A Fantasy World That’s All Grown Up
There’s a very clear traditional idea of what a fantasy world is supposed to be like. It has warriors riding horses and wielding swords and axes. It doesn’t have them travelling on planes and operating computers. It just doesn’t. But why not? After all, our world has had all...
My Writing Goals for 2024
New Year is a terrible time for resolutions. We make them because we feel under pressure to do so, not because we really want to. We “ought” to go on that diet or join the gym, and the commitment quickly runs out because it comes from outside. Far better...
Introducing Loshi vi Assarid — The Thief of Shimeth
Back in the late 1970s, I wrote a short story called The Gift of the Outcast. It was a deliberate attempt to write something that was closer to traditional sword & sorcery than the more elaborate fantasy I was writing. It concerned a young thief, Loshi, in a city...
AI Secrets To Kick Start Your Writing: #2—Outline Your Chapter
What’s the biggest obstacle a writer faces? Even if you have outlined your book. Staring at the page for the start of that new chapter. Endlessly. All writers do this—even famous ones. Take, for instance, Sylvia Plath: Sylvia Plath (from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath) Monday, July 7 (1958):...
Ask A #Writer: Is It Worth It To Be One?
Ask a Writer Asked and answered on Quora. The Original Question: Is it worth to be an author? It’s the best thing ever, but not for the reasons you think. 1) Your time is your own. You can wake up when you want to, sleep when it suits you,...
The #Writer’s Craft: Word Counts, Story Length & Story Structure
(Beth Turnage Blog) I’ve written several posts on Quora on writing and thought I’d curate some here. You can call it laziness, but really it’s a lack of time since ghostwriting is keeping me very busy. Really. 😉 How do word count limitations affect what you can fit into...