After finishing the last book in my Dwarf Mountain series last year, I was excited to move away from the young adult genre I usually wrote and get to work on an adult fantasy novel. Don’t get me wrong, I loved writing YA fantasy, but what I wanted to do next was beyond the scope of YA. I have been planning my new novel for nearly a year, thinking about it constantly, jotting…
NaNoWriMo 2016 is upon us! This will be my 5th year participating and my 4th consecutive NaNoWriMo as well. I love it. Mostly because it gives me great motivation to pump out a novel. My writing friends are also doing it, so it also provides a little bit of friendly competition. Each time I’ve done NaNoWriMo, I have successfully written 50,000 words before November ended. I’m not saying that because it’s easy. On the contrary,…
I love sweeping landscapes, stunning cityscapes, and monstrous monsters. I love grand-scale wonder that, if I were to be exposed to it today, would shock my socks off (don’t worry, they’re freshly washed). Seeing the pyramids or the Grand Canyon in person will give you all the feelings associated with just the sheer awesomeness of it all. But what about your readers? They deserve to feel the same way while experiencing the new and unique creators,…
Unless you’re an inter-dimentional time traveller, you probably don’t know a whole lot about space combat against fearsome alien races. Likewise, you might not be very familiar with the way dragons live, how they fly, or even hunt for food. And yet, new writers are often told to “write what you know.” Writing what you know is a lot like trying to find a job straight out of college. Jobs require experience, but in order…
It’s October 10, and in a few short weeks, November will come as a thief in the night. I’m never ready when thieves come. My first few times doing NaNoWriMo, I would have a story idea and, without much thought as to what it would entail, I would embark on my writing journey. No outline, just my initial thoughts and then anything that sounded good as I came to it. I’m not like that anymore. I’ve…
Welp, it happened. Last weekend, my wife gave birth to our second child! I still don’t know how I have two kids, but tell you what, they are the best kids ever (sorry, other parents. Your kids lose that battle.). It’s been a wild week as we’ve been getting ready for him to join our ranks, then actually bringing him here, and then taking care of him. Basically, taking care of this new little guy…
Fall has fell. Fallen? At any rate, summer’s gone. But you know, it’s not so bad. The trees are turing all sorts of fun colors, and even though it’s still warm down here, there is so on the mountains, adding to the contrast and beauty of it all. It’s ironic, then, that all this beauty comes as everything starts to die. Leaves, once green, burst forth into yellows and reds and oranges before they finally…
Some books spawn incredible things. Take, for instance, the Lord of the Rings movies which broughtfhat epic to life and created real-world locations that can still be seen today. Fun t-shirts and other fandom paraphernalia is an easy way to show off your obsession. Even debit cards were predicted through science fiction! While there are potentially numberless creations stemming from words on a page, one of my favorite real-world adaptations has to be Harry Potter’s quidditch.…
When I first heard about storytelling, I assumed it was all just glorified children’s stories. But the art of storytelling is so much deeper than that. Tellers weave tales of both fact and fiction, serious and humorous. These stories delve into the depths of the tellers themselves, all the while resonating with the listeners. There’s a certain magic to storytelling, something you need to experience to understand more completely (I’ve embedded a video at the…
I went camping with my wife and child once again this past weekend. It was an adventure in things going wrong. We reserved our campsite well in advance, and yet when we showed up, there was already a family camping in our reserved spot. To make things even more confusing, the post at the site where reservations are clipped said that the Coopers (yes, I still remember their name) had this site reserved, and have apparently been…