Original articles
In my continual quest to improve my writing craft, I watched the recorded Brandon Sanderson’ course on Creative Writing. I seriously recommend it to anyone writing novels, especially SciFi / Fantasy. Below are my thoughts about how to make the best use of it.
This post arose out of my review of Six of Crows. I complained that many action sequences were problematic. I didn’t provide examples, to avoid spoilers and in fairness to Bardugo, but I think this subject deserves a full post. There were a few scenes in the novel, more than a passing oversight, where the […]
In the eternal quest to improve my writer’s craft, I do three things. These are, for me, the three pillars that make the best, most stable structure for growth. They are: Writing often (novels and short stories – there’s always something going on in my head) Reading voraciously (in and out of my particular genre mix […]
I’ve blogged recently about a collection of Roman coins, but let’s examine some of the flip side of Roman economy: roads and pollution. In this post I want to present you with several resources about the far-reaching effects of the far-reaching effects of the empire, from unusual angles.
I recently came across Kurt Vonnegut’s eight rules for writing a short story. I thought they are pretty brilliant, regardless of the scope of you story (they could apply to a full-length novel just as much), so I have reproduced them below together with my thoughts about them. 1. Use the time of a total […]
I’ve mentioned before the importance of setting readers’ expectations as part of my article on how I review books. This is a companion article for indie publishers and authors, about what you can do to make sure that your book hits the right target audience, for best reception. First for foremost, it should be absolutely […]
In another step towards international fame and fortune, I am proud to announce that Murder In Absentia is now available in Russian! Due to the tireless efforts of a Russian business partner, the novel has been translated, edited, and formatted to fit the Russian ebook market, with a language that should feel native to and […]
Rather than an article, I include below links to two others, with my thoughts on them. I think they show pretty well the current turmoil that the publishing industry is in. The first is titled “Cover Story: The Quiet Catastrophe, Then Reinvention Of Book Publishing”, by John Birmingham on which-50. Here’s a notable excerpt: The last […]
A few weeks ago, Mary R. Woldering has asked me to contribute a piece for her blog, with the theme of National Maritime Week. I have chosen to address the issue of the life of ancient galley-slaves, and who really rowed the naval war galleys. Below I reproduce the full post. Hi, and welcome to the […]
A few weeks ago I ran a Facebook giveaway for marketing material – images to help authors put some pizzazz in their book marketing efforts. It gotten quite a response (particularly the later analysis of results), so I thought you’d all appreciate seeing what the fuss is about. Here are a few different ways in […]
