As many of you will know, my second job is as a volunteer administrator for Iron Realms Entertainment. In my spare time, I also run live roleplaying games and occasionally tabletop games. I’ve talked before about how these things greatly improve my writing skills. Today I want to talk about something that these writing-adjacent activities […]
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I am trying very hard to write this novel for me. You can easily Google hundreds upon hundreds of quotes about this adage: write for yourself; do not write for your audience. Write because you love the story, and write the story you love, because that is what will give you a truly unique story. […]
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you brush your teeth. change, gratefully, into your bedclothes. the dim light of your Kindle illuminates the room. next to you, he’s started snoring. you read to the sound, intermittent and infuriating, an hour passing without any effort at all. then your eyes begin to close, and you place the book aside. sleep. you’ll need […]
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It’s over halfway through November. You’re taking part in Nanowrimo…and you’ve only written 10,000 words. You’re panicking. Par is nearly 30,000! How are you ever going to manage to catch up? You’re never going to finish. You might as well just stop now, really. Better that than pushing yourself through the next less-than-two-weeks only to […]
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I am not the first author to write a book based on a roleplaying campaign. There are countless examples of fantasy and sci-fi novels where the author drew from their own Dungeons and Dragons – or other tabletop – campaigns for inspiration, the characters and some of the plot inspired by their experiences. Protos, as […]
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Hot tears: too much to contain within. Salty sweet they fall crying release. Each hitching breath is the rush of water as it falls over cliffs crashing below. I am the earth that catches your tears as they plummet into my embrace. I am the mother that you were when I needed you before we […]
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Sometimes, I feel like I exist in two different places. They aren’t simultaneous – often. Generally I am either in one – the waking world, the world of other people, the world where the mundanity of life exists – or I am in the other. The other is safer. It is contained entirely within my […]
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Changing point of view in your stories can change everything. If you’ve spent much time writing, this probably isn’t news to you. But I think sometimes we can forget just how powerful a tool it is – not least because there are plenty of examples of brilliant novels that never change point of view. Try […]
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