Each of us have a comfort book–or even a comfort genre–that we turn to when we just want to relax or when times are tough. I go for cozy mysteries. I like them because they tend to be witty, fun,
The Music of Shards
A few years back (oh, 2009 or so) I started making novel playlists. These are songs that, somehow, evoke a character, a scene, or the overall story for me. A lot of times it’s related to lyrics, and I find
Troublesome Characters
Last week I was flailing around, trying to figure out what I should write about, and a friend on Twitter suggested I write about troublesome characters. Here’s the thing, though. Writing is a highly complex art, with many necessary skill
The Differences Between Urban and Contemporary Fantasy
As we touched on just barely during the Subgenre Study, while many people consider urban and contemporary fantasy to be synonymous, they’re not actually. Examples! Story 1 takes place in modern times in a major city. The story is both
Creating New Worlds
I was out with some of the guys from my speculative fiction writing group the other night (and let me tell you how lovely it is to belong to a group where everyone writes science fiction and fantasy, though the
Visualizing Characters
You know how you go to watch the movie-version of a book and you’re like, “This character doesn’t look anything like what I thought they would?” That rarely ever happens to me. I don’t know why, but when reading, I
The Potential of Things
I was out with my writing group tonight, and after the official discussion was over we were chatting about things, and the conversation somehow turned to M. Night Shyamalan. And there were, of course, the haters, but I actually really
Friendship in Fiction
As you know, Squiders, I am a giant, tribble-carrying Trekkie, and occasionally I get lost on Trek-related tumblrs that then eat half of my morning. (Let us not talk about this morning.) But today I learned something about my very
Working With Mythology When No One Agrees On Anything: Angel Mythology
How’s that for a mouthful of a title? I’m rather proud of it. So, my book Shards, coming out in December, has a lot of mythology mixed into it. The main mythology is Biblical, specifically relating to angels, so I
The Debate on Genre Separation
My friend Sarah is a librarian at an elementary school. She’s been working on this big project, suggested by the kids, to separate all the books into their respective fiction genres. She even let the kids pick out what genres
