Cover Style

This is only limitedly negotiable. Genres have cover styles, which change over time. If one violates that style, one irritates readers because they don’t get what they expect. This is why “shirtless guys” sends the wrong message. I’m not writing a Gay Romance novel. There is a gay romance, but that’s not the same thing.Continue reading “Cover Style”

Fans Spooling Up!

It’s about time I use this computer. I have Stable Diffusion (a fairly old version) generating images from this prompt: two muscular men in jeans and tight white t-shirt full body hiking boots visible standing close outside dry hills background with a wolf sitting beside them The results are “interesting”. The faces in all ofContinue reading “Fans Spooling Up!”

HFY – Follow up

I’ve “watched” a bunch of these, now. They have even inspired a speech, which I may or may not actually present. I’m not sure Toastmasters is ready for it, which makes it both tempting and intimidating at the same time. I have two things to comment upon: Presentation and Content. Digression: I donated $50 toContinue reading “HFY – Follow up”

Humans – Fuck Yeah!

I discovered a new genre. It’s fan-fucking-tastic. As far as I know – I just discovered this last week – it’s a YouTube thing. The quality varies from “remind me, why does the internet exist?” to “Fuck Yeah!”. I’m not entirely sure why these are on YouTube; there’s no video. They’re audio books. I loveContinue reading “Humans – Fuck Yeah!”

Learning 2 Write – XIII

Explicit Time I’ve already decided that chapters are going to be my unit of story/plot/logical time. My goal is to have each chapter be approximately the same page count, which is right now about six 8.5×11 pages, and cover approximately the same amount of story/plot, which is right now about one level. It’s nothing asContinue reading “Learning 2 Write – XIII”

How Does Magic Work?

This comes up in the context of a fight scene in Industrial Mage. Our intrepid hero casts a tornado-ish air shield around himself and it moves with him. Instead of a fireball, he creates a fire-whip, which behaves mostly like an actual whip. He casts water bullets at the bad spider creature, targeting the joints,Continue reading “How Does Magic Work?”

Learning 2 Write – XII

Scope Continuing the post on Endings – the irony of which does not escape me – I had a thought: It’s not (usually) that I get tired of a series, it’s that the series changes out from under me. Many stories (not just LitRPG) start with the struggles of our intrepid hero. As he overcomesContinue reading “Learning 2 Write – XII”