GUYS I got to touch an ALPACA. Although it was fairly bad-tempered. I may let you see when I finish photoshopping twisty evil moustaches on the pictures. Anyway, on to the topic at hand. Sword and Sorcery is perhaps the
Trying to Figure Out Middle Grade Versus Young Adult
I have this novel. I wrote it in 2006, edited and polished until the end of 2009, and began submitting at the beginning of 2010. My query kept getting me partial requests, but nothing beyond that, so I rewrote the
Subgenre Study: Dark Fantasy
Oh, dark fantasy. Supposedly my husband’s favorite subgenre. But like so many other speculative fiction subgenres, one that is very hard to stick to a definite definition. Dark fantasy, in my own personal opinion, is fantasy that strives to point
Saturday, I Climbed a Mountain
Saturday morning, my husband and I conquered Mount Sherman, peaking at 14,o36 feet. Here in Colorado we have 54 mountains over 14,000 (Fourteeners, we call them affectionately) and it’s been a goal of mine for some time to reach the
Subgenre Study: Cyberpunk
Ah, cyberpunk, the father of all other punks. Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction that became popular in the 1980s. It tends to involve a world where data and computers are ubiquitous, cyborgs are common, and the world has
“A working writer can never have too many megabytes.”
So, I am taking a spin as a freelance writer/editor. The editor part seems to be going fairly well – there appears to be no shortage of people who would like someone to check their commas, and I am an
Subgenre Study: Science Fantasy
This is a tricky one. For one thing, people can’t even agree whether it’s a subgenre or its own genre. And once you reach some sort of consensus on that, getting people to try and agree on a definition –
Short Story Markets
So, I was talking to my friend Anne (of Sky Shark fame) last week about short stories and anthologies and how I thought I would try a few more, and she said, “Wow, you know way more about this than
Premise vs. Plot
People seem to get these two confused, so let’s clear the waters, shall we? Premise: the basic idea of the story Plot: what happens in a story They are not the same, though they are related. I’ve seen it said
Subgenre Study: Space Western
I can hear you now saying, “Kit, now you are just making up subgenres.” Am I? Am I? Possibly, but let’s face it. Science fiction and westerns go together like mint and chocolate. Peanut butter and jelly. Cream soda and
