Jul 29, 2020 | Quora, Writing
Many of my readers enjoy science fiction as much as I do. Jacob Baumgardner recently shared an answer about which emerging technologies may have the greatest impact in the near future. He identified three: fusion power, rail/coilguns, and pre-coolers. I imagine that...
Jul 27, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts
Someone asked this on Quora and Oscar Tay gave a fascinating answer. The oldest recorded word In English is Gægogæ mægæ medu. The Undley Bracteate In 1982, a farmer in Undley Common, Suffolk, England, was walking across his field when he came across a fantastic bit of...
Jul 25, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts, Quora
If you watch any fantasy movies or any fiction taking place in the Middle Ages, you will probably think that travelers camped outside in the open with nobody around for miles. As Joanna Arman explains in Quora, this is not the case. So, if you’re a fantasy or...
Jul 23, 2020 | Free Stuff, Interviews Features and Reviews
Two free online magazines are asking for submissions and looking for new subscribers. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re well worth checking out! Writer’s Grapevine The first one is Writer’s Grapevine, created by Patty Fletcher. As I...
Jul 21, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts
Medieval monasteries had a serious problem. Instead of 100% focusing on their spiritual and earthly duties, many monks loved besting each other at chess. The Medieval version of “video games cause violence” was, “playing chess leads to blasphemy.” Things got so bad...
Jul 19, 2020 | Writing
I haven’t written one of these posts in ages, so I wanted to give you a few links to blogs and websites that have provided me with plenty of writing tips and inspiration. I apologize in advance if you have an excellent blog that’s not mentioned below....
Jul 17, 2020 | Free Stuff, Interviews Features and Reviews
Back in November 2019, I reviewed DesignCap, an online tool allowing you to create professional-looking visual material for social media and webpages. Six months later, I still use DesignCap occasionally, when I need to create stylish visuals quickly. This update...
Jul 15, 2020 | Marketing
Dave Chesson, aka Kindlepreneur, recently published what I think is the ultimate guide to designing your book cover. While I use Alex of 187Designz for all of my book covers, Dave has compiled a list of: The best book cover design software, both paid and free; Book...
Jul 13, 2020 | Writing
My Ph.D. thesis, Design in the Digital Age: In Search of a Collaborative Paradigm, was all about finding novel ways to help designers interact with their clients. I had envisioned a tablet-based Virtual Reality environment with Augmented Reality elements for the...
Jul 11, 2020 | Marketing, My friends' Guest Posts
This is a guest post by Daniela McVicker. Daniela is a contributor to EssayAssistant. She has a master’s degree in English Literature and is truly passionate about learning foreign languages and teaching. Daniela works with the students to help them reveal their...
Jul 9, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts
Whether you’re writing Medieval history fiction or fantasy, you will appreciate this Quora answer by Helena Schrader, who borrowed from an article she wrote for The Medieval Magazine. To this, I have added information by Brent Cooper, taken from...
Jul 7, 2020 | Writing
As anyone who’s been following my blog for a while surely knows, I love puns and bad dad jokes (often the same thing). And I often use them in my work, especially in my children’s books. Which becomes rather problematic when translating them into Greek....
Jul 4, 2020 | Random Musings
I apologize for disappearing on you this past week. We spent a week on the island of Lefkada, in the Ionian Sea. Since I now have over 2K emails to wade through, I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m uncharacteristically brief and just share a few photos of this...
Jun 28, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts, Quora, Writing
When writing fantasy, we often have to describe fight scenes. Swordfights, in particular, make for great descriptions. But we often forget one crucial aspect of fighting: when it comes to life or death, everyone cheats. Even the good guys, as Martin Lloyd points out...
Jun 25, 2020 | Publishing
Since March 2020, PublishDrive has been generating digital book sales reports, compiling hard-to-find data from various outlets, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Play Books, libraries, regional stores, and more. They have now published their stats for...
Jun 23, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts, Writing
I was reading an interesting answer on Quora about Mongol strategy when a battle description caught my eye: Seeing this, the archbishop spurred his on his horse and gave them chase. Eventually, they reached a marshland and they crossed it swiftly. The archbishop did...
Jun 21, 2020 | Entertainment
Of all the parts I’ve played in the theater of life, being a dad is the most meaningful to me. Which is why I so enjoyed learning about Tom’s Bad Dad Jokes. As the Washington Post reports, Tom and Ann Schruben have started posting “Bad Dad Jokes” on a sign...
Jun 19, 2020 | Publishing
I recently published a post on how the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be affecting publishing. While that article focused on publishers, we now have some interesting data on how it has affected libraries, thanks to NPR (many thanks to my author friend, Elle Boca, for...
Jun 17, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts, Quora
In my last post, I explained how a Medieval army could assault a castle. But who built the castle in the first place, and how expensive were they, anyway? Luckily, Helena Schrader and Quora have the answer. Before we move on, though, let’s answer a different...
Jun 15, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts, Quora
I came across some great answers by Jon Bourgetti, Patrick Ashby, Alexander Taylor, and Steve Blanchard on Quora on the subject of assaults on Medieval castles. Whether you write fantasy, historical fiction, or just love history as much as I do, I think you will enjoy...
