My work in progress, a new novel called Truesilver which I will discuss more in future posts, is set in a world parallel to ours. This led me to consider which details of our own world should be familiar and which might have developed differently. I don't believe it's sufficient to simply rearrange the geography and imagine new event histories. The world should feel distinct from ours, yet not so much that we struggle to relate to it. Readers of my early drafts found my treatment of time...

When I began my author journey, those to whom I looked for advice suggested I focus on a subset of the many social media platforms out there to promote myself and my books. That advice made sense. Trying to engage everywhere with content designed for each platform is a massive amount of work. I decided to focus my attention on Facebook, the only platform I already used to any significant extent, and then had to choose between Instagram and TikTok. I'd never seen the appeal of Instagram. My...

When I paused this blog back in September 2023, Tethers of the Present was the better part of a year away. Getting local bookstores to stock paper copies had mixed results. Ditto contests, even though I once won a prize. I told myself marketing would be less challenging once I had more than one book to sell and focused on developing my social media author brand. My success, as I've noted before, was limited. A local indie author friend of mine recommended I sign up as an attending author at...