We Write!
Karen's post yesterday inspired me to do some serious thinking about how I'm handling worldbuilding in the WIP. (Note: this is not the same as seriously inspired thinking. Alas.) It's another Regency fantasy set in the imaginary world of Din Eidyn, which I think of as what Edinburgh would have been like at the time... Continue Reading →
Shadow of the Crescent is available as a Kindle ebook now. (Paperback version to follow in a few days. It always takes longer.) Twenty-seven years after the fall of Constantinople… Caterina, Countess of San Florian, keeps a book of important things she’s learned, from poison antidotes to cosmetic recipes, from charms for toothache to ways... Continue Reading →
Since I’ve just finished a historical fantasy novel (the one I’ve been calling Book of Secrets, but now it’s Shadow of the Crescent) set in Italy and Constantinople in 1480-81, I enjoyed the recent column here on historical fiction and had so many thoughts that I decided to save them for a separate post instead... Continue Reading →
My flimsy excuse for posting this on a writing blog is that one thing science fiction writers do, a lot, is invent strange cultures and describe how they change. And too often the changes are not convincing; they amount to everybody saying, "Oh, now that you explain it, I can see that how we've always... Continue Reading →
So, with a reasonably clean first draft of Book of Secrets sent out to the generous souls who volunteered to be beta readers, naturally I needed to start another project - if only to keep me from chewing my nails down to the knuckles while waiting for responses. And very fortunately, one floated into my... Continue Reading →
I don't want to stomp on Dave's post, but it's two weeks until my next scheduled post, and I. Can't. Wait. On Saturday I wrote the last scene of the last chapter of Book of Secrets. I'd estimated it would run to 100,000 words and the first-draft word count was 100,646 words. Am I brilliant... Continue Reading →
When the flush of a newborn sun fell first on Eden's green and gold, Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mold; And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but... Continue Reading →
Over this summer, in between the unavoidable interruptions of Real Life, I had begun to wonder if I was really going to write this book or if I would simply spend the rest of my life taking notes about Renaissance Italy and the Turkey of Mehmed II. Then things began to fall into place. The... Continue Reading →
Sometimes it takes a while to recognize a blessing. In fact, sometimes it takes 60 years to realize the full extent of it. Look, I already knew my high school German teacher was a blessing, even if she disapproved of me personally. Without Frau Lindemann the school wouldn't have offered German at all, and without... Continue Reading →
The writer is brain-fried. Too much Real Life has been happening for the last week and I'm doing well to remember where I put the books I'm reading. Not to mention where I was in them, or the notes I wanted to copy from The Grand Turk, or the points I wanted to discuss on... Continue Reading →
Mad Genius Club 