Vitual Book Tour + #Giveaway: Fibers by Jennifer-Crystal Johnson @brokenpoet @GoddessFish

Fibers

by Jennifer-Crystal Johnson

GENRE: Science Fiction

BLURB:

Anna Reynolds is caught up in the middle of a secret interdimensional government agreement... and she doesn't even know it. 

There's a medical anomaly loosely dubbed Morgellons disease afflicting a number of people. Symptoms include open sores that produce colorful string-like fibers, fatigue, and nightmarish visions of shadowy figures. No one knows where it came from. No one knows what causes it. There is no cure.

When Anna begins having nightmares and waking hallucinations of the shadow people, her uneasiness about her condition grows. Enlisting the help of her doctor and some friends, Anna is determined to find out what's really going on and why Morgellons is such a mystery.

With her health declining and doubts about whom she can trust, is Anna doomed to become a slave to her condition? Or will she and her unlikely group of would-be heroes come through, saving her... and, ultimately, the world?

Amazon

EXCERPT:

As Anna walked home through the glistening streets of Deeplake, Washington, she adjusted her scarf and wrapped her coat around herself tightly, her breath fogging up the air in front of her. After a brief glance over her shoulder, she quickened her pace, her bag of groceries teetering in her arms momentarily as she readjusted her grip.

She’d been feeling like someone was watching or following her for weeks. At first she just shrugged it off as her own overactive imagination, but the other day, she could’ve sworn she saw a shadow out of the corner of her eye. When she looked, there was nothing there. That wasn’t the first time she had seen shadows. They were always there, just out of sight, their existence never confirmed by a direct glance. But every time it happened, she got goosebumps and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end like it does when you know someone is watching you.

Her left eye began to feel itchy and grainy as she walked, and she cursed herself for not driving. She blinked several times, but after a few moments her eye felt like it had sand in it again. This was accompanied by an unpleasant tickling sensation, which became annoying very quickly.

Her thoughts wandered as her eye got worse. She felt guilty but justified for not mentioning her problems to Casey, who had more than enough on her plate already. She also didn’t want to come across as crazy; Anna was certain she wasn’t. Some of the recent events in her life were crazy, but she was definitely sane.

Do crazy people think they’re sane?

Guest Post:

Do the characters all come to you at the same time or do some of them come to you as you write?

Characters have always been more of a challenge than plot for me because the only person I know how to be is me. However, I find it easy to identify with a number of different types of people (fictional or real), so I think my obstacle in character development is me. Working on anything unfamiliar or doing a task you’ve never done can be scary; however, if you go ahead and do it, you might find a natural talent for this particular skill.

Because I don’t know how to be anyone but me (which is a teeny bit of an oxymoron because of how many times I have had to adapt throughout my life), I essentially built each of my characters around either an aspect of myself and my own life or an aspect of someone that I know or have known at some point (which adds up to literally hundreds, if not thousands, of people because of my military upbringing).

So, for example… Anna has lost a child and survived her ex-husband leaving her for another woman due to their child’s death because he couldn’t handle facing his own grief and his wife’s; he ran, leaving Anna to deal with her grief alone. Now, this is not a difficult thing to understand; we’re human. We run when something is scary. Well, many of us do, anyway. Parts of Anna’s character are based on me in more recent years, whereas parts of Casey’s character (her best friend) are based on me in my mid-twenties. Single mom of three, bad track record with relationships, too stubborn to open up but lonely and exhausted; these are all things that can be applied to me personally. But what better characters than those who are based on real people?

I didn’t plan my characters in Fibers very much until it was time to start revising. There were a number of things that seemed very flat about them, so I needed to expand and make them more human. Interestingly, as soon as I finished writing the novel and began revising, I was at a point when I felt like I knew my characters much better than when I began, like I was just getting to know them, too.

As they began to take on more personality, I found myself imagining histories, past events, motivations for why they would act the way they do and do the things they do; tell the lies they do, or react differently than expected. What might happen to make someone feel uneasy about leaving her house? What might happen to destroy her trust in others? What might happen to make him take on a cause greater than himself and then lie about it?

Once these motivations became clearer, the characters’ emotional reactions became clearer. This basically threw me into psychology mode because I’ve always been fascinated with what motivates people, so everything just clicked, especially once I started revising for about the tenth time. I won’t lie… it felt awesome! When everything falls into place, it’s the most amazing feeling! Especially when it comes to something you’ve created out of thin air.

So, how do characters take on a life of their own? Through writing… research… psychology… and experience. I can’t tell you how many experiences I had from beginning this journey until its completion that served some kind of purpose in helping me to understand or direct my characters. The parallels were incredible and a little uncanny because I was looking for them. You see what you seek.

So, I guess the main point is to trust the process, whatever it might be for you. For me, it was a very organic and life-influenced process, which I love, and now I know my characters pretty well (although I still couldn’t tell you what they might decide to do in the second or third books). As long as you’re writing, you’ll find out what works best for you; there is no “right” or “wrong” way to go about writing a novel… including the character development aspect. To each their own!

Thank you so much for hanging out with me today; I hope you all have a wonderful week! As for me, it is officially my birthday today, so I’m going to go spend time with friends and family =). Please buy a copy of my novel, Fibers, on Amazon, or borrow it for free on Kindle Unlimited.

AUTHOR BIO:

Jennifer-Crystal Johnson is originally from Germany, but was raised an Army brat. She has published one novella under her former last name, The Outside Girl: Perception is Reality (Publish America, 2005 - out of print as of 2013), a poetry book, Napkin Poetry (Broken Publications, 2010), and a collection of poetry, art, and prose called Strangers with Familiar Faces (Broken Publications, 2011). She's also published a collection of short creature horror stories called If You're Human Don't Open the Door (Broken Publications, 2012), a personal development book called The Ten Pillars of a Happy Relationship (Broken Publications, 2014), and a collection of more horror stories (no creatures this time, just people) called Our Capacity for Evil (Broken Publications, 2015). She has several poems and short stories published on Every Writer's Resource and has recently published a science fiction novel called Fibers, the first book in the Infiltration Trilogy. Jen owns and operates Broken Publications (www.BrokenPublications.com) and publishes an annual anthology to raise awareness about domestic violence called Soul Vomit (www.SoulVomit.com). When she isn't writing or editing, she enjoys playing games with her three kids, watching crime shows on Netflix, or reading. She lives in WA State with her three children, three cats, and a crazy puppy named Thor. You can connect with her at http://www.JenniferCrystalJohnson.com, http://www.twitter.com/brokenpoet, or www.Facebook.com/JenniferCrystalJohnson.

Video excerpts – watch the author read!

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Giveaway:

$10 Amazon/BN GC

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