The Problems with Publishing
Author Kristine Kathryn Rusch recently shared a must-read post about today's state of publishing, aptly titled Trainwreck, Fall Edition. As she explains, she tried in June to order a copy of a book she liked for her sister. However, she wouldn’t get the book until...
Found: One of the First Books Ever Printed in England
Pages from one of the first books ever printed in England were recently found by librarians at the University of Reading. The pages, which were hidden away for decades in the pages of a different text, were meant to tell priests how to plan feasts. Sarum Ordinal...
Early Wheat Recipes
I recently wrote about what ancient Greeks and Romans used to eat. But how about earlier people? If your fantasy takes place in a neolithic or even paleolithic setting, then you can spice it up (pun intended) with these early wheat recipes, courtesy of Alice Twain of...
How Amazon Plans to Conquer the World of Publishing
This is a guest post by Nisar Ahmad, a digital marketing expert for Media Hicon. As you know, I put most of the blame for the current condition of the publishing world on traditional publishers, whose policies Amazon has cleverly used to its advantage. Nisar instead...
Medieval Cistercian Numbers
If you're looking to enrich your fantasy or Medieval fiction, why not mention Cistercian numbers — the forgotten ciphers of Medieval monks? As Tibi Puiu reports on ZME Science, people have employed all sorts of systems throughout history, most of which are now...
The Real Robinson Crusoe
Everyone has heard of Robinson Crusoe. But how many know the real-life inspiration behind the character? As Alex Turner explains on Quora, this would be Alexander Selkirk: Selkirk was a Scottish sailor, born in 1676. He was a rather hotheaded man, who tended to look...
How to Be a Good Content Writer
As you know, I've been working as a freelance copywriter these past years. Amanda Dudley, a teacher and writer at an essay writing service, has submitted this guest post that explains what skills a good content writer needs to possess. Amanda is a writer, lecturer,...
The Real Witches
I kick off the new year with a matter close to anyone who's ever flirted with fantasy writing: witches. I mean, what's fantasy without witchcraft? Probably a rather boring Medieval existence, that's what. Of course, there's a big difference between fantasy and...
Bye Bye 2020, Hello 2021
As Tracey Hirt of Bored Panda points out, 2020 reads like a kindergartner’s first attempt at fiction: Um, so first an entire continent was on fire. But then there was this disease, and everyone forgot about that. So then the whole world had to stay home. And school...
Is Santa a Superhero?
Superhero culture seems to play a similar part to ancient mythology, with superheroes being the modern equivalent of gods and demigods. So, you may be excused for wondering if Santa may, in fact, be yet another superhero. Confessions of the Professions has the answer...
More Funny Similes and Metaphors
Seeing how much you enjoyed my recent post, Funny Similes and Metaphors, here's another one for you. This one's courtesy of Writer's Relief, which hosted a metaphor competition. Here are the results. I hope you like them! More Funny Similes and Metaphors First of all,...
A Wizard’s Hat
Have you ever wondered where the pointy wizard hat stereotype stems from? Someone on Quora did and Wendy Carolan had the answer. Where Does the Idea of the Wizard's Hat Come from? As you can well imagine, the question here refers to the stereotypical pointy blue...
Funny Similes and Metaphors
Mike Kerr, author of the Humour at Work series of books, has some hilarious similes and metaphors I think you'll enjoy. Use them as inspiration or steal them for your books. After all, Mike himself copied them from high school essays! Her face was a perfect oval, like...