Writing Ruminations 2018

An online acquaintance of mine, J. M. Jablowski, started a writing tag for the end of the year. Since this time of year is usually marked by reflection (also overeating–and for me, board games), I thought this would be a good chance to look back at how far I’ve come–and look forward to where I […]

Lessons from NaNoWriMo 2018

50,000 words in one month… This is the challenge of NaNoWriMo. This was my first year trying it, and I won! It feels like an accomplishment. As many will tell you, NaNoWriMo’s place at the start of the holiday season can make it challenging to complete those 50,000 words (1,667 words a day average). What […]

How to Create a Bad Protagonist: My First Mistake

My first shelved novel had some issues (hence: shelved). It was complete, it had been through seven (eight, maybe?) drafts, sentences had been lovingly crafted and tweaked. My beta readers all agreed that “once you got into it,” it was a good read. I wrote about how to know you have the wrong protagonist in […]

How to Know You’ve Picked the Wrong Main Character

When I came up with an idea for a new book, I had the main character (we’ll call her… #1) from my shelved novel as the only protagonist I had ever considered for anything, ever. I was used to #1: familiar with her voice, her foibles, her overall character arc. I also love her, as […]

What Fantasy Authors Can Learn from Beowulf

“If You Want to Write Fantasy, Stop Reading It.” That was the title of a post I wrote a couple years ago for Faith & Fantasy Alliance. (You can read it here now.) Despite the clickbait title, I don’t believe fantasy authors should discontinue reading fantasy: for one, it’s important to keep up with developments […]

Author Interview: World Building with Janeen Ippolito

Brandon Sanderson calls world building — or the creation of an alternate world and its cultures, history, and practices — the “vegetables” of speculative fiction. World building is necessary and good for healthy speculative fiction. But no one wants the ins and outs of the world you’ve created crammed down their throats constantly. You have […]