warrior

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, receiving a quintuple bypass. After six months of successful rehab and recovery, I’m ready to get back into promoting my […]

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 story. A friend of mine recently told me that he was having trouble with my lengthy cast of characters. He

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 came to mind. Marta was to have rich auburn hair and deep green eyes. Her skin was to be creamy

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 into their rescuing roles? There was hard work. For Warrick, it was raising and protecting their long-haired goats. For Windle

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 ways: If you’ve purchased Book One or Book Two but haven’t finished reading them, please let me know what’s up.

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. They featured swords, fire-breathing dragons, scantily-clad heroes and heroines, and vibrant color backgrounds. Based on professional recommendations, I contacted a

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 to see something of ourselves in a really great villain. ​Zorasch is the central antagonist in The Dragon’s Bones saga.

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 saga, this bear-like son of a smith provides comedy, crucial support, weapons, and earthy wisdom for his friend. ​Here is

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 defenders of a city. On the other hand, it takes focus to deploy them. Warrick has been learning the Words