Erdemen Honor

24 posts

Light in the Darkness: A Noblebright Fantasy Boxed Set (first set of mini reviews)

A few days ago I wrote an overview of noblebright fantasy, which you can find here on my site and on Noblebright.org. I want to make noblebright fantasy a recognized subgenre of fantasy the way grimdark is now. In a discussion elsewhere on the internet, one author mentioned to me that, while the term is great, much of classic fantasy literature fits the noblebright definition. He questioned whether there is any utility in inventing a term for something that already exists and continues to be written. I agree… many of the best-loved works of fantasy are noblebright, or at least […]

Writing Fight Scenes (some tips that may or may not be useful)

This post was originally written for D. H. Aire’s blog for the 2013 Blogger Book Fair and is slightly expanded here. Note: The information below is geared toward relatively realistic hand-to-hand fights with real-world physics. Magic changes things! If your characters are wizards or mages or shapeshifters or something, that will obviously affect the fight a great deal. Fight scenes are one of the areas where even experienced writers can run into difficulty. Although I wouldn’t call myself an expert, I’ve gotten some nice reviews and comments on the fight scenes in my books, particularly The King’s Sword, so I thought I’d […]

My Writing Process by Book and Series

I was recently asked to describe my writing process for novels and series. Hm. That’s a hard one. Every book has been different. Every series is different. This isn’t a post about how you should write your books and your series. This is about what I’ve done so far and how it has worked, as well as what I’m going to try to do next. The Short Version: Erdemen Honor evolved as a standalone, then a sequel, then a third book in the series. Each is a complete, self-contained story that builds on the previous books. A Long-Forgotten Song was a series from […]

Interview: Kemen Sendoa (from Erdemen Honor series, after Honor’s Heir)

To celebrate reaching $25 per story on my Patreon campaign, I interviewed Kemen Sendoa from the Erdemen Honor series. This interview takes place after Honor’s Heir, so beware of spoilers! I’m also sharing this scene for #SaturdayScenes, a weekly event on G+. You can find me on G+ here.   SPOILERS AHEAD!   Kemen enters the room. As the author, I wrote from his perspective, imagining what it would be like to be tall, to be male, to be a soldier, to be a Dari. I experienced these things from his perspective, not my own. Now I see him from […]

Fan Art!

I just hit a major author milestone: FAN ART! This is, without any exaggeration, one of the most exciting things that has happened to me as an author. Not only did someone love my characters, but she loved my characters enough to draw them! As an author, this is makes my heart go pitter patter. This is why I write. Isn’t he cute? I love this drawing. I like this depiction of Kemen. In my head, he looks a bit like a darker-skinned, green-eyed, longer-haired, more muscular version of Egyptian actor Amr Waked (at least in this photo). Maybe a bit like this color […]

What I’m Reading #3

This is some of what I’ve been reading lately: Realmgolds – Mike Reeves-McMillan – I think I got a copy of this during a free promotion months and months ago, but I forgot and bought it on Amazon a few weeks ago. Oh well. Mike has reviewed several of my books (all in the Erdemen Honor series), coining the term cheerybright to describe what I (and he and a few other people) write. I’ll write a separate article on cheerybright soon – it’s basically the opposite of grimdark. He didn’t know I was reading his book. This is Mike’s first book, […]

Deleted Scene from The King’s Sword (Erdemen Honor 1) – SPOILER WARNING

This is a deleted scene from The King’s Sword, the first in the Erdemen Honor series. There are spoilers for The King’s Sword in the discussion below about my goals for the story and the reasons why this scene was deleted. SPOILERS BELOW! This scene was written with the idea that maybe Kemen and Hakan’s victory was “too easy.” Some of my beta readers thought that the physical conflict was too simple and there wasn’t enough intrigue and betrayal. I saw their point, and I did make some edits in response to that critique. But the story isn’t fundamentally about the […]

Guest Post: Mentors with a Twist

I’m hosting guest authors through most of April and May, as I am swamped with Awesome Con DC and welcoming Baby Boy Brightley into the world. This guest post was written by AC Smyth, the author of Crowchanger and Stormweaver.    Mentors with a Twist Think of a mentor in fantasy and where do your thoughts go? I’d take a bet that for a lot of people the first person they think of is someone like Gandalf, or Obi-Wan Kenobi. Maybe Albus Dumbledore. The mentor is a grey-haired man in a long robe, right?Well, maybe that used to be the case, but I think […]

Honor’s Heir: Erdemen Honor (Book 3)

At long last, Honor’s Heir is available! I’ve been working on this book for a long time, and it finally came together just in time for Awesome Con DC. I love the cover art, and I made some tiny changes to update the covers of The King’s Sword and A Cold Wind for consistency. You can read an excerpt here, as well as find the purchase links for Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, etc. A special thanks goes out to my Kickstarter supporters! Without their support, publication would have been delayed (well, more than it already was). I also got some great […]