novel

57 posts

Saturday Scenes – From a new fantasy project

This post is from a weekly event on Google+ called Saturday Scenes, in which writers share scenes and snippets from their various works. This piece is brand-new and unedited and may be part of a new project I’m brainstorming. It’s looking like a possible portal fantasy with a few retold fairytales and a bit of a quest. Please feel free to comment!   ~~~   Unseen force hurled her across the room. Whipcord thin, the invisible magic binding tightened around her throat. She choked, and the binding tightened inexorably. She fought, clawing at her own skin. “You’re not real,” Hvardr gasped. He […]

Talking Writing with Francesca Forrest

As I’ve mentioned, The King’s Sword is currently in an indie fantasy StoryBundle! If you haven’t read it, or even if you have, the bundle is a great way to get a copy of The King’s Sword as well as seven other fantastic books by indie authors. I’m thrilled to be included in such talented company. One of my fellow authors, Francesca Forrest, wrote a captivating book called Pen Pal. Blair MacGregor, the bundle curator, writes: From the first lines of Pen Pal, I was utterly charmed by the voice, the setting, the character, and the message-in-a-bottle premise. But the captivating whimsy […]

Indie Fantasy Storybundle!

I’m excited to announce that The King’s Sword is one of the bonus books in an Indie Fantasy Storybundle! This is a great opportunity to get some fantastic books and discover new authors. Blair MacGregor, the curator, wrote up a blog post and I’ll just let her take it away! *** THE INDIE FANTASY BUNDLE Curated by Blair MacGregor A couple years ago, StoryBundle included my first novel in the Indie Fantasy Bundle. This time, StoryBundle offered me the opportunity to curate a bundle of my own, and I jumped to accept. I couldn’t pass up the chance to share […]

Anniversary Post! Book Stats – 2014 – And Other Musings

This is a very belated post, but pretend I posted this in 2014. I’d originally planned to publish it on Nov 2, the second anniversary of publishing my first book, The King’s Sword. However, it proved to be immensely annoying to try to track my production and writing from some random date. Instead, I’m going by calendar year 2014. This skips a bit of the end of 2013, but oh well. Books Published: 4 (2 in 2014 – Honor’s Heir and Things Unseen) Books in Progress: 2 (The Dragon’s Tongue, Book 2 in A Long-Forgotten Song, and Book 3, as yet untitled) Books Backburnered: […]

I Finally Did It…

I got up the courage to join the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. Yeah, how silly is that? I’ve been thinking about it for a while because it seems like a great group of people. But another commitment? Seriously? I didn’t want to flake out, so I just didn’t join for oh… months. An embarrassingly large number of months. But here I am, and here’s my first post. I had a major bout of doubt and frustration a few weeks ago. I spent real money, as in triple digits, on a number of advertising and publicity efforts. Nothing really panned out. […]

What I’m Reading

I try to keep up with my reading on Goodreads, but I thought I’d put a few mini-reviews on here as well. This is some of what I’ve been reading lately: The Blue Sword – Robin McKinley – I read it a long time ago and remembered really enjoying it, but not much else about it. A sword? A girl kidnapped by magic desert-people? I reread it and yes, I enjoyed it just as much the second time. It’s not my favorite book ever, but it’s one of the earliest fantasy books I remember reading, so it was fun to rediscover […]

In Which I Discover The Dresden Files

      Have you ever avoided a book or series because you irrationally thought you wouldn’t like it, and then finally read it and realized you loved it? Yeah, that’s me. For some reason I just knew I wouldn’t like the Dresden Files and have been avoiding them for years. I’m not big on crime novels, I’m not big on urban fantasy, I’m not even a huge fan of magic as a big part of fantasy novels (I like new worlds more than the magic, generally). I finally decided that I couldn’t call myself a fantasy author if I hadn’t read at least […]

Guest Post: What Vikings can teach you about blogging and promoting your own creative writing

This guest post was written by A H Gray, the author of The Northumbrian Saga. What Vikings can teach you about blogging and promoting your own creative writing The main thing I have learnt from watching the History Channel’s Vikings series is that people are still interested in history. Many have argued over the show’s accuracy in portraying the Viking period, that it values entertainment over accuracy. If you are an author of historical fiction then you will know this debate very well. Yet from my own experience I have discovered that viewers are as interested in learning the history behind […]

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 […]