The title of this post may have caught your attention because it sounds like something you’d do when cooking dinner rather than drafting a novel. Slow-cooker is a rather unusual name for a part of the book-creation process, but it’s a step that I’ve come to realize is essential –at least for me. I […]

The Traitor’s Daughter is a story that has been with me for the better part of three years. It was the second novel I ever wrote, drafted by a fourteen year old with no idea what she was doing. Since I recently finished re-drafting this story as my seventh novel, I thought it would be […]

Once upon a time, there was a tragic tale that repeated itself over and over and over again, echoing through the centuries until everyone was so used to it that they paid it no more heed than the wind. The voices of the oppressed were unimportant. Instead they gave us heroes who defeated all who […]

The hero went reeling back, crashing into a pillar. The villain stood over them, hand pressed to their mouth. Blood leaked from between their teeth, staining their smile red. The hero opened their mouth, but the villain cut them off. “If you’re going to give me some speech about how I won’t ever […]

I am done playing games. I am done hiding. I am done making myself smaller, cowering, hiding in the shadows so you can keep up your illusions. I am the worst of all of us, and I am tired of being ashamed of it. Keep wearing your masks. Keep smiling like nothing’s wrong. Keep […]

I have an idea. I have a plan. I have a terrible, wonderful plot of justice. I will break the sky to bring the clouds to earth. I will silence the thunder to control the lightning. I will wreck the earth to bring you to your knees. And the world will remember me as […]

“Villain? Are you alright?” The villain was not alright, but they didn’t say that. Slowly, painfully, sitting up, they looked around the dark room. The small woman standing beside their bed reached out and brushed the hair off of their face. “I’m sorry for waking you, but the hero’s on TV.” It […]

The hero collapsed on the ground, spitting out blood and coughing. Their sword lay in jagged pieces, shattered. The villain stood over them, blade leveled at their back. “Go ahead,” the hero rasped. They rolled over, baring their chest for the weapon. “Just make it quick.” The villain looked down at the […]

Am I the villain? Perhaps. But then what would that make you? I am here to be remembered. You are here to gain control. Oh, what’s that? I don’t get to tell this story. Because I’m the bad guy? I’m the bad guy and he’s the hero. Interesting coming from someone with […]

It’s that time of year again! Time to look back on 2025 and see what were the most entertaining, the most tear-jerking, the most squeal-inducing books that I’ve read. 2025 was a much slower year for me in terms of books read. In 2024, I read around 57 books. This year, I read 27 new […]

Welcome to the fourth and final chapter in our series When Writing is Hard. So far we’ve looked at time, inspiration, energy, and today we’ll cap it all off with motivation. Motivation is a tricky little thing because one second it’s there and the next it isn’t. One moment the words are coming so […]

Welcome to the third installment of our series: When Writing is Hard. So far we’ve looked at issues with Time and Inspiration, and today we’ve going to dive into our next topic: Energy. Personally, I find that energy tends to go hand in hand with time. When I don’t have a ton of time […]

Welcome back to our series on When Writing is Hard. Today we’re diving into part two of this journey: Inspiration. To be clear, inspiration and motivation are two different things, and I’ll be referring only to the first today. Motivation is coming later ;). Inspiration is defined as “the process of being mentally stimulated […]

Welcome to the beginning of our new series: When Writing is Hard. Over this four part series we’ll be diving into the different facets of why writing could be hard, and what you can do about it. This was inspired when I had to put my own writing on the back shelf for several […]

Some of you may have read that title and thought “What on earth is a romantasy? Is that the strange child of a romance and a fantasy novel?” Don’t worry, I have good news for you. If you thought that second sentence, you’re right! A romantasy is the combination of romance and fantasy in fiction. […]

Potentially hot take: The most important part of a book is the characters. Yes, plot and prose and all the other things are very important. I’ll dive more in depth about why this is my stance in another post, because today, I want to talk only about characters. Specifically, how many characters. What’s the right […]

The Protagonist is the most part of a book. Right? This is debatable (Most things in writing are) but for now I’ll say that yes, the main character is almost always the most important part of your story. Plot and a million other things are important too, but I am of the belief that good […]

If the title didn’t give it away, I love epilogues. They’re one of my favorite things both to read and to write. I’ve written an epilogue into just about every single one of my books. It’s my favorite way to conclude a series, and when I stopped to think about it, I realized that there’s […]

I’m going to start out by being clear –this article is not going to be for everyone. I don’t mean that it’s going to offend anyone or anything like that (I hope) It’s simply not going to be useful information for everyone. Not all of us want to write religion into our books. But my […]

If you’ve been following my articles for a while, you know that this is a very special week. This marks the one year anniversary of my blog! On August 17th, 2024, I posted my very first article: Seven Things You’re Writing Wrong About Martial Arts. Since then, I’ve been adding one every two weeks, posting […]