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Category: fiction
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Trickster Noir: Snippet 2
I have a week, and about 20,000 words, left to write Trickster Noir. I might actually make this deadline. I have the ending all mapped out in my head, and feelers into book three. I only plan for a trilogy, although I may do some shorts exploring Alger’s past, and Lom’s past missions. We’ll see.…
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Now Departing…
From reality, naturally. Mirror-posted over at Mad Genius Club Do you need to research when writing a fantasy novel? Not only yes, but please, do! Far too many are written without any research at all, hinging on the author’s limited imagination and lavish dollops of magical interventions. First of all, resist the urge to use…
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Seducing the Reader: Part 2
Or, how to get your reader to take your book to bed with them Once you wrote the great pick-up lines, hooked in the reader and got them to shell out money to take you home with them (through your book, of course!), what’s next? We’ve all read books that began well, but after…
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Review Retrospective on 2013
In 2013, I set out to read more. I love reading, but had gotten so busy with work and school I no longer felt like I could justify the time for pleasure-reading. My head being the strange, messed-up place that it is, I convinced myself to justify the reading by starting to do book reviews…
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Taking My Peeves for a Walk
This reader has a few pet peeves. Most of the time I just avoid them, but once in a while I put them on a leash and take them for a stroll, because I am also a writer, and knowing where the peeve has gone lets me avoid annoying my readers. Just be careful…
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Writing Process
It’s not the same for any of us, this process of creation, but I’ve found that sometimes I’ll read about what someone else is doing and it clicks for me. Over at Mad Genius Club this morning I elaborate on what I was thinking and doing as I wrote Pixie Noir, hoping that perhaps I…
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Reading Noir
I’m beginning to write Trickster Noir, the sequel to Pixie Noir. To get into the mood, I’m reading noir fiction. I’ve been looking for recommendations, and was given a nice list by friends. For Pixie, I was reading Spillane and Louis L’Amour’s detective stories. I’d been reading Hammett a few months before I started writing…
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Review: Sky Suspended
I have been trying to figure out who to compare this book to – as unfair as it sometimes seems, drawing a parallel between one work and another at least has the benefit of quickly conveying to the reader what to expect – and was considering the latter half of the Harrington series by David…
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A Flash Of Rain
I had written this flash fiction piece a while back, and put it away, it is too short to do much with, but it’s a poignant story, and when I came across it this afternoon I decided to share it here. Enjoy. Let me know what you think. ******************* Aunt Emma was watering the garden…
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All Joking Aside
A few of us were kidding around in the writing group I belong to online. It’s not your average group: we never show one another examples of work for critique, although we use one another as guinea pigs, er, beta readers, from time to time. This group is more for motivation. We post word counts,…
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Back Covers
I’m not sure if this qualifies as a nuts-and-bolts post, or a “what I have been up to this morning!” I spent a good part of my morning formatting and uploading files for Pixie Noir, hoping to hit the proposed publication date in a more-or-less timely fashion. I am working with Createspace again for this,…
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Seducing the Reader: Part 1
It seems obvious that in order to get a reader interested in your story, you must have a great line. Something that stands out, grabs their attention, but isn’t corny. The idea here is to intrigue your reader and bring them into the story without making them lean away and smile politely until they can…