In Seanan McGuire’s brilliant (and now award-winning) short novel Every Heart a Doorway, teens who’d once escaped reality to various fairytale realms find themselves back in our world, attending a special boarding school to help them re-acclimate to “reality.” They’re all desperate to return to those places where they felt accepted for who and what they were, and one of … Read More
Across the same river with The Idylls of the Queen
Alice Walker wrote The Same River Twice about the process of turning her novel The Color Purple into a movie. The title itself is a paraphrase of the philosopher Heraclitus, and is more fully translated as, “You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are continually flowing on.” In 2011, I wrote Dark Jenny, the third in my Eddie … Read More
Interview: Marco van Belle, director of Arthur and Merlin
Last week, I posted a review of Arthur and Merlin, a movie that really surprised me with how good it was, and how well it worked within its low-budget means. I asked director/co-writer Marco van Belle if he’d answer some questions about it, and he was kind enough to agree. AB: What inspired you to tackle an Arthurian movie in … Read More
Writing Novels and Novellas in the Same Series
My friend Deborah Blake has just released her latest “Baba Yaga” novel, Wickedly Powerful. Last month, she also released a novella in the same series, Wickedly Ever After. Here she explains the challenge of writing different types of stories in the same series. And leave a comment for a chance to win a signed book! Someone asked me in an interview recently what … Read More
Some Thoughts on the Chosen One
There is a concept, a hidden implication, in the original Star Trek series that James T. Kirk might not be unique. He might be merely one of many Starfleet captains out there boldly going, having amazing adventures across the galaxy. After all, the Enterprise is one of a dozen identical starships, and the rest are certainly not sitting in space … Read More
Cruel to be Kind: Killing Off a Major Character
Occasionally, because I’m not really that smart, I’ll put out a call for blog ideas. And sometimes I get one that’s so original there’s just no way to ignore it. So thanks to Claudia Tucker for asking: “Have you ever been tempted to ‘kill’ your main characters off and start with a new Hero who might be a an offspring … Read More
7 Questions About My Most Recent Novel
Okay, I was supposed to do this on Monday, but it got away from me. Thanks to Lucy Jane Bledsoe for tagging me in this, and to Melissa Olson and Deborah Blake for agreeing to be tagged for next Monday. Here are seven questions about my most recent book: 1. What is the name of your character? Eddie LaCrosse. 2. … Read More
New Writer’s Day Video
It’s been a while since I posted here; life’s been a bit overwhelming. But now I’ve got something new to share. Over the past weekend I attended a combined reunion of my old college newspaper staff and fraternity. It gave me the chance to go around Martin, TN and shoot some video of the real locations that inspired those in … Read More
New novel: Sword Sisters
So my latest novel, Sword Sisters, is about to be released. If you’ve been following me, you’ve seen me post about co-writing a prequel to the film The Legend of the Red Reaper with that movie’s writer/director/star, Tara Cardinal. You can read about my motivation for doing so here. And now, it’s done. Sword Sisters: A Red Reaper Novel is … Read More
Guest blog: Steve McHugh on Changing Times
My friend novelist Melissa Olson put me on the track of Steve McHugh. He’s the author of the Hellequin Chronicles series, about an immortal sorcerer who still battles evil in the modern day. I asked him to talk a bit about how he chooses the flashback scenes for the novels, which jump back and forth through time, much like the … Read More