I later began to learn about the breed. Wishbone inspired me to learn as much as I could about the Jack Russell breed and because I loved them and wanted one, Jack Russell and Jack Russell mixes began to appear as characters throughout my stories. One of these Jack Russell characters is called Star, and he appears in several books throughout the Mortal Realm Witch series. Another Jack Russell character that appears in Book Three of the Mortal Realm Witch series is called Splash. And even when I am not writing an creating characters, sometimes animals help me remember why I started writing in the first place and inspire me to keep writing; it's because writing is something I love to do and have a lot of fun with. Perhaps it's the horse, Levi, who reminds me of this the most often. Levi was a horse that to some, didn't seem worth working with, but I had a lot of fun with him and wanted to put in the work to make him a better lesson horse. Because I wanted to work with him he improved, and it was because I had fun with him that I never gave up even when it was hard, which is something I often need a reminder of when things such as bad reviews happen, or my book gets a lower rating than was expected or hoped for. So, while animals give me my inspiration for stories, it's Levi in particular that gives me the inspiration to keep writing because just like he did I will improve over time, and maybe in time we will both be better than just good with a lot of practice.
Mortal Realm Witch: Learning about Magic :
Title: Mortal Realm Witch: Learning about Magic
Author:Jennifer Priester
Publication Date: June 20th 2012
Publisher: A & M Moonlight Creations
Mortal Realm Witch: Learning About Magic, in six separate yet connecting short stories, tells the story of a young girl who has recently discovered she is a witch. Her familiar, a talking Golden Retriever called Trillman, is in charge of teaching her how to use magic, this will prove to be harder than expected. The witch, DWW, is not very responsible and struggles to learn responsibility, which is her biggest challenge throughout the first three stories of the book. Throughout the stories, different characters tell the larger story from their points of view, for instance story 1 is told by DWW and her discovery of being a witch and everything that is now expected of her because of this. The second is told by her familiar, Trillman. He continues upon DWW's story from his point of view and tells about the challenges of teaching DWW. The next one is told by the Head of the Witches Council as he decides to try a new teaching method with DWW. After that, story 4, is the turning point in the book. In this story DWW takes on the role of full time magic teacher to two magical wolf pups. While teaching the pups magic and how to hunt and fight as normal wolves DWW learns a lot about herself. The 5th story in the book is less focused on DWW but begins by telling the impact she has had on the rules set in place for witches. This story is about a young witch living in the Other Realm who wants a dragon, Air Raid, to be her familiar. The Head of the Witches Council tells her that dragons don't make good familiars, but the witch, Ally believes Air Raid can be a good familiar and because of this the Head, Trom, gives her a time limit to prove that a dragon can be a familiar. The 6th and final story in the book returns to being focused on DWW. At this time she had returned home after the wolves are fully trained and have grown up. When she returns she is faced with a final challenge, and her biggest one, to prove that she is ready for something much bigger. The challenge comes in the form of a young warlock.
Find Mortal Realm Witch: Learning about Magic Online:
Goodreads | Amazon | B&N
The Mortal Realm Witch series website: http://www.mortalrealmwitch.com/ Learn more about the series and what is different about it from other book series.
Also
meet the characters from the series,find the links to
interviews with my characters, info about me, my anipals, and other
books I am currently working on writing and publishing. And learn about
some of the events I am attending when I am attending them.
Book Excerpts:
This
first excerpt is from story 4 in Mortal Realm Witch: Learning About Magic and is called: Wolf Magic.
The
wolf was alert. Her ears were listening to all the sounds surrounding
her. Her nose was sniffing constantly for danger. She was on a mission:
to protect two wolf pups.
These wolf pups are no
ordinary wolves, for they have magic. They have magical powers in their
paws. Specifically, they have magic paws.
Their power is very limited at this point, but over time it will increase rapidly.
The
wolf herself also has magical powers. She knows she must teach them to
use their magical powers well. The pups are not her own, but she is in
charge of them because their parents have no magic.
