So, I was recently reading this very excellent post/lecture/essay by Brandon Sanderson about the innovations Tolkien made creating the genre of High Fantasy, when, near the end, he mentions an interaction he had once with the mother of one of his fans. Just after he had signed the daughter’s book, the mother stopped and asked him something like, ‘Not to be rude, but how do I get her to stop reading all of this fantasy drivel?’. Sanderson then goes on…
Or, really, the title of this post should probably be ‘Stop Expecting to be Creative When You’re Sick, Anna’. I’ve been sick for the past two weeks. I think I’m starting to get better, or at least I can now sometimes go a half-hour at a stretch without coughing, versus the two-minute stretches that were the best I was managing half-a-week ago. Huzza for progress! So, mostly for the past two weeks I’ve been working a little bit, sleeping a…
Once again, I’d like to explore a little more of the idea that encountering an example of bad writing by someone else can actually provide an excellent opportunity to improve your own writing. (My previous discussion about this is here.) As a writer, it’s always important to read plenty, both for enjoyment (of course!) and to have a lot of examples to draw from of what sort of writing is to your taste. But when you come across something that…
I promise this is a post about writing, but first I have to start here: In the martial arts in general, and more particularly in the martial art that I practice, TaeKwonDo (TKD), there are a lot of principles students are required to learn about and encouraged to follow. Some of these are like the student oath (e.g., ‘I shall never misuse TaeKwonDo’) or the tenets (e.g., Integrity). Others are frameworks for learning and conceptualizing the core values and lessons…
Hello! and happy 2026! I have just had a nice, long Christmas vacation, and it is amazing how nice everything seems when one is rested. Last year about this time I did a 20 Questions post, made up as a new style of post for me because my brain was just about the consistency of luke-warm soup and I was out of oomph for writing entertaining words. Now, a year later, I think I am slowly starting to recover my…
Although I’d like to and intend to post something new and regular-blog-post-like to this blog on a semi-regular basis, sometimes I go for stretches where I seem to have lost access to any extra brain cells, especially the ones needed for coming up with anything even vaguely resembling ‘new.’ In fact, lately, I’ve been hovering near the borders of just such a state. And so, I’ve come up with an idea! What sort of prompt might require not very many…
So. Sometimes, reading other writers’ blogs, I’ll read about the sort of research another author might put into their story. Maybe they’ll (1) talk about traveling to a relevant city (not exactly within reach for most of us), or pouring over Google maps of a relevant city (definitely sensible – sounds like a lot of work though – so, maybe a reason to avoid contemporary settings if at all possible?). Or (2) they’ll call up or interview an expert or…
(Warning, this post contains a lot of exclamation points.) Okay. It is time to tell you about another piece of art that I really love. Ta Da! This wonderful book (Trees A Visual Guide by Tony Rodd and Jennifer Stackhouse) is an example of a niche art-form I will call Coffee Table Reference Books. One might be tempted to label it as simply a Coffee Table book considering that it has such beautiful, glossy photos and such beautiful commitment to…
Quick update for all those who don’t regularly stare at the top menu-bar of this site: I recently posted up two new static pages for the site! One is a Stories page. It has a list with links to all of the stories I currently have out and available (all 1 and ½ of them!). And the other is an FAQ page. It is currently populated with answers to three questions nobody’s ever actually asked me before! I am doing…
Just finished re-inhaling The Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy by Martha Wells. I think I loved it even better this third time around.