Ask the Authors, ed. Kaye Lynne Booth

Booth and the contributors blend personal details with more general advice, creating a book that is halfway between biography and craft guide. The book is compiled from a series of communal interviews that the editor carried out with a pool of eighteen authors on writing- and publishing-related topics. Booth has gathered the questions into ten …

Publishing Turtles

Over the weekend, I came across Hugh Howey's listing of his publishing values. So, I decided to try the exercise myself. Turns out my ordering of things needed for publishing is somewhat different from his. The exercise is to list groups/entities needed for publishing in order of importance. My first thought was that I agree …

Theme Tune to My Un-Life

Many authors name music as a major inspiration for their work: they have a theme song for their lead character, they create a specific playlist for drafting each book, they have go-to songs for particular types of scene. I am the other kind of author. Rebecca Linam's forthcoming article on music influencing writing in Issue …

Shining a Spotlight on Me

The soon-to-be-released second issue of Mythaxis includes an interview with me. But if you can't wait, the publisher has made the interview available for free here. The article focuses on indie publishing, so if you're interested in the technical side of the writing business you can find my thoughts here.

Call for Submissions: Outsiders Within

After years of reading cosmic horror and publishing books, I'm fusing the two like some eldritch phenomena. I'm looking for tales of cosmic dread about people with embarrassing secrets, hobbies they don't mention, and other things that make them different from what those around them believe. Full details here. If you know someone else who …

Mythaxis Review Platform, Issue 1

The inaugural issue of Mythaxis Review Platform, featuring an article on changes to Amazon's KDP Reports beta site, is now out. In addition to my thoughts on Amazon's potential replacement for their current author-publisher reporting screens, there are other articles about indie and trad publishing, along with reviews of technology, art, and science-fiction including: ‘The …

…With More Feeling!

Thoughts on double-plus good writing are double-plus good. This morning, I discovered some notes I'd made years ago, which included this quote from Cliff Seal: "No one has ever been offended by proper grammar or proper sentence structure. No one has ever emailed you to say I really wish you would use six more exclamation …

Literature Lacks Character

While binaries are almost never true, there is a common division in fiction critique between literature (seen as worthy) and genre (seen as second-rate)—or, to reverse it, between literature (seen as pretentious tedium) and genre (seen as genuine entertainment). Many of those who fall into the second perspective go further, claiming that—rather than a division …

UnOccult Secrets

Matt Larkin (author of some rather spiffing riffs on Nordic mythology) posted an article recently suggesting fantasy novels can benefit from the lack of systematized magic. While I find his arguments engaging, for me the best answer lies in what is revealed rather than what is systematized. Larkin's thesis is that magic—at least magic that …

Anent the Prose of that Indescribable Scrivener

Discussion of Lovecraft's work tends to focus on three things: racism, cosmic dread, and tentacles. However, as anyone who's spoken to witnesses to an event knows, the same story becomes different depending on the author: so, while a tale of a Englishman who discovers a debased African tribe summoning a writhing horror and is traumatised …