by Dan | Oct 12, 2016 | Black Sheep Manor, Blog, Books
Let’s talk about names in fantasy stories. Not just character names, but place names, plant names, animal names. Any kind of name, for any kind of thing you can imagine. Make a thing too exotic, your readers won’t remember them. Doubt me? OK, thought...
by Dan | Sep 10, 2016 | Blog, Books
Back in early 2012, I jammed out the first draft of my third novel, Bokur, in exactly 40 days. I didn’t take that long to plot out, either. My fourth book, Another Goddamn Novel About the Collapsing Quantum Multiverse, was similarly quick, with essentially no...
by Dan | Jan 3, 2014 | Blog, Books, Featured
Since I know some of you out there are thinking about publishing your own books and stories via ebook distribution, I thought it might be worthwhile for me to recap the lessons I’m learning as I go along. Just so you’ll have another data-point to use in...
by Dan | Dec 20, 2013 | Blog, Books, Featured
From my Darbas Cycle blog, a sequel to the Mullaqat creation myth… HOW COYOTE GAVE THE MULLAQAT THEIR CLEVERNESS A Mullaqat creation myth… One night after their return to the new world, the Mullaqat looked at Grandmother Hen and said, “Tell us...
by Dan | Dec 17, 2013 | Blog, Books, Featured
The enigmatic nomadic culture of Darbas, called the Mullaqat (literally, “the drifting people”), plays a huge role in the story I set out to tell in The Key to Darbas series (five books, beginning with A Madness and Siobeth). But it’s the curse of...
by Dan | Dec 8, 2013 | Blog, Books, Featured, Random Xarking
In 1999, not long after Janet and I got married and we moved our blended family into the top two floors of a rented 1850s Charleston single, I was browsing in the main library around the corner and picked up a newly published book called Flanders. I had some...
