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#IGAuthorLifeJan Day 2 – Goals
Posted on January 2, 2017 Leave a Comment
So, today for the #IGAuthorLifeJan the theme is “Goals.” This is also known as “Lies formerly known as goals before life got in the way,” but hey . . . wadda I know, right? So, if I could shoot for the moon, then my goals would be to wrap Last Light up in March and have […]
#IGAuthorLifeJan Day 1 – Happy New Year
Posted on January 1, 2017 Leave a Comment
Happy New Year! So, 2016 was, well, interesting. Okay, more like one long session of torture at the base of Mordor, especially if you had to survive the US election with your brain cells intact. I didn’t get much writing done in 2016, but after a health issue (and the enormous selflessness of so many […]
Brain Melt
Posted on December 10, 2016 Leave a Comment
“Puke and rally, puppy dog. We’re needed on the rooftop.” – Kian, Last Light When I first started writing the Undertow series, I had no clue what the characters would do for people. What their lives and their story would mean to people. And honestly, I had no clue the impact that the fictional world and […]
Walking the Line – Sex in YA
Posted on December 4, 2016 1 Comment
If you have ever kicked around on YA blogs, inevitably you come across posts about sex in Young Adult novels. Nine times out of ten, the post will say something about how books portray these moments, whether accurate or inaccurate, fade to black or way too much details. I’m going to address the top three […]
Inside the Concepts of a Killer Nightclub
Posted on December 3, 2016 Leave a Comment
They say news comes in two forms: Good and Bad. The Good: I’m working on Last Light. The Bad: It’s gonna be huge and my fingers are bleeding. Sometimes I’m stalled in my writing by simply needing to come out of the story to do research so I can feel my way through a setting […]
Character Craft and Writing in Reverse
Posted on January 20, 2016 Leave a Comment
I don’t plot characters. There – I admit it. I totally roll on gut instinct when I write for my cast. That said, I could never actually write them at all if I didn’t know two things: Who they were born as (personality, emotion, natural abilities, etc). How they evolved as a result of their […]
In Defense of Insta-Love
Posted on December 23, 2015 3 Comments
I do three things when I’m trolling the aisles of heaven (re: bookstore), searching for a few new books to burn my paycheck on: Seek out a kick-ass cover. Read the back jacket. Read the first page . . . and maybe the Goodreads reviews. Let me tell ya – I’ve learned one thing about Goodreads […]
Writer Woe Number 428 (or something like that): Too Many Blasted Characters
Posted on October 20, 2015 Leave a Comment
First of all, I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say that the sheer volume of characters in my novels is my own stupid fault. That I was a doofus and basically unleashed the population of a small movie theater (on a Harry Potter premier night) into my imagination and said, “Sure […]