Bookbird: an Amazing Resource for Writers
I came across Bookbird when I was hired by Yves Lummer to work on the website's content. Bookbird is rapidly becoming a top resource for authors looking for help with writing and self-publishing, with tons of excellent advice covering everything from name generators...
Happy Thanksgiving
I know I haven't been terribly active lately. If you've stuck around despite that, you have my gratitude! I'm grateful for you 🙂
New Release: On Other Shores by Nelson McKeeby
I had been following Nelson McKeeby on Quora for a while before finding out that he's a fellow author! He has now published On Other Shores, the first book in his Tea Merchants series. You can find him on Prince of Cats. On Other Shores Despite being rogue and a...
Using a Cloak as a Shield
What would happen if you tried to use a cloak to block a sword? Eric Lowe (and here) has two illuminating answers to this question - both opening up many possibilities in fiction writing. It's not a shield Before going into any details, the first thing to remember is...
Khopesh, the Bronze Age’s Superweapon
We are all familiar with swords and spears but what about the formidable khopesh? As Colleen Anne Coyle explains on Quora, the khopesh was more than a symbolic weapon of the Pharaohs and an emblem of Egyptian Deities. A true weapon of war, the khopesh/ sword was...
Forearm Guards: Fiction or Reality?
I always found forearm guards to be rather quaint and decorative rather than effective in battle. Then I came across this answer by Eric Lowe on Quora. Like me, Eric confesses to originally writing off forearm guards as fantasy. His research, however, showed him...
NASA Crashes Spacecraft into Asteroid
And of course, today's big news is that NASA has successfully crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid. It will be a few days before we know if that means that the Agency has passed the first-ever planetary defense test, but navigation was the hardest part of the test...
Top 5 Fiction Books Dedicated to Cars
Car owners are well aware of the fact that a car is more than just a means of transport: it can have its own character, story, and destiny. This is why so many writers took inspiration from the image of the automobile and embodied it in their works. How about cars...
The Master List of Fictional Characters
I recently shared some common (and less common) types of short stories. Like you, I was surprised there were so many. How about a list of characters regularly found in fiction? Surely the list would be relatively short, right? Well... no. Ken Miyamoto shared no less...
Three Crucial Design Elements of a Killer Fantasy Book Cover
I must have gone through a dozen iterations of my Pearseus covers through the years, which is hardly surprising: we fantasy fans expect familiar book cover design elements when searching out our next read. We're a picky, dedicated, and loyal lot, so I didn't want to...
10 Types of Short Stories to Enhance Your Writing Prowess
As you may know, short stories are how I started writing and I still love them dearly. The short story, however, is not a single literary format but multiple ones grouped under a single banner. This gives short story writers a multitude of structures to use to tell...
Tips for Effective Research On Your Novel
I haven't written in a while, mostly due to the surprisingly (for August) high demands of my copywriting job. I'm now back with some thoughts on research. Whether for copywriting or novel writing, research is a big part of our work. And while writers today have more...