I attended a book signing event in Springfield, Illinois last Saturday. It was one of my most successful, despite frigid conditions outside. I even sold out of two of my titles for the first time. It's a good problem for me to have, but I apologize to those readers who missed out on signed copies. It helps that I now have a complete series to sell, rather than a couple of books and a promise that this unknown author is gonna finish this series, honest. I also cannot understate the impact of...

After publishing three novels, I'm comfortable with the format. I prefer the shorter end of the word count range, between 70,000 and 80,000 words. I think this permits a complex plot to evolve and characters to develop without intimidating the reader. The hardest part is often writing the 150-200 word blurb to attract those readers in the first place! Earlier this year, I was invited to contribute to a pair of short story anthologies. Dark Fairytales for the Unloved promised original stories...

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...