Elaina Portugal reflects on the boundaries we set for ourselves. I think she's onto something that they're false borders.
Month: October 2014
Fantasy and Sci-Fi You Should Watch
I love this walk through the TV guide by Steven Montano. What’s your favorite scifi or fantasy show?
Ok. I’ve spent the past couple of posts harping on about cheesy fantasy movies you should avoid…but what about some stuff you should watch?
Rather than movies, I’m going to switch to television here, and broaden the discussion to include science-fiction (because, let’s face it, there’s a hell of a lot more sci-fi than there is epic fantasy out there in TV land).
Here’s a brief list of some good stuff on TV that, in my opinion, every fan of sci-fi or fantasy should be checking out (not all of it current).
Supernatural
I’m not always a fan of urban fantasy/horror, but Supernatural does it right. For 10 Seasons now the Brothers Winchester have been chasing ghosts, ghouls, vampires, demons, and all sorts of other stuff that goes bump in the night, and the results are often scary, at times funny, and always entertaining. Some may argue the show has started…
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The Business of Word Count
Today on the Guild of Dreams, I muse about word counts and making words count.
How many words do you need to tell a story well? Conventional wisdom (as stated by Chuck Sambuchino in Writer’s Digest) says a novel should be under 100,000, and one seasoned author in my circle claims that any book longer than 100K either has bloated prose or should be split into two novels.
The 100K edict serves two purposes. First, it discourages inexperienced writers from padding their narratives the way high school students pad term papers to make the assigned 10-page minimum. Second, it holds down production costs. Whether the publisher is one of the Big Five, a small independent press, or an indie author, spending more money to produce a longer book is a poor business decision, unless you can be reasonably sure people will buy it. For instance, Tolkien considered Lord of the Rings a single novel, yet it was published in three volumes because his publisher…
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The Work in Progress Blog Tour
A little more than a year ago, I began following Autumn Birt on Twitter and reading her blogs No Map Nomads and the Guild of Dreams. A wonderfully inventive fantasy and science fiction writer, Autumn has opened my eyes to the ins and outs of the indie publishing world, not to mention opened some doors … Continue reading The Work in Progress Blog Tour
It’s October, and A Wizard’s Lot Is Free
(This post also appeared on my website.) Why do authors make their books available for free? Among the indies, it's a common practice to bring our work to a wider readership. In my case, I want to get as many people to read my work as I can, and when I offer one of the Woern … Continue reading It’s October, and A Wizard’s Lot Is Free
AM Justice 