How to Design Magic Systems

How to Design Magic Systems

When two magic systems love each other, sometimes they hug. A speculative element is what sets the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror apart from literary fiction. There's no element more speculative than magic, and it's become a common term of art to speak of an SFF universe's "magic…
January 5, 201724 Comments
Forbidden Thoughts

Forbidden Thoughts

You are not supposed to read this book.  You are not supposed to think about reading this book.  In fact, just plain thinking at all is unacceptable.  You have been warned.... Introducing Forbidden Thoughts, the landmark anthology of wondrous, thrilling, and terrifying stories by authors who've been expelled from polite…
January 4, 20177 Comments
2016: My Year in Self-publishing

2016: My Year in Self-publishing

Thanks to my readers and several new author friends, 2016 was a breakout year for me. Here's a recap. February: Souldancer, Soul Cycle Book II released I'd originally planned to launch the sequel to my debut novel Nethereal in time for Christmas 2015. The release was delayed by about eight…
January 3, 201713 Comments

Geek Gab New Year’s Spectacular

Join Daddy Warpig, Dorrinal, and myself for Geek Gab's New Year's Eve Spectacular! On this special extended episode, we discuss Netflix original series The OA, British dark SF TV anthology Black Mirror, and hard SF film Passengers. Give it a listen! And for all you SF fans out there, what better way to…
January 2, 20173 Comments
Making a Living in the Arts Is Fiendishly Hard–By Design

Making a Living in the Arts Is Fiendishly Hard–By Design

Those who follow me here and on social media might be familiar with this graphic: The takeaway is that of the roughly one million American authors, only 2500 earn a full-time income from their writing. A lot of aspiring authors were discouraged by that figure, but it's actually an improvement…
December 30, 20166 Comments

Should You Go to College?

Commenter anonme offers some sage advice to college-age readers in response to yesterday's post: As someone who holds a useless humanities degree, I am firmly in the "college is a scam" category. With caveats.  If there is some in the audience who are college age, I am going to attempt…
December 29, 20165 Comments

Free the Debt Slaves

TaxProf Blog shares a proposal by Sheila C. Bair to help relieve the unrepayable, and often unserviceable, student loan debt incurred by American college graduates. Student debt now stands at $1.3 trillion. More than half of student borrowers are unable to repay their loans according to the original terms. In…
December 28, 201615 Comments

Self-publishing Costs: One-time Payment or Percentage of Royalties?

As an indie author I wear two hats: writer and publisher. These two job roles involve complementary but markedly different responsibilities and mindsets. A writer's job is to produce the best writing possible so that readers will be pleased. A publisher's job is to get the author's writing into readers'…
December 27, 20162 Comments
Amazon Reviewer Praise for The Secret Kings

Amazon Reviewer Praise for The Secret Kings

For SFF fans who want fun and who don't want message fic in their space opera, consider the beta reader and early buyer reviews of The Secret Kings, Book III in my award-winning Soul Cycle. A continuation of this beauty and horror of a story. Brian Niemeier has a great…
December 26, 2016
Big Men with Screwdrivers

Big Men with Screwdrivers

Today's topic comes courtesy of a comment left on a previous post by anonme: I mean this with all sincerity, but one of these days you are going to have to make a detailed blog post detailing what you think "big men with big screwdrivers" is, because to this day,…
December 23, 20166 Comments