“The day you were born, we still hadn’t decided what we were going to call you. With the move, we hadn’t had the time to choose. I wanted to name you Liliuokalani, but your dad wouldn’t hear of it. I still think that is one of the most beautiful names ever. “Our first compromise [...]
With the arrival of conference season, it’s time to get those rusty social skills out and start polishing. For me, that means reevaluating my manuscript and figuring out how to talk about it in a brief and interesting fashion. In other words, getting my pitch ready. Of course, "pitch" is really a poor word [...]
Spring is a season of beginnings and, for my writing, the season of enduring. I want to be outside enjoying the sun, regardless of what my allergies may say. Although I use my community to help stay motivated, most days it is a struggle to sit down and write. This year the first day [...]
Tournament roleplaying is a different experience entirely from playing in a home campaign. For four hours you share an experience with a group of people, usually strangers, telling a story, and then you just go your separate ways. This means every game you must introduce your character from scratch. After hundreds of introductions, I [...]
Like most writers, my writing comes in waves. Some days I am riding a high, soaring over the water, and then I get dragged beneath the waves, crushed by the scope of my novel and feeling like I am going nowhere. When my productivity low tide hits, I help others for motivation. Rooting for [...]
So, my planned post for this month's blog hop isn't quite finished so I thought there couldn't be a better time to show just how amazing the Author Toolbox Blog Hop is! Here I have compiled every article I could find and categorized them. If I missed one of yours please leave a comment [...]
Writing a novel is a lot like an endurance sport. You start out on a high with big dreams and lofty goals. Then you try to set up a routine and realize this is hard. Once you manage a routine (that inevitably falls apart from time to time) you have periods where you’re flying [...]
One of the quintessential steps for my concept creation came from a fill-in character sheet for Dungeons & Dragons. Stuffed in a corner underneath a large section letting you describe your character’s appearance, there was a small box labeled “Personality” and beneath it in fine text were instructions that read “List 6 words to [...]
Writers are intimidating. Many may be awkward, even antisocial, but most are well-read and that can be daunting to someone who isn’t. I have never considered myself well-read. Maybe a decade or three from now I might, but I definitely don’t now. As a child, I wasn’t a reader. My childhood was spent coloring, [...]
I have never loved the perfect hero. The old-school heroes like Superman felt too good to be true. I blame my brothers, of course, for my issues with the pure protagonist. My first RPG character set me on the path for creating a flawed hero, and I have never looked back. During my first [...]
