Following A Dream
Juliana Loomer was born and raised in the creative hotbed of Northern California, just outside San Francisco. By 2007, she was an overworked and exhausted visual effects artist working in the film industry. After taking an opportunity for a well deserved rest, she found herself unable to sleep for weeks.
"Though it is hard to believe, the nights of sleeplessness were due to a man made of "shadow" that would stand next to my bed each night, telling me to write down a story about a girl that moves from California to Norway."
She agreed to write the story so she could get some sleep and in four weeks time, having never written anything before but emails, she had Child of the Jotun typed out for the "shadow man” that stood next to the bed.
With the encouragement of friends, she decided to travel to Norway to see if the people and places she had written about were at all accurate. To her excitement and fear, they were. Following the story has changed her life.
Juliana currently lives outside Seljord, Norway with her husband and is dedicated to writing down the stories that continue to be told to her.
Storyteller
Juliana does not consider herself an author in the traditional sense, though she has surely put in the time and hard work all other authors have. She considers herself a storyteller because she does not design the stories she writes; she interprets them from "others" that want the story told. She explains:
"In the first part of the writing process, I simply lay my hands on the keyboard, close my eyes and begin to type. The story comes to me in a series of images and strong feelings. My job is to write it all down exactly as it is being "shown" to me. A few times, I have unconsciously added my own desires into the story, only then to have to go back and delete 20 chapters because the story wasn't making sense. Trusting the story to know how it wants to be told is the key."
She does not consider herself unique in the experience and can point to many authors, artists, musicians and film makers who are going through similar experiences.
“If you listen to creative people, you find that many are talking about this intense communion with something outside themselves that wants a story told, even compells them to tell a specific story through their artform. I believe there is something within the spirit world that is ready to be communicated; a universal story they are trying to tell us about ourselves that each artist interprets uniquely. Many of us now have made agreements to be the voice of these “others” and share the stories they have to tell. Trusting the story has changed my life.”
The story in her premiere book will continue. After the publication of Child of the Jotun, the second book in the series, Birth of a God, will be available late 2012.
Follow Us!
Child of the Jotun
Dream of the North
See Juliana's artwork here.