Meet Debbie Young, the editor of the Alliance of Independent Authors Self-Publishing Advice blog (www.selfpublishingadvice.org), and the author of the book promotion handbook Sell Your Books! She blogs book marketing tips at Off The Shelf Book Promotions (www.otsbp.com), while her personal blog, short stories, flash fiction, travelogues, memoirs, and reviews of other indie authors’ books…
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Book Review: “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making” By Catherynne Valente
Fairies, golems, wyverns, magical swords, talking furniture, flying cats, and evil sorceresses. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making has all of these and more, critical elements of a soon-to-be childhood favorite that, I hope, will stand among the classics of the genre. The Girl Who… seems to me best described by elements…
Read MoreAuthor Interview: Dan Holloway
Meet Dan Holloway, a novelist, performance poet, and journalist. He is the MC of spoken word show The New Libertines which has toured festivals across the UK, and was winner of Literary Death Match in 2010. His new book, Self-publish With Integrity, helps writers to discover why it is they really write, and then achieve it.…
Read MoreBook Review: Infinite Jest, Truly
Infinite Jest is, no joke, a work of near-infinity and plentiful jest. Weighing in at 981 pages, not to mention another 98 of microscopic-font-size footnotes, at the beginning the book was a hassle to read just because of the challenge of balancing it on my chest as I was reading in bed. I quickly relegated it…
Read MoreOn The Block
No, I’m not talking about heads. Thank goodness. That would be gruesome. No, my subject today is worse, my friends, worse by half. I’m talking about good old fashioned writer’s block, that fearsome dragon whose ugly head rears at the best of times and the worst of times, forcing you to resort to trite cliches…
Read MoreNaNoWriMo: Seven Things To Avoid When Writing A Novel
In honor of NaNoWriMo, here are seven lessons I learned when writing The Sowing about what NOT to do when you’re writing the first draft of a novel. These are rules I’m trying (and sometimes failing) to keep in mind as I write The Reaping as well, so this post is partially to remind myself…
Read MoreThe Day of the Dead: Deliverance
None of them are easy. Scooping up a soul just as it leaves the body is never a task I relish; it’s just the task I was assigned. Some are reluctant but accepting; some kick and scream as I cut the strings; some relish the deep sleep of Death as they throw themselves willingly into…
Read MoreDreams of Fire and Death
This is a bit of ‘extra’ material to go along with the SEEDS trilogy. It’s a character-building exercise I did to get in the head of one of our characters, though I won’t say who – that might give away plot points from the books! It’s a very dark scene from the head of a…
Read MoreAdventures in Greece: Helios, Sparta, and The Land Of The Gods
On Saturday of this past week I traveled to Gythio, the port city of Sparta. Gythio is an integral part of the Mani region, a part of larger Lakonia, which in Classical times was famed for the militaristic brutality of the Spartan warriors. “Come home with your shield or on it,” is the famous saying…
Read MoreWrite, Because No One Else Can Save You
The last few weeks have been rough. Not like, ‘my parents were hit by a bus’ rough. Not like, ‘I or someone close to me was diagnosed with cancer’ rough. Not like, ‘The bank reclaimed our house and we’re living out of our car’ rough. Nothing anywhere near that drastic, I assure you. I am…
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The Z-Axis 