This week marks the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79 AD. That momentous, earth-shattering event took place on August 24th, around 1pm. What better time than to celebrate my second Roman-inspired novel? I’ve got some cool things to share with you around that 🙂
AmWriting
Action Choreography for Novels
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 […]
Plotting? Pantsing? Plotsing!
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 […]
Bits and Snippets of Writing
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 […]
A new Felix mystery? Quirky stuff…
First, Felix gave an interview – or so he thought. He was invited to Tabi Slick’s ‘Interview with the Stars’ series. But it wasn’t a simple interview. Oh, no! Instead, Tabi dropped him into a murder mystery, and he had to resolve it on the spot… Tabi: You might be wondering what all this is […]
Interview Roundup – these were fun ones :)
David Ellis of TooFullToWrite was kind enough to interview me on his blog. He had some unusual questions… What would you choose as your own personal mascot or spirit animal when it comes to you and your style of writing? Felix is called “the fox” for a reason. He is cunning, relying on quick wits […]
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 […]
The effectiveness of Facebook giveaways
Last week I ran a giveaway on my Facebook author page, in order to generate more likes. Let me first announce the winners, and then do some analysis on the effectiveness of such giveaways. Huge congratulations for Phillip J. Kessler and Karen Tate for winning marketing graphics! I’m sure you’ll be able to see the […]
Need some pizzazz in your book marketing?
My Facebook author page is almost at 1,000 likes, so I thought it’s… To help nudge the page over the 1,000 likes, I’m running a giveaway! I’ll create some marketing material, to help you promote your books. This can be straight up promo images, or a social media banner, or even an animated .gif. Whatever […]
FELIX THE FOX MYSTERIES 