High fantasy has always been about giving readers an escape from reality. Take your classic medieval worlds with dragons and destiny and heroes with swords, for example. Add in some epic quests, chosen ones, world-saving adventures, and that’s traditional fantasy doing what it does best. But urban fantasy? It takes a completely different approach. It…

Ever wonder what an author’s typical workday is like? Here’s a (somewhat fictionalized) day in the life of an urban fantasy author: 3:00 am – Brain thinks it’s morning already. Wide awake with ideas for the current work in progress spinning around in my head. 7:00 am – Coffee… must have coffee… 7:05 am –…

Ah, magic systems… so fun to play with, and so easy to screw up. I recently read an article on Writer’s Write about Brandon Sanderson’s Three Laws of Magic (also seen here on Sanderson’s website), and it got me thinking about how well magic systems in the Druidverse® conform to Sanderson’s rules. Let’s break down…

If you’ve been writing for any length of time—especially if you’re doing it professionally—you’re going to run headlong into writer burnout sooner or later. It’s not a matter of if. It’s a matter of when. Burnout doesn’t always look like staring at a blank page, either. Sometimes you’re still producing words… they just feel heavy.…

This is for aspiring authors who are wondering what to do when they get bad reviews of their novels. See that one-star rating? I guarantee it’s someone with an axe to grind. Since I wrote Junkyard Druid, I’ve received a range of negative feedback on the novel from both sides of the aisle. Some reviewers…

I’ve been an author for over 20 years, and I obviously have a long history of writing fiction and non-fiction in the pre-AI era. Yet, I get comments on my ads and posts every week, accusing me of using AI to write my novels. Some actual comments I’ve received on my ads and posts recently:…