Yesterday I was delighted to see that the oh-so-talented Jody Lynn Nye had just released a new Myth book. I have been a fan of the series since the first book hit the shelves in 1978 (I read the comic rendition first). For those of you in the know, the Myth series was originally written by Robert Asprin who passed away in 2008. I mourned the passing of a favourite writer and his works and thought the adventures in his universes were over. That’s what makes the release of a new book so special for me; I had never thought to see another in the series. That may still be the case for me. Once I saw how much they were […]
Read moreCategory: Irreverent Muse
My Achilles Heel
I think there are several things that I do well (although I usually don’t dwell on what they are). On the writing front, I am able to knock off words that make sense relatively quickly. I’m a good line editor and a passing developmental editor on other people’s work. I’m even pretty good at talking to people about writing and pitching my work. What I am VERY bad at (and hence the title of this post) is promoting my work once it is out there. I don’t know what it is. Maybe I’m worried that I will talk TOO much about my writing and drive people away. I’ve seen many other people do exactly that. All I get from them […]
Read moreConverted to the Rewrite
When I first became serious about writing I heard stories of people who spent huge amounts of time and effort to rewrite books from scratch. That never made sense to me. After all, you have already written something. Why would you want to write it again? The stories usually had some commentary about how the writing went faster and was much better. I still couldn’t wrap my head around the whole thing. Then, I went through the editorial process for Mik Murdoch, Boy Superhero. The whole back and forth of revision-comment-edit-comment-revise more was a real learning experience for me. There were cases in the process where I wrote brand new chapters and threw away the parts of the book they […]
Read moreWorld Fantasy Convention 2012
Last week I attended the 2012 edition of the World Fantasy Convention in Toronto (well, actually Richmond Hill), Ontario. I have been to WFC in the past, most recently in San Diego last year. The difference this time was, I was attending the convention as a professional writer with a book and several published short stories under my belt. I must confess, I was a little put off by the $81 cab ride; the hotel was, as mentioned above, not actually in Toronto and there were no cheaper alternatives that didn’t involve excessive travel time (or at least, so I thought). However, once I was settled in the hotel, the excitement of being there started to grow. I could continue […]
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