I’ve learned that there’s a few writers in my audience. Greetings, fellow sweaters-of-blood! My fellow starers-at-pages! Today I shall share one of my simplest, and yet most profound, methods of writing improvement. It is merely this. Target and remove any & all instances of “to be.” This shows up in…
It’s become a tradition in this newsletter to discuss a holiday entity other than Santa each December. The world has quite a few – we haven’t even gotten through them all yet! This year, we’re talking about the Belsnickel. Like Krampus, Belsnickel is a judgmental counterpart to Old Saint Nick.…
I wasn’t sure what to talk about this month. Thanksgiving is upon us, and I have much to be grateful for…even if my books aren’t selling well enough to let me retire to some haunted house out in the woods. (With Internet.) But I hate talking about myself. I’m sure…
There are Normal Readers and there are Abnormal Readers. We all know what a Normal Reader does: Pick up a book, read a while, eventually finish it, and then lie down to sleep. But Abnormal Readers…well. These are the readers who understand reading is an experience. They invest. They chew…
The Stiamaq Emerald and Gralmar’s Staff are set in modern-day America. Just with a twist — the existence of a small population of sorcerers, mostly scattered throughout the country, a few living in magical cities like Govan and Diluvium. How do these sorcerers pay bills? What do you even need…
The Robert Garrett Story) In 1896, the world decided to bring back the heralded Olympic Games. The first ‘modern’ Olympics took place in Athens, Greece, that year. Many athletes from around the world trained to compete there. One was Robert Garrett, a student at Princeton University. Robert was already a…
Gryla. If I said that name on an American street corner, nobody would bat an eye. If I said it on the streets of Reykjavik, Iceland? Someone would hastily cross the street and give me a nervous glare. On the island-nation of Iceland, Gryla is as nasty a Christmas entity…
The bats told me someone was coming up the road. They always sound the first alarm, with their little chits and clicks. From my position atop the border wall, looking out on a green living world, it always makes me smile. Because it means someone’s trying to brave Haunt. We…
He slips in a window. Silent. Calm. The room around him is full of bookshelves and display cases, showing awards, trophies, and such shiny regalia. But he ignores those. Moving across the floor with barely a whisper, he comes to his target. A small locked box hidden in a corner.…
You probably knew this already, but…evolution continues! It continues to happen, all throughout the world, amid the vast numbers of species sharing this little green dot with us. Here’s just one example of such. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria. We’ve used a lot of antibiotics since their invention in 1928. (Yep, they aren’t…
