I’m working on a project in which I read a book from each of the fifteen categories Goodreads uses in its best books of the year contest. The first category was fiction. You can see my comments on that category here. The second category was Historical Fiction. I had already read Weyward by Emilia Hart. But by the rules I set for my project, I needed to choose a new book too, and I selected Go as a River by…
What kind of reviews stand out to a writer? As I write this, Amazon has The Wysman on sale, the paperback for $4.84 and e-book for $2.99. Here are my two favorite Amazon reviews of this book, both about the main character, Jarka, who was born with a club foot: First, from a 5-star review: “Often – especially in movies, but plenty of times in books – a character can be injured or have some condition that’s only their nominally,…
My new book, Glass Girl, features a central character who’s a glassmaker. We take glass for granted. It’s in our windows, on our tables, in trinkets. Usually, it’s cheap. But this wasn’t always so. At one time, glass was expensive enough to be a major trade item, and nowhere was this more so than in 13th through 16th century Venice. Protecting Glassmakers’ Income Given that a lot of money was floating around, various people acted to protect its source. For…
During the pandemic, my condo building management asked me to read chapter one of The Wysman and let them send it to my neighbors who were stuck inside. I was happy to oblige. Click through to see the reading.
If you belong to a book club, inevitably, there comes a month when it’s your turn to pick the book. Over time, you learn that this can be a trickier task than you anticipated. Obviously, you want your fellow members to enjoy reading the book. I, personally, can’t always guess what people will like. Last year, I chose Madeline Miller’s Circe, which was an Amazon Editor’s Pick. Several people in my club had never read Homer or studied Greek myth…
There are a lot of ways for writers to be published these days—big presses, small presses, independent or self-publishing platforms. But even within each of these categories, there are differences. I’m very proud of my current small press publisher, Inspired Quill. IQ is located in the UK, and one reason I’m proud of them is that, in the UK, they are a registered social enterprise. I’d never heard the term “social enterprise” before I read IQ’s site while researching them….
Recently, I was walking down my building’s hallway behind an old guy with a cane. He was talking very loudly on his cell, and he said, “I am driving in my car, and I cannot take your call.” At that point, he turned down a side hall, so that was all I heard. I went home and wrote what I’d seen in my story idea notebook. The Story Idea Notebook My story idea notebook is exactly what it sounds like:…
I recently read Maggie Stiefvater’s Call Down the Hawk, and as I read, I admired how thoroughly she saturates every line of the book with the voice of the point-of-view character. When I refer to a character’s “voice,” I mean the way their experience, education, emotions, and attitude affect the words they use. It’s what turns point of view from a pair of observing eyes to a revelation about the observing character. I was in the process of doing a…
When I was writing The Wysman, I realized that fantasy novels in which a handicapped teen was allowed to be the central character were few and far between. I occasionally saw them as sidekicks, but not as the heroes and heroines. This list includes as many more recent books as I could find in which the handicapped character is the star. I haven’t read them all, but I tried to get some sense of them from their descriptions and reviews….
Power is a ubiquitous theme in fantasy. Over and over, we see questions about who has power, how they got it, and whether they wield it wisely. The Quest for Political Power One of the most common elements in a fantasy plot is a struggle over who should rule the kingdom. That quest for political power is often backed up by military might, i.e. physical power. So there are lots of exciting battles, ranging from single combat to large scale…