Brandon Sanderson, who is widely considered the current reigning champion of modern fantasy epics, may seem to be the last person to have suffered endless streams of rejection letters from agents and publishers. In fact, before he was published, Brandon Sanderson wrote 13 novels, all rejected by everyone he sent...
If you’re anything like me, you’re terrible at spelling, grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure. Incidentally, those are four key elements of writing that all aspiring authors should master. In fact, as far as obstacles to writing go, this is perhaps the next biggest obstacle next to plotting and story development....
I’m going to start a series of short articles on writing tips for aspiring authors, mainly focused on spec-fic (i.e., fantasy and science fiction). As an aspiring fantasy author myself, I feel that my own experience in learning the craft, world-building, character-building, and plot-building may be helpful to other aspiring...
My steampunk fantasy short story, The Clockwork Horseman, is published and available now on both Amazon and Lulu and it can be found in the anthology Devil’s Armory III. Alas, there does not appear to be an e-book version! Oh well. The story will one day be available in e-book...
17-year-old Martin Vargic has created this amazing Map of Literature as a graphical visualization of how the world’s literature evolved from the ancient era to the present day. The map is incredibly detailed, and features genres, authors, best selling books, best selling authors, and Nobel Prizes in literature. I’ve not been able...
GenCon 2012 has come and gone, and I have to say I had a pretty good time! GenCon is best known as a gaming convention, but it also has a large sci-fi and fantasy presence as well. Although I consider myself an on-again-off-again gamer, my wife and I spent most...
Here’s a neat little mnemonic tool to help you avoid some of the most commonly misspelled words in the English language. All credit is due to theOatmeal.com, and to see the original post please go here. Click here to see the full Ten Words to Stop Misspelling
Salon.com has an interesting article that casts a spotlight on a rather old notion: should authors have patrons? Back in Ye Olden Days of Yore, authors were commissioned by rich nobles and aristocrats to pen their works. Not so any more. Today, authors must eek a living from the few...
In the world of Mythania, magic is quite prevalent and pervasive. While only a small fraction of a percent of people are able to wield magic (estimated between 0.2% to 0.5%), this still amounts to well over a million persons. Of those, less than 5% are able to display any...
While I have been writing for approximately 20 years, accumulating thousands of pages of written work, I am quite ashamed to say that I have never been published. And it has not been for the lack of trying. I have failed to have a single book published by any of...
