I’m Back!

It’s been quite a while since my last post. Life has gotten complicated! Having experienced some exertion-related chest pain, I had an angiogram to see why. Within a few days, I was under the knife,

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Cast of Characters

I remember reading Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time fantasy series. Whew! Fourteen volumes, each inches thick and with sooo many characters! It was excruciating to keep track of everybody in spite of his compelling

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Falcon’s Marta

When I was in third grade, I fell in love with my teacher, Mrs. Green. She had red hair and green eyes. As I thought about my leading female character, an image of Mrs. Green

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How to Raise a Hero

How do you raise a hero? ​Falcon and Marta had three children–Warrick, Windle, and Reetha. Each of these young characters contribute heroically to development of The Dragon’s Bones saga. ​How did these parents help these souls grow

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The Bones Are Taking a Nap

We need to wake up The Dragon’s Bones! They’ve been taking a nap. From what I’ve been studying, this is typical of new publications. To get things moving again, you can help in the following

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A Cover that Sells!

Consultants to aspiring authors advise that an engaging cover is essential in building a successful marketing campaign. To get an idea for mine, I spent days studying cover designs of the most successful fantasy novels.

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Making a Good Villain

It is challenging to create a believable bad guy. ​Somehow, his or her back story must make sense. Somehow, there must be a possibility for a scoundrel to turn around. Somehow, as readers we need

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Sidekicks

Sidekicks perform a useful role in many novels. Don Quixote had Sancho Panza. Frodo couldn’t have succeeded without Samwise Gamgee. In The Dragon’s Bones series, Warrick has Barin. ​From the second scene of Wielding the Words and throughout the

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Words of Power

Words of Power form a core concept in The Dragon’s Bones novels. ​These supernatural commands have remarkable capabilities. My villain, Zorasch, exercises them to subjugate and direct rampaging elephants and ferocious tigers in his defeat of the

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