Urban fantasy audio books are like candy. You can’t consume just one. The first one always leads to the next and the next. It’s the gateway drug of audio books.
They’re the first person shooters of the fantasy genre. What makes these stories so addictive? Let’s toss them onto the operating table and dissect them to see what makes ’em tick.
Unless you too just finished The Enigma: Alan Touring, you’re probably scratching your head right now at the title of today’s post. I did read it, and I’m still scratching my head over it. Before I attempt to make some sense out of this, because I will lose my mind if I don’t, I need to get one thing off my chest: If I die after having done something world-changing or just plain cool, do not compare me to a fairy tale character. Please, just don’t. I don’t care of I make some offhand remark ONE time in my life and you … Continue reading Red Queen versus White King: Alan Touring Through the Looking Glass
Ever wondered how to write a book? Wonder no more. Rands wrote a tongue in cheek blog post about the process: How to Write a Book. In his article, he advises:
Even better, stop thinking about writing a book. Your endless internal debate and self-conjured guilt about that book you haven’t written yet is a sensational waste of your time. My guess is if you took all the time that you’ve spent considering writing a book and translated that into actual writing time, you’d be a quarter of your way into writing that book you’re not writing.
Continue reading “Treat yourself to Book Writing 101 with a humous twist”
Yesterday I posted a rambling review of The Girl in the Spider’s Web. Sharp readers no doubt noticed at the end of the post that I contradicted myself. I talked about avoiding the fourth installment of the Millenium series initially just because Stieg Larsson, the series’ creator, passed on and a new author picked up the thread of the story.
I mentioned a thing called author loyalty. Then I ended the post speaking about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Mycroft Holmes and my enthusiasm for reading it. That got me thinking about the whole issue. How long does an author have to be dead before author loyalty erodes and readers flock in comfort to a new author’s continuation of the saga?
![The Girl in the Spider's Web: A Lisbeth Salander Novel - Millennium Series, Book 4 | [David Lagercrantz]](https://i0.wp.com/ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61DdVWl9PlL._SL300_.jpg)
I just finished The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz, book 4 in the late Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Maybe you’ve decided to skip the book out of loyalty for Larsson. That was my plan but it went off the rails when my fellow audio book junkies (aka my IT office mates) decided to read the book.
As writers we’re charged with the responsibility of drawing the reader in, making him care about the character and identify with the characters. To do that, we must create and maintain the fictional dream. There’s an article on that on the website in the Writers’ Aids section, but let me say here that it is through the fictional dream that a reader is transported from reading words on a page to living the events of the novel. – Vicki Hinze I quoted the above text from Vicki Hinze’s article, The Reason Editors Reject Manuscripts. Since I am pursuing the e-book/self publishing route, I … Continue reading Maintaining the Fictional Dream
“Write 10,000 Words Everyday is Terrible Advice” so says @virajpatel24 on Medium.com and I agree with him. I’ve seen a lot of posts lately here and on Medium.com about word counts mixed in with advice about how to write. These posts came up during a search for editing/revising advice and curiosity made me read them. Who doesn’t like free advice? Write 10,000 words in one day. I’ve actually blown past that limit in one twenty-four hour period but I couldn’t uncurl the fingers on my right hand at the end of that session. My hand had locked up from too much abuse. I had … Continue reading How much should you write every day?
Jodi Taylor, author of the Chronicles of St. Mary’s series, which I love by the way, got her start by self-publishing. She published the first Chronicles of St. Mary’s story as an ebook! (I love that book by the way: Just One Damned Thing After Another) If you like history, time travel and a lot of comedy, her Chronicles of St. Mary’s series will take you on quite a thrill ride. Her latest book, The Nothing Girl, is today’s daily deal on Audible. You can pick up a copy for $3.95. For nine hours of contemporary fiction mixed heavily with comedy in her skillful manner, that’s a bargain. Reading … Continue reading Inspired
I have killed all three hundred and eighty words that end with ‘ly’. Yes those dreaded adverbs. In doing so, I found an alarming pattern. Here’s my top ‘ly’ offenders, in order of assassinations: suddenly, actually, exactly and finally. Now I know what to watch out for. What are yours top offenders? What ‘ly’ words sneak into your drafts while you’re typing? *** To reach the next level in my copyediting quest, I must now search out and destroy instances of ‘so’. This insidious word shows up too many times and I’m not going to take it anymore. I listened to … Continue reading Next up on the Copyedit Hit list is…
Have you killed any adverbs lately? It’s very cathartic. Just run a search for ‘ly’ and see what you find. Why am I doing this? I bought a book on copyediting to aid me in my quest to copyedit my own work. Deleting words ending in ‘ly’ or replacing them with stronger verbs, claimed the book, as good way to tighten up writing. So a ran simple search on my Google Doc just to see how many ‘ly’ words I had used. I didn’t think there were that many because I know to avoid them. An eye-opening number of items returned in … Continue reading Killing Adverbs
Dear Reader, I hope you enjoyed your Sunday. Perfect weather we had in my corner of the world today and I hope in yours too. Today’s post is not a story post, and I apologize that I can’t provide your daily dose of fantasy fiction. I ran into some technical issues with the audio book recordings. A quick G-chat with my cousin helped me to see the error of my setup. An error I’m working to correct. Tonight I hope to do another take. (Who needs sleep?) Cross your fingers that my neighbors will turn in early, and quietly, and … Continue reading Thank you for all the likes, follows, views and reads
Well what did you read? I really do want to know. So leave me a comment and let me know. I’m asking this because I love stories and I’m always looking for something new to read, some new author’s works to fall in love with (in audio of course). I did mention somewhere on here that I am an audiobook addict right? Audible is my drug of choice. I can’t get enough of that site. I start my day off by checking the daily deals. Follow that up by skimming through the pre-orders and recent releases while munching on my … Continue reading What did you read this week?
Sarn has a problem. His eyes glow green all the time due to a magic that’s slowly chewing away at his sanity. Sarn indentured himself to pay for his younger brother’s education and was assigned to the Rangers at sixteen. In the four years since then, he has built a tenuous and often strained relationship with his fellow Rangers. It doesn’t help that odd things happen around him all the time. Odd things that begin to add up into a terrifying whole… Continue reading Breaking Curses
What did you read this week? I fed my audiobook addiction with some great reads. I hope you did too. From the Higgs Boson to the blackgaurds of the fantasy to everyone’s favorite serial killer, this week’s offerings sent me on a wild literary ride. The Great Courses: Higgs Boson and Beyond Dive into particle physics. This series of lectures is for the arm chair physicist in you. It explains what the heck a Higgs Boson is and why countries spent millions of dollars to build a collider in the hopes of producing one. Prof Carroll is thoroughly entertaining as … Continue reading Audiobook Round-up
Ok, I’m finally starting a blog. You can stop mentioning it now. Really. I got the point. I am taking the mental challenge (thanks Coleen Phoenixxx). Why am I blogging? Because people keep telling me to. They believe I have something that needs to be said. I finally got tired of telling them that everything I’d write about has already been written. So here I am blogging. I’m saying all the things that need to be said and I’m challenging myself to say those things right here every day. Right now this blog is not about anything in particular. That might … Continue reading The Challenge
Melinda Kucsera - USA Today Bestselling Author of Epic Fantasy Adventures 
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