Tag Archives: through the shimmer of time

Shimmer of Time Goes on the Road (and I Do Too)

Posted on June 26, 2015 by Jennifer Jensen

Summer days are for lazing around the pool, going for evening bike rides, and generally slowing down the pace of life, right? Cannondale F7 for sale! ~ 24 Speed~ 16.5″ Heavy Frame ~SRAM+Nice! This Cannondale F7 is going to make a fine mountain bike for you to take everywhere! Sram X-series front derailleur, Shimano’s new generation of full-carbon, full-stroke, sealed bearings SRAM cassette, slack-link fork made from fiberglass, and Cannondale’s own exclusive software make this a great biking package. I’ve actually been extra-busy lately, not only with writing book #2, but taking Shimmer on the road. I had an unexpected opportunity to do an author visit to the Tyson Library in Versailles, which in Indiana is actually pronounced ver-sales, not vare-sigh. Sigh. Regardless of living where they didn’t know how to pronounce French a hundred years ago, I had a lot of fun. It was Tyson Library’s summer reading kickoff and … Continue reading →

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Flunking NaNoWriMo, Finding a Writing Rhythm

Posted on December 9, 2014 by Jennifer Jensen

I admit it:  I flunked NaNo this year. I had great plans of using the month to crank out a down-and-dirty rough draft of Shimmer #2.  What I discovered was that a good story (not just a large word count), necessary historical research and a 30-day deadline do not make a good combination! At about the 10,000 word mark, I discovered a resource that filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge about life in the canal construction camps of the 1830s.  Great info, but it also meant stopping to read, re-imagine and re-plot before I could move forward again.  And when local book signings and a marketing push on Mother-Daughter Book Reviews took over my brain, and NaNoWriMo went completely kaput. Sigh. On the other hand, when I was working on those 10,000 words, I discovered a great rhythm for my writing time! As many of you know, … Continue reading →

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NaNoWriMo and Shimmer of Time 2

Posted on November 1, 2014 by Jennifer Jensen

It’s that time of year again, when writers all over the world hunker down together and begin a new novel, with the goal of at least 50,000 words (that’s about 200 double-spaced pages) by the end of November – National Novel Writing Month.  Would you believe there were 310,000 NaNoWriMo writers last year?? I’ve “won” NaNo twice before, once finishing the majority of an adult novel, and once with a YA experiment with mixed results.  I haven’t participated since I got back from Ireland, but now I’m all set to go with the sequel to Through the Shimmer of Time (click to read an excerpt of Book 1). Jim and Hannah will be back, of course, along with a new village resident named Mr. Oppenheimer, a young Irishman named Donal, and their immigrant canal-building buddies.  Plus a nasty dude who has no name yet, and plenty of adventure and danger.  … Continue reading →

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Weird Names & the War That Wasn’t a War

Posted on October 16, 2014 by Jennifer Jensen

Stolen Ohio chickens, a lost Michigan militia, and men with numbers for names?  You never know what your fiction research is going to uncover. There I was, digging into Midwest canals and railroads for Book 2 of my Shimmer of Time series.  Lots of cool stuff for the book, right?  But I got sidetracked completely by Benjamin Franklin Stickney, who had weird tastes in names and was (probably) responsible for a war most of us have never heard of. Stickney’s mother was a favorite niece of Benjamin Franklin (that’s right, the key-on-a-kite-string Benjamin Franklin, “discoverer” of electricity and inventor of my ever-necessary bifocals), and she named her son after him in 1773.  So Benjamin Stickney grew up, got married, and named his sons … wait for it . . . One and Two!  Evidently he wanted to let them choose their own names when they got older, but they never did.  … Continue reading →

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Am I Coming or Going?

Posted on August 19, 2014 by Jennifer Jensen

Time travel is great, but how about the ability to split yourself and be several places at once? I’ve been guest blogging to get the word out about Shimmer, and today I’m over with mystery writer Kassandra Lamb and the rest of the gang at Misterio Press.  They asked me to write about Conner Prairie itself – the living history park that was the inspiration for Through the Shimmer of Time.  And as a bonus for you, I even included some of the mistakes I almost made! I felt like I was splitting myself when, at almost the same time, the uber-creative Coleen Patrick hosted my dilemma over just how much creativity I can really claim.  I thought it was Blog Stop #3, but gee, let’s go back and count.  No, it was #4, which means I’ve done . . . hmm, I’m not sure my brain has the energy to … Continue reading →

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