“I have seen the future of horror…and it is named Clive Barker.” So says Stephen King in a very famous quote that graced the cover of just about every Clive Barker book in the eighties and nineties. At that time, Barker was highly celebrated as one of the best horror novelists of his generation. … Read more
Being Irish, the Druids have always fascinated me. The Druids of Ireland were a very learned and intensely religious breed. They considered themselves to be Servants of Truth, and Sacred Scientists, being as learned as they were in matters of astronomy, alchemy, chemistry, literature, religion, spirituality and many other subjects. They also lived with a … Read more
Urban fantasy with a male lead–or tough guy urban fantasy as it is sometimes known–has seen something of a resurgence in the last few years. Once upon a time, the urban fantasy genre was dominated mostly by books featuring female protagonists from authors such as Kim Harrison, Laurel K Hamilton and Patricia Briggs to name … Read more
Last Friday, the first book in the Sorcerer’s Creed series, Blood Sacrifice, was promoted by the mighty BookBub. Thanks to that promotion, Blood Sacrifice became a bestseller on Amazon, rising to the top of the charts in each of the book’s categories. Needless to say, I’m ecstatic that the book, and indeed the whole … Read more
One of the biggest lessons I have learned since I first started to take writing seriously about five years ago is that to do good work—to do any work at all—you need the ability to get out of your own way. Every single day of a writer’s life brings fresh doubt and uncertainty. Some days … Read more
Before we begin, let me point out that this article is not intended to be some sort of blueprint for “How To Write A Bestselling Urban Fantasy Series”. The article merely outlines the research I did before I started writing the male urban fantasy series that I’m still hard at work on. As well as … Read more
If you’re like most writers, you probably struggle to keep your focus and concentration while writing sometimes. I know I do. Despite having an outside writing space where I can lock myself away, I still have family around me (including a rather energetic and at times loud three year old) so distractions in the form … Read more
When most people think about success and the process of achieving things, most often they think in terms of goals. To achieve things, you have to set goals that will help you do that–targets to aim for, destinations to get to in specific time frames. The culture of self-help and business development that has … Read more
If you are like most people nowadays, you probably avoid boredom like the plague. From a young age, we tend to be taught that boredom is a negative state. Consequently, we learn to become dreadfully uncomfortable with boredom as we do our utmost to fight it every step of the way. These days in … Read more
Write what you know has become one of those well-worn rules of writing that has been bandied about so much now, it has become almost meaningless. So has the less used, but still worn, quote about writing what you don’t know. Besides being contradictory, these two pieces of advice don’t really help a writer much … Read more