The
pups call their protector wolf Demon because it is what her enemies
call her. Like any wolf, she avoids enemies as much as possible and has
taught the pups to do the same.
This is another, later part of the story: Wolf Magic. (DWW is the main character of the
book and this story. In this story she is in wolf form and although I
mention that the wolf pups, Witch and Warlock, call her Demon,
throughout this story I still call her DWW.)
DWW
started sniffing the ground searching for a strong scent of rabbit.
Witch and Warlock copied her. As soon as DWW found fresh rabbit scent,
she gave the pups a low warning growl.
Witch knew that this meant that they would have to
start paying extra careful attention to how they moved and how much noise they made.
But
Warlock, even though he had heard DWW and knew what the growl meant,
was so involved in tracking the rabbit that he stepped on a twig. The
crackling of the twig scared him and he jumped backwards right into
Witch.
Witch growled at him and the two pups
started play fighting with each other. DWW growled at them and
immediately they stopped fighting and looked at her guiltily.
After this they resumed the hunt. Warlock was now paying attention to the rabbit scent as well as where he was putting his paws.
It
wasn't long before a rabbit was in sight of the three wolves. As soon
as Witch spotted it she yipped excitedly scaring the rabbit. The rabbit
took off and jumped into its nearest burrow.
DWW
chased after it with the pups following closely behind her. She knew
that the rabbit wouldn't come back out for a while so she decided to use
this time to teach the pups some patience.
The
wind was also beginning to blow a little at this time so she also
decided to teach them how paying attention to the wind can help them to
hunt successfully.
DWW positioned the pups near
the burrow, but not too close to it. She also made sure that the wind
was blowing the scent of the wolves away from it.
There
was tall grass surrounding the burrow which DWW and the pups used to
hide themselves from view. Now all they had to do was wait for the
rabbit to come back out.
After what felt like
hours, a rabbit began to appear. It started to come out of the burrow,
but then it stopped and sniffed the air before coming out.
Next
it began to hop slowly away from the burrow, stopping to sniff the air
every once in a while. Finally it began to feel safe and relaxed. It
hopped towards a very green patch of grass.
DWW
gave the pups a low, firm bark to tell the pups to stay and watch her as
she slowly crept towards the rabbit. As she did this, she moved around,
using trees and tall grass for cover. She wanted to move around to the
front of the rabbit knowing that directly in front of the rabbit was its
blind spot.
All rabbits see around them better than directly in front, so DWW knew that she was less likely to be spotted
by approaching from directly in front of it.
DWW crouched as low as
she could get in some tall grass and froze. The rabbit was still relaxed
and too busy eating to notice her.
She waited
for the right moment, and then rushed it head on. At the last second,
the rabbit noticed her and tried to run away, but it was too late; DWW
had caught it.
After DWW returned to the pups,
she told them that next time a rabbit came out of the burrow it would be
theirs to catch. But this time they would use a different strategy. DWW
explained what they would do. Then she and the pups returned their
attention to the burrow.
When the next rabbit
emerged, Witch and Warlock were ready. They watched until the rabbit
made its way to the same patch of grass as the previous one before
acting.
Warlock moved to just in front of the
burrow and crouched as low as he could get. Meanwhile, Witch crept
around to the front of the rabbit in the same area as DWW had been.
As
soon as she was in position, instead of waiting, she rushed directly at
it. Almost immediately the rabbit saw her and took off towards its
burrow with Witch almost on its tail.
The rabbit was so scared that it didn't see Warlock waiting for it. When it was close enough, Warlock ran towards it.
The
rabbit was now in between both pups. The rabbit quickly turned around,
but not before Warlock managed to grab onto the back end of the rabbit.
Witch used this moment to kill it.
The wolf pups ran back to DWW and she praised
them on their catch.
DWW explained that all animals had to hunt to survive, and that it was part of the laws of nature.
