Professional Wednesday: Placing Your Inciting Moment In the Right Spot
Generally speaking, writers — from beginners to professionals — know what it means to have an inciting moment for our stories. The inciting moment is the occurrence that sets in motion all the events...
View ArticleMonday Musings: My Declaration of Creative Independence
So many professional issues on my mind today — I’m finding it hard to organize my thoughts into something coherent. These remain hard times for creators. Writers, musicians and composers, visual...
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Professional Wednesday: The Two World-Builds
They don’t care that the twelfth king of Hamsterdom was Belchamiethius IV, known to his subjects as “Conquerer of the Exercise Wheel.” They don’t need to know the names of each mountain peak in the...
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Faith Hunter Interviews D.B. Jackson —“The Witch’s Storm,” part 2
Tomorrow, May 18, Lore Seekers Press will release a new Thieftaker novella, “The Witch’s Storm,” the first installment in a trilogy called The Loyalist Witch — Thieftaker, Fall 1770. Today (with my...
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Professional Tuesday: The Creative Origins of RADIANTS
A couple of years ago, I put the finishing touches on the third book of a time travel/epic fantasy trilogy called the Islevale Cycle. I loved the Islevale books then, and I remain incredibly proud of...
View ArticleMonday Musings: Showing 2021 The Door
A year ago, as 2020 was winding down and the nation was exhausted from months of lockdowns and economic devastation, from a disturbingly divisive Presidential campaign, and from the anti-democratic...
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Professional Wednesday: Throw Nothing Away — A Writing Lesson Courtesy of...
February has begun, Punxsutawney Phil has done his schtick, and time seems to be moving at breakneck speed. In a little over two weeks, Invasives, the second Radiants book, will be released by Belle...
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Professional Wednesday: Most Important Lessons — Trust Yourself, Trust Your...
Today, I’m introducing a new feature for my Professional Wednesday posts: “Most Important Lessons.” We are coming up on the 28th anniversary of the start of my career (which I trace to the offer I...
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Monday Musings: My Favorite Hidden Gems
Not so very long ago, I wrote a post on some of my favorite things. I thought I would follow up on that with a post about a few things I love that I consider “hidden gems,” things I have found along...
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Professional Wednesday: I’m Stuck
My muse, on the other hand, is a peripatetic tramp who can’t be counted on to show up at any given time on any given day. If I had to wait for that bastard to show in order to write something, I’d...
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Professional Wednesday: What We Can Learn About Writing From a Horny Bluebird
I got you with the title, didn’t I? I thought I might. The horny bluebird in question lives in our yard and is so hopped up on testosterone, so eager to make himself THE player among breeding bluebirds...
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Professional Wednesday: My Approach to Writing Book Reviews
After publishing my review of Guy Gavriel Kay’s marvelous new book, All the Seas of the World (coming from Viking Press on May 17), the good people at Black Gate Magazine approached me about writing...
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Professional Wednesday: Dealing With the Slog, part II — The 60% Stall
Many years back, while I was working on one of the middle books in my Winds of the Forelands quintet, my second series, I came downstairs after a particularly frustrating day of writing and started...
View ArticleProfessional Wednesday: One Hot-Mess of a Writing Post
Dispensing writing advice when one is struggling a bit with one’s own work can be somewhat strange. Just ask . . . well, me. I am more than 50,000 words into my current work-in-progress, the third book...
View ArticleCreative Friday: Celtic Urban Fantasy Teaser!!
This week, I finished the first draft of the third and final book in my new project, a contemporary Celtic urban fantasy called The Chalice Wars. I have a lot to do with this newest manuscript still —...
View ArticleProfessional Wednesday: Finishing a Book Actually Means More Work
As I mentioned last week, I have recently finished the third book in my new contemporary Celtic urban fantasy, The Chalice Wars. This book, The Chalice Wars: Sword, will be out sometime fairly early in...
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Professional Wednesday: Special Guest Joelle Presby
I first met Joelle Presby several years back at a convention, and I was struck straight off by a number of things. 1) She’s just plain nice. That’s certainly not unheard of in the publishing world, but...
View ArticleProfessional Wednesday: Another Celtic Urban Fantasy Teaser!
This is a busy week and I have a lot going on. No time to sit still and write a Professional Wednesday post. And why should I when what you REALLY want is another teaser from my upcoming Celtic urban...
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Professional Wednesday: What Matters In Your Work? Part I
On Monday, I began what will be a series of posts on the things that matter to us, and the ways in which we can make them central to our lives. Not surprisingly, I think about this a great deal with...
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Monday Musings: Joni Mitchell and the Creative Journey
Recently, I have been reading a biography of Joni Mitchell (a holiday gift from my older daughter), a long-time favorite of mine and, in my opinion, the finest songwriter in the history of rock and...
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