Evening, squiders. Why is summer so hot? Ugh. I’ve been reading through Terry Brooks’s Sometimes the Magic Works, which is part writing how-to and part memoir, for the past two months. It was written in 2003, and is one of
Shannara Readthrough: A Knight of the Word
Howdy, squiders. Hope you’re doing well. I’ve finally finished the next book in my Shannara readthrough (I read the last book–technically the first book chronologically–in spring of 2022. Making excellent progress, she says sarcastically.) and thought we should probably talk
OMG SPFBO
Howdy howdy, squiders! How are you? The big news of the week is SPFBO (Self Published Fantasy Blog Off), which is a year-long competition. 300 fantasy books go in, 10 finalists are selected, and 1 book wins (and some of
Used Bookstore Finds: The Elvenbane by Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey
Good morning, squiders. Hope you’re doing well! I finally finished The Elvenbane, which I think I started two years ago. Do you ever do this? There wasn’t anything wrong with the story–and I did enjoy it in the end–but sometimes
Killing My Darlings
Hey, squiders. You’ve probably heard the term “kill your darlings” before. Some people take it to mean that you have to get rid of anything you truly love about a story to make it better, but what it really means
The Plan for November (and the Revision)
Happy November, squiders! Or IS IT. (I don’t know. Just being dramatic.) I went to the Nano kick-off party, as I said I might, and I got three years worth of stickers, talked to some lovely people, was a unicorn,
Cozy Fantasy
Happy Thursday, squiders. I had a lovely birthday yesterday, but today’s been a mess. One of the things I did yesterday, though, was sit and finish The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, which was a lovely book that I
Shannara Readthrough: Running with the Demon
In late 2020, I started watching the first season of the Shannara Chronicles, and at the time I talked here on the blog about how The Wishsong of Shannara was my gateway book into adult fantasy and how that, now
Realistic Fantasy Travel
As promised, here are my notes from the MileHiCon panel that ended up just being about horses rather than realistic fantasy travel in general. I have notes on three different areas: horses (ubiquitous in almost all forms of fantasy, since
Digging Back In
Have I told you guys about RaTs? It stands for Runaway Tales, and is a prompt system based on flavors. It’s a fairly big deal over at WriYe, so when I reconnected with the community at the beginning of 2019,