After the hunt, the wolves ate the rabbits where they were before returning home.
The
next night DWW decided to show them how to hunt bigger animals as a
pack, although they weren't a big enough pack to actually catch anything
in the usual way.
DWW found a small doe, and
with the pups watching, she created five duplicates of herself so that
it would look as if a whole pack of wolves were surrounding the deer.
After
doing this she explained to Witch and Warlock that wolf packs would
usually work as a team to hunt deer and other large animals.
Before
demonstrating how they could use duplicates to hunt, she tells them that the duplicates have no attack power.
This
is becasue they are more like ghosts than anything else. They are used
to scare only because the animal being hunted can run right through
them, and each duplicate could only be controlled one at a time.
She also warned them that until they are more experienced hunters they can't try this method on deer or any other large animal.
DWW
then began to move towards the deer. She did her best to creep up on
it. As soon as the deer was almost in her reach, it noticed her and
started running.
DWW observed what direction it
was moving in and chased after it while moving the duplicate that was in
the direction the deer was heading
forwards. The deer saw this and turned left.
DWW then moved another duplicate to rush it from the front. The deer then ran to the right.
DWW did the same thing again. The deer now was unsure of where to go and turned around to face her, ready to fight.
This one is from story 6: DWW on the Witches Council?In this one, just as it is in most of the book, DWW is human.
One
Monday I went to school. Well, actually every Monday I go to school,
but this one was different. Not that every Monday goes exactly the same,
but this Monday there was a new kid in school.
He
was short, average in weight, had blue-green eyes, and jet black hair.
There was also something odd about him. I couldn't figure out
what it was.
There was only one time a day that I saw him and that was lunch, so Sam and I took that time to get to know him.
During
this time, we found out as much as we could, but there were some things
he wouldn't tell us. The things he wouldn't tell us were where he came
from and where he lived now.
I thought this was sort of strange, but I liked him. I still couldn't help but wonder why I got this odd feeling when I saw him.
The next day I had every class with him. It was like he somehow found out what my schedule was and changed his to match mine.
That day at lunch I asked him, "How did you get your schedule to match mine?"
"I have my ways," he replied mysteriously.
"How did you find out what my schedule was?" I asked.
"I just did," he said.
This
was very strange. I couldn't get him to give me any more information.
When I thought over what he had said and how he had said it, I got an
idea.
I came up with the idea that he might be a warlock. The facts added up.
First,
he won't tell me where he is from, then he won't tell me where he
lives, next his schedule magically happens to match mine, and finally he
won't tell me how he found out my schedule or how he got his to match
mine.
I decided to try the
Other Realm for some information.
In the Other Realm, I saw Trom and asked him about the boy.
Trom
told me to check with the Other Realm information service. He said all I
had to do was call them, which I could even do from the Mortal Realm.
I
did this and found out that the boy, whose name is Sampson, was
definitely a warlock. I then called Sam and told her to come over to my
house.
When Sam got to my house, she asked, "Why did you call me?"
"I know a lot more about Sampson," I said.
"How?" she asked.
"You know how he was keeping information from us?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I just called the Other Realm and..." I started to explain.
"You can call the Other Realm?"
"Yes. Anyway, Sampson is a warlock."
"That explains a lot," Sam said.
"Yeah, I know."
"So, when should we tell him we know?"
"Tomorrow, but I will have to be the one to tell him."
"Why?" Sam asked.
"I am a witch," I reminded her.
"Oh, I guess that makes
sense."
The next day I told Sampson that Sam
and I knew that he was a warlock. When he asked how we found out, I told
him that I was a witch.
Afterward he told us
that he used to live in the Other Realm, but now he sort of lives
between Realms. Sam was a little confused when Sampson said this, but I
understood what he meant.
Sampson also told us
that he was working towards being on the Witches Council. I thought that
was great until later when I found out why.
Happy reading until next time!
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Title: Shatter Me
