I don’t mean mine. However, I’ve noticed – and commented on – the fact that most writing workshops and writing courses I’ve encountered seem to focus on “literature” (say that with a thick British accent, a monocle, and a cup of Earl Grey). They do things like kick and scream about clichés (see my post...Read More

A lot of writing courses, workshops, and degree programs will teach you that “cliché” is the mother of all dirty words. It’s worse than “adverb”, “voice”, and “agents” all put together and slathered in a sauce made from the tools of the publishing elite. I’ve taken writing courses and will be (as soon as I...Read More

Voice is something that I’ve heard a lot of controversy about in the writing world. It’s something that differentiates you from everyone else: how you speak, how you write, your characters, your world, your ideas. What it isn’t is grammatically related. When I’m editing a manuscript one of the most frequent complaints I hear is...Read More

This week instead of my babbling, I’m going to post up a guest blog from the author “George Lasher”. His story, “The Forgetful Wizard” has appeared in two of our published anthologies: “Under the Stairs” and “Damn Faeries”. Thank you for writing in, George! I started writing in 2000 by penning a fan-fiction, Batman novel....Read More

I apologize for missing last week’s blog entry, I have been fighting with deadlines to get Dragon’s Teeth finished in time for us to copy-edit it and get it to the printers! The good news is that it looks like we’ll make it, the bad news is that it means I don’t get to sleep....Read More

When writing you need to build an image. Create a world and an environment and characters and… It’s all a lot of work. And of course, in that, you need to make the reader see all of these places and people, which is not as easy as it sounds. During my time writing, and editing,...Read More

Many authors come against a wall, eventually, when they start working to get published. This wall is called the “oh my God, this is actually work?” wall. Okay, well maybe it isn’t the official title, I’m sure I’ll think of something snappy later. Most writers think about how great it would be to be the...Read More

I came to the conclusion of what to write today by watching far too many episodes of Prison Break and subsequently being unable to sleep. Which is a good thing. Why is this a good thing? Because it made me realize something that many of the manuscripts I read don’t have: Suspense. Suspense isn’t something...Read More

Many books (and stories) end with characters that the reader has grown attached to biting the dust, be it for dramatic purposes or otherwise. In some cases, that’s fine! However, keep in mind that some of the best revenue that you, as an author, can get from book sales is if you create a series....Read More

This blog won’t pertain to anyone except the authors I’m working with, so I apologize that this isn’t exactly a “general consumption” blog. However, I’ve been asked many, many times how to respond to my edits and what some of the marks mean. Also, I will be posting one on Tuesday, but I felt that...Read More