Rules of engagement for impending marriage that is, not rules of war. Marriage isn’t supposed to be a battlefield. Life is the battlefield. You’re both in the foxhole together; don’t turn your rifles on each other. I last wrote in this series about falling in love, leaving my past self ready to propose to Dona. […]
Hold a book in your hand. Where did it come from? The publisher, of course. The publisher probably got it from a literary agent. The agent represented an author. The author had a story to tell. But where did the story come from? Stories start as a spark of an idea. And a story idea […]
Before I leave dating lessons learned from Dona, I’ll give a few dating rules: Three lighthearted rules from Dona and three heavy rules from me. Scoff if you want, but they worked toward our relationship. Dona’s Dating Rule #1: Never Date a Guy Who Owns a Van A van could mean… If you can’t figure […]
Let’s talk about fantasy worlds from various sources. I’m going to start, of course, with C.S. Lewis’s Narnia, a world simple enough for children and complex enough for adults. Magic Magic infuses Narnia from the beginning when Aslan sang it into being. But for the reader magic starts from the time Lucy hides in an […]
First off, let me be clear: When I say the ‘death of stars,’ I’m talking about celestial fusion reactors that shine in the sky, not modern celebrities that smile or frown on supermarket tabloids. Though the words ‘celestial’ and ‘celebrity’ would seem to have a common root (they don’t) and though the rise and fall of […]
We fantasy readers want a champion we can root for, suffer with, struggle alongside, and ultimately cheer on. If our fantasy heroes too wondrous, too cold, or too inhuman, we are apt to quickly lose interest. And when you don’t care what happens to a story’s characters, the story’s sunk. Here are five traits with examples […]
