An Unexpected Song from a Faraway Place
This is the last of the excerpts I’m posting for Stars Fall Out, and it’s one of the earliest in the book. My main character steals a magic vial with the power to instantly travel …
Full length blog posts, as opposed to microblogging.
In Case You Didn’t Get My Previous Message
Aside from some excerpts concerning the magic vial, most of my snippets from Stars Fall Out haven’t dealt with the magic in the book. Many of the scenes I could’ve posted are too spoilery, and …
Knowing Better Isn’t Doing Better
I started posting excerpts of Stars Fall Out when I was halfway through the draft. As a result, I haven’t posted excerpts of a lot of the early action that defines the book, including the …
That Awkward Moment When Your Stolen Magic Vial Actually Works
Last week, I posted a short excerpt from Stars Fall Out in which my main character runs like hell after stealing a magic vial from her sister’s professor. All she knows about the vial is …
That Awkward Moment When Someone Catches You Stealing a Magic Vial From Your Sister’s Professor
It’s tough to find a good first draft excerpt. Something that isn’t too clunky, too spoilery, or too rife with notes-to-self and bracketed terms I need to research. After starting to post excerpts at the …
A Fearsome Beast
This excerpt features Master Zanhori, known as one of the greatest living oneiromancers, who travels throughout the Kirosz Empire with his three fearsome beasts, negotiating for peace where he can, and sometimes leaving destruction where he can’t.
I Finished Stars Fall Out
My completed first draft of Stars Fall Out is 234,000 words, 173 scenes, and 1125 pages, with a printing time of two hours. I posted on Facebook that hole-punching would be my hobby for the …
A Double Manifest with Stabilized Water as An Anchor: Coming up with Magic Jargon
I’ve found I have two methods for developing my magic systems in Stars Fall Out, and I’ve used each one exclusively for a single type of magic. First there’s the Painstaking Research method, which I’ve …
Fake Names for Every Occasion
A few months ago, I made a list of 36 excellent and useful fake names, in male, female, and gender neutral varieties.
Thank You for Running on Dunkin
In these days of coronavirus isolation, I already miss my Thursday morning writing routine at Dunkin Donuts.
That Time I Discovered My Character Has Coronavirus
Rereading some of my scenes in Stars Fall Out lead me to develop the theory that I gave one of my secondary-world characters coronavirus.
It’s the Social Anxiety Flowchart For Dealing with Phone Calls Badly
Self-preservation determines that I wouldn’t take the last step to walk off a cliff, and I won’t hit the call button either.