I have friends who only read romances, and that’s great for them. My grandmom used to get a shipment of Harlequin romances by mail every month, and she read them a lot more than she did her scriptures. I knew it was fun for her, and I respected that. But…
I love books by geniuses, especially when those geniuses admit to being just as dumb as the rest of us. The main point of this book is that we all do a lot of thinking we never know about, and that every single one of us is lazier than we…
October 12, 2024 was the day I first read a book by Camilla Evergreen. Not significant in any other way in my life – I know, because I checked my journal – but significant because this author has completely ruined me for every other romance author out there. (Except Georgette…
There has to be something in the water at some writer’s retreat somewhere that is quietly, magically morphing normal humans into the best kind of authors. How else do you explain the emergence of Drew Hayes, Rachel Aaron, Dennis E. Taylor, and Scott Meyer all at around the same time?…
Full disclosure, I love Rachel Aaron – no, not personally, we’re not that close – I just love the way she approaches fiction. Her characters are vivid, unique, and relatable, even when they’re demons from hell. She knows how to make you care about a slacker dragon boi or an…
There’s a running gag in The Muppet Movie where someone says something unfounded about frogs—like touching one gives you warts—and Kermit flails his arms and yells, “That’s a myth!” As he does, a girl pops up out of nowhere and, with a lisp on her cutesy face, says, “Yeth?” Stupid?…
I survived Covid, how about you? My guess is, if you’re reading this, you definitely survived, but did you? Being alive after something so earth-shattering isn’t the same as survival, not on a deeper level. If you lost someone, I’m so very sorry. If you lost something – your sense…
by T.C. Weber This book felt like a mix of the old Mission: Impossible TV show and Ready Player One. It’s an odd mix and sometimes it works really well and other times it hits a speed bump. However, this author can write. His use of language and pacing are…
Until college, I had never done much writing. As an avid reader, I had always preferred to be on the other end of the exchange. In the back of my mind throughout my childhood and teenage years, I thought I would write one day, but that day never seemed to…
by Randy Ingermanson How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method Someone recommended this book to me after I said that I can’t plot and have never been able to. I wish I could remember who it was that made the recommendation because I owe her big time. I…
