Writeblr Life Week — About Me
Well, I’ve already got a whole “About Me” page on Tumblr, but I might as well introduce myself properly here!
About Myself:
As a writer, I go by J.L. Heeren, or just Jordan, but my friends know me as Wenn. It’s a long story involving one of my oldest OCs.
I’m twenty years old (almost twenty-one), from the midwest, and happy to talk to other writers about craft. Sometimes, I offer advice. Sometimes, I need it. I started this blog last December, but I’ve been writing since I was fourteen and entirely too enthusiastic about making Horror-genre Pokemon fics.
My writing method is madness. I’m a methodological pantser by nature, which means I can totally outline and plan out things… but only as I also I jump around, writing thirteen separate chapters at very different points along in the same WIP.
Somehow, my method works. I have a finished manuscript in my hands. I’ll have to figure out how I want to publish it after my last round of editing — hopefully it’ll be done by summer.
I’m a real sucker for wlw, lively worldbuilding, and found family (but who isn’t?)
I take good LGBTQ+ rep pretty seriously, because I really wish I’d seen us as normal growing up.
Because I trained myself to hold pencils in a really weird and painful way, I hated writing up until I discovered the joys of computer keyboards in eighth grade. You can take my laptop from my cold, dead hands.
I can and have written poetry, literary short story, plays, and literary nonfiction. I’m much better at flash horror and genre fiction (YA to Adult, fantasy & sci-fi, often with cosmic horror bents).
My college is aaall about that literary nonfic life. I’m… not. But it means I learn a lot of things that most genre fictionists don’t.
I can use InDesign! To some extent! Very proud of this!
I’ve gotten one psychological short story (Park Road) and one poem (Kintsugi) published in two separate college magazines. I’m also proud of a poetry collection, a very short play in the style of Sarah Kane, and a 29-page mlm romance I had to put together for other classes of mine. I might edit them up and share them sometime.
If I can’t sustain myself off of my writing out of college (which is very likely) then my plan is to work at a nearby pet store until I can.
My WIPs:
Shadow Herald — My pride and joy, my finished manuscript. In pithy terms, it is about a very reluctant antichrist, the wonderfully pugnacious near-folk-hero she accidentally recruits as a bodyguard (and eventually, girlfriend), and the small thief they adopt when they even more accidentally wind up in prison for a bit. Also involves fantasy politics and an awful lot of squabbling between slighted gods. If you like found family, a meaty long-term plot, and wholesome lesbians, it might tickle your interest.
Shadow War — Shadow Herald’s sequel. The name’s still up in the air, but I’m pretty excited about how the plot’s coming together. There’s going to be two more books in this series after it.
Mind Hive — Dystopian fiction with an NB protagonist just doin’ their best in the world they’ve been given. Includes telepathy, polyamory, one very precious AI, and fucked up capitalist system that is not going to get fixed with a spunky teenage revolution.
She Sells Seashells — a NA lesbian romance between a mermaid running on selkie rules, and a lifeguard who accidentally picks up the jacket that enables her to transform between mer-and-maid forms. Expect fluff and a bit of steam.
Coliseum — An adventure story about two folks (a dryad and a guy with amnesia who’s secretly a very important book) trying to survive a giant deathmaze that an amoral sorcerer king put together because he was super bored. This one’s not super fleshed out yet.
And that’s it!
