An Excerpt from The Lion and the Sparrow
They followed the road into the forest. Everything was quiet, except the wind, which had kicked up a couple of hours ago. Should they be preparing for a spring storm? A glance at the sky revealed only wispy, distant clouds. Malcolm caught up to Moli. She was wearing her dark green forester’s tunic and brown pants, the badge of her office pinned to her cloak. She scanned the ground around […]
A Reflection from the Middle
Ok, so I have once again adjusted my writing plans taking me through 2039. I’m thinking of this as the current cycle of my life, which really started in 2019 when I started making my writing the focus of what I was doing. This schedule is based on how long it actually takes me to work, so feel confident that I can meet these dates. But if life attacks and […]
You Are Your Most Important Creative Asset
All of us who are trying to be creators, of whatever stripe, need to manage our resources carefully. We come from all sorts of backgrounds, have whatever amount of money available for our pursuits (or not at all) We have different resources of time whatever our concordant responsibilities, but there’s one thing absolutely everyone has, and it’s unreplaceable. Your most important creative asset is yourself. No one else can create […]
The Truth About Ideas
There’s one question writers seem to get a lot. We all get it. We all have a rote answer for it, that differs from writer to writer. Here’s the question: Where do you get your ideas? My answer to this is: from everywhere. Ideas are literally everywhere. I have twenty ideas for stories every morning before I have my coffee. They’re not GOOD ideas, all the time. They need to […]
The Importance of Rituals
For many years, I struggled to be consistent with my habits. I could do something for a couple of days, or even a couple of weeks, but then I would lose steam, and I would just kind of stop, sometimes without noticing. Part of the problem was that I was under so much stress and living a life under duress that didn’t satisfy me. My needs weren’t being met, which […]
My Favorite Tools for Writing and Publishing Books!
In the past couple of years, I’ve sort of become a one-stop shop for producing books. I write them. I do the covers. I format them. I create my own promotional social media graphics. The only thing I outsource these days is editing, and that is an expense I’ll continue to pay for because I have no confidence in my own ability to edit myself properly, plus I have an […]