Writing With: nearly witches.

nearly witches. is a fantastic writer who, in addition to writing multiple articles for the Mibba Magazine, also creates stories with unique storylines that captivates the heart of those with a knack for history. Great examples of such are her stories, Unit 731 and Saravejo Burning.

Unit 731

“I'm a huge history nerd and I watch a lot of war documentaries with my dad. We watched a documentary one day on the real-life version of Unit 731 (which is completely gruesome and morbidly interesting at the same time) and from that, this story was born.”

The historical background of this story is World War II in Japan. The main character, Dr. Seiko Nakamura, serves the army as a doctor and tells the wonders and horrors of Unit 731.

“He's got this crazy fight between his determination to make his father proud and his conscience nagging him about how wrong the whole thing is and that's super-fun to write, for sure.

“Unit 731 was probably one of the most gruesome of history's stories, and it's interesting to think about how the actions I'm writing would mentally affect all of the characters. It's challenging, but that's what I love about writing—challenging myself.”

The story continues, and Jess plans to continue “Dr. Nakamura's journey throughout his time in the unit, and really just to show the psychological toll it takes on him as a person.”

Saravejo Burning

“I'm also a bit of a geography nerd (I'm actually just a straight-up nerd, not even gonna lie) when it comes to Europe, and I love researching things that I don't really need to know about. A few years back, I really wanted to move to Croatia when I got older so I started researching that, which led to the Yugoslav Wars and then to the siege of Sarajevo (a city in Bosnia and Herzegovina—that's probably the vaguest link to my future plans ever) and as I was reading, I just really wanted to write a story about someone living through it.”

The capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina is burning, and men like Jedan and Dva are on the watch, with riffles within arms’ reach—fighting a war when they actually want to be home.

“I am having so much fun researching Bosnian culture, and the language is so fascinating. I'm definitely enjoying trawling Wikipedia for more information (yes, I know it isn't a valid source!) and just getting stuck into that aspect of writing the story.

This story is absolutely one of my babies. I may not concentrate on it as much as I did with some other stories at the beginning, but I am definitely looking to write this one well, and do it justice. My plan so far is to keep introducing JakÅ¡a's men, his wife and the life they live throughout the course of the siege taking place.”

Jess’ writing process involves music. “I tend to have a song that a story is based around, so I'll put on the album that's on while I'm writing so there's that. I also drink a shedload of Irn Bru (Scotland's favourite radioactive orange fizzy drink) when I'm writing, so maybe that's part of my routine? Who knows.”

Nearing her 7-year Mibbaversary, she states, “I just love the idea of being able to come online and chat about writing and everything else with people from around the world. Everybody's so friendly here, it's absolutely amazing to have a little space on the internet where you can be friends with people from all over. Kind of surreal, actually.

I'm way more extroverted online than I am in real life for sure. I blog a lot, and I spend a lot of time procrastinating with the games in the General forum. Maybe I'm a procrastinator Mibbian then. A procrast-ibbian, if you will.”

Jess is a writer who writes stories of such rich content that you are bound to fall in love even with the most tedious topics, so long as she’s writing it. The stories mentioned above are merely two drops of the splendid ocean of stories she possesses.

Special thanks to cleopatra. and losing control. for editing!

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