The first installment introduces Sarah Patrick, a woman who has suffered greatly, losing almost her entire family in a tragic train accident. Engaged to be married, she yearns for a normal life, but things take a dramatic turn when she has a falling out with her husband and wanders through London, eventually encountering a real-life witch.
This is a shortened version of a longer post available for Patreon subscribers here. Wá Balréal i Sagaia, Balréal i Sagaia i cóné.Once a Queen in Sagaia, always a Queen in Sagaia. Né láal dam á.He is not a tame lion. When I began thinking about the redemption of Narnia, one of the first things… Continue reading On Words and Names in Sagaia
This past year was mostly filled with professional work, but I made some progress on personal projects as well. Axon, Inc.’s revisions are coming along slowly but surely. I took November to make progress on Return to Sagaia, which now is well over 40K words, and I’m super excited about it. I’m also continuing to… Continue reading 2022 in Books: Worst to Best
It seems clear that traditional publishing is, if not dead, at least undead, and rapidly running out of brains to keep it going.
If it's a bad story that breaks canon, adherence to canon won't fix it. If it's a good story that breaks canon in a minor way, it's irrelevant; it's just nitpicking. If it's a good story that breaks canon in a major way, it's probably a good story *because* it breaks canon.
At this point it's getting a bit embarrassing to admit that I've been working on this book since 2013. It still remains my pet project and the one I'm most anxious to have see the light of day, since it reflects many of my own experiences and hopes and fears -- about my profession (artificial… Continue reading Axon, Inc. Revisions: NaNoWriMo 2021
First, an announcement: the first chapter of Axon, Inc., "Lubumbashi", is now available on Wattpad. Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting four more chapters, a total of almost 10,000 words. In the meantime revisions will continue. As an experiment, I'll be over on Wattpad a lot more in the future. In addition to… Continue reading Revisions Status: Oct 7 2015
Ever since George Lucas introduced Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces to screenwriting, it's had a profound influence -- not just on the movie industry, but on fiction in general. A quick Google search will bring up thousands of pages about applying Joseph Campbell's work to novels, short stories, and even television commercials