Not all ideas end up as a full novel. Sometime’s it’s just a flash fiction, or even a mere snippet of a story. Here are a couple of particularly delicious ones from the past few weeks. All were done as a prompt (where someone asked for it or not…) to an image. This little techno-beasty […]
Writing
State of the publishing industry
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 […]
National Maritime Week – two millennia ago
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 […]
C’est fini
That’s it. It’s over. I’m done with it. Surely writing “The End” on yet another manuscript is the sweetest feeling ever 🙂 This one took a lot longer than Murder In Absentia. I blame the baby. I hope that as he grows up, I’ll get the next books finished quicker… So what’s next? And when […]
SciFi Round Table (a song for the ages)
Like most indie authors, I am a member of several Facebook groups. One of them is a particularly great place to hang out, the SciFi Round Table. Don’t let the name fool you, we cover lots of fantasy there as well. In a recent post, the admin and creator behind it asked for help in […]
Ancient Ruins
As some may know, we’ve recently visited Israel. While this was mostly about visiting family and friends, we did get to tour around a bit. Here, for example, we visited my favourite fort: I’ve posted a lot of images on my Instagram feed. More importantly, each image comes with its own little story, and why […]
Dressed to Kill (no, really!)
This is about historical clothing, not about clichés 🙂 It’s inspired by Marie Brennan’s post on Tor.com: How to Do Karate in a Victorian Dress. I suggest you read the entire post! Replace ‘dress’ with ‘toga’ and this is totally something I should be doing! I am happy to say that I do pay close […]
Everyone is the hero of their own story
This is a little exercise I sometimes do, to help me write. It’s probably old news to some authors, and won’t work for others, but for me it’s a useful little bit. I write Felix’s mysteries in first-person voice. This means that we see the case unfolds through Felix’s eyes, we learn the evidence at the […]
How to deal with a foul mood
Felix was in a funk (what with a broken leg), so I let him have a bit of fun. Enjoy this little excerpt from the upcoming In Numina. My mobility impaired, I could not take on another case. I was in no condition to walk far, but I limped down to the docks between the […]
Epic World Building
Over at Our Epic Worlds, a blog dedicated to fantasy world-building, M.L. Spencer was kind enough to interview me about creating the historical-fantasy world of Egretia. I got to answer a few questions about Felix and the magical world he lives in. Here’s a short extract: How does the landscape or geography of your world […]
