Search Results for: Five Good Things

Guest Interview: A.R. Silverberry

Today we get to visit with the wonderful A.R. Silverberry, who writes fiction for adults and children. His first novel, Wyndano’s Cloak, won multiple awards, including the Benjamin Franklin Award gold medal for Juvenile/Young Adult Fiction. His newest release, The Stream, has folks waxing poetic. It’s intensely captivating, thought provoking, an exhilarating adventure, wonderfully compelling… So, A.R., how do you do that? How do you come up with such good stuff? Are you a story architect (plotter) or a discovery writer (pantser)? AR: Writing requires strong hoodoo. See, it’s risky business. You never know until you’re finished if you have anything worthwhile. So I […]

The Series That Snuck Up On Me, Guest Post by William Hahn

Ladies and Jellybeans, Wonderful Readers, much to my delight we have author William Hahn joining us to talk about how he tackles (tackled?) writing a series. William taught Ancient-Medieval History for years, which wonderfully supports his journey into the realm of fantasy. He has written, in fact, an entire compendium about the lands in his novels—which is amazing bonus material for his readers and inspirational for those of us who write. Be sure you read through to the end of the post for a chance to enter a giveaway!Take it away, Will! I’m very pleased to be invited to address […]

Double Delight With Traditional and Indie Books

Our panel project, A Drift of Quills, is still in its infant stages, but I look forward to our posts on the first Fridays of the month. My fellow Quills are fun to work with, and I love seeing what responses each of them have to the topics we’ve selected. I hope you do, too! Without further ado… C.M.J. WALLACE Author of The Rift Series (beginning with Sing the Midnight Stars) C.M.J.’s Website For this month’s topic, we decided to identify one traditionally published and one indie-published fantasy novel that we enjoyed and explain why. My fellow Quillers won’t know this […]

Peer Reviews: Fair Or Foul?

Peer reviews—authors reviewing authors—are the subject of frequent and heated debate. I’m so pleased to bring to you today the first episode of a new panel discussion that will be featured on the first Friday of every month. We are fantasy writers, and we’ll be discussing the industry and our experiences, and we plan to throw in some fun things as well.  Our first topic? Peer reviews. (You guessed that, didn’t you?) Enjoy! KRISTIE KIESSLING Author of the short story, Sanguis Dei and a poetry collection, Light and Dark Kristie’s Blog The peer review. Just the words are frightening. They should be. […]

Guest Post: Randomness by Nastasia Peters (Plus Excerpt!)

Nastasia Peters is an illustrator and the author of Altors, the first book in the Zinc Trilogy, an epic tale of two friends forcefully separated after their legal guardian is killed. She was born in the Netherlands to a Dutch father (illustrator) and French mother (photographer), and moved to France when she was fourteen. Clearly, creativity runs in her blood. Recently, her drawings have been published in an Adobe MasterClass art book, and she is hard at work on Regius and Seers, the remaining books in the series. ÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷ Originally I wanted to write a post about Regius, the second […]

World Building 101, Guest Post by Patrick W. Carr

I am so pleased to have Patrick W. Carr, author of the fantasy novel “A Cast of Stones,” as my guest today as part of the blog tour hosted by I Am a Reader, Not a Writer. Patrick not only writes, but he also teaches high school math in Nashville, Tennessee. Hooray for teachers! Hooray for authors! I enjoyed reading his insights, and I can already see one point I am going to take away from this… World Building 101 When I set out to write “A cast of Stones” the first thing I did was set my time period. […]

Read the First Chapter of ‘As the Crow Flies’

To celebrate the upcoming release of my fantasy novel, and to give readers a taste of what to expect on December 10, 2012, I want to share with you the first chapter of As the Crow Flies. I’d love to hear what you think! Chapter 1 Flying Weather I am called Crow, and I am a thief. The name and the profession go hand in hand and, like the bird, I am not at all opposed to appropriating what pleases me. I am good at it. Crows are smart and clever. Black of hair, dark of eye, and dusky of […]

Following the White Rabbit

“I’m late! I’m late!  For a very important date!  No time to say hello, goodbye!  I’m late! I’m late! I’m late!” I think I could successfully masquerade as the White Rabbit this Halloween. The end of the month is upon us and I still haven’t finished editing my novel. National Novel Writing Month begins in a mere five days. “What?” you say. “Is your book that big a mess??” Well, yes and no. There is plenty of ‘mess’ to straighten, but I confess I have also fallen victim to avoidance. I’d rather scrub the toilet than edit. I’d rather clean […]

It's a challenge to stay creative. Are you looking for ways to recharge your batteries, and infuse yourself with renewed energy and zeal?

Ways to Stay Creative (For Writers)

There’s a long list of things that can strong-arm their ways into our carefully arranged schedules, often staying for weeks or even months. Sometimes those sabbaticals can recharge our writing batteries, infusing us with renewed energy and zeal, and look out world, here we come!

Unfortunately, the effects of time and inactivity can rob us of our talents. Our talents need exercise…

“Would You Like That in eBook or Paper?”

Whether to publish digitally or traditionally seems to be the question of the day in the writing world. And to that I say… Well, let me back up a little. I am a writer. I’ve written a lot of words. I am, in fact, well past the “10,000 hour” rule. Nearly all of that writing has been done for the simple fact that I love doing it. I find the undertaking to be exciting, even seductive (and we won’t talk about the aggravatingly challenging parts). When I am writing, the rest of the world might not even exist. Food? Oh, […]