Coffee-Fueled Digressopedia, and Book Update

Hello friends and the occasional relative! I know, weekly update, don’t expect this to be a long-term thing. I’m having a burst of consistent output, which is fabulous, I have a deadline, which is motivating, and I’m writing, which is the whole point. So I’ve written another couple of chapters of The Slaves and The …

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We’ll talk about this later…

But for now I'd like to say I'm "Today's Featured Indie Book Review" on Kirkus. Find it here. I'm pleased with what they have to say. Bottom left of the page. Check it out. EDIT: now that my day in the sun has passed, you can check out the review directly here. And if you …

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The Writing Life: Gathering Your Thoughts, or Dealing with Developmental Editorial Feedback

So I received my developmental notes for The Killer and The Dead last week. These notes were a collection of thoughtful comments and suggestions on plot, structure, pacing, writing, setting, and character. Plus a ton of in-text comments on specific aspects of the book, good and bad, pointing out places where improvements could be made, …

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The Writing Life: Writing as an Exercise

Part of writing is persisting when you’re not feeling particularly up for it: you’re tired, distracted, unsure, stuck, maybe even bored and wanting to move on, but no, you’ve got to write that next page. Sometimes I’ll just go to bed. Other times I’ll get a cup of tea, play a few racks of pool, …

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Why I Write Fantasy: Morality, Culture, and Character Creation

So folks, while it is fresh in my mind I thought I’d reiterate what I thought was one of the central points discussed during our panel at Denver Comic Con. (Thank you once again to my fab panelists!) And that is this: I feel that paying attention to the culture a character grows up in, …

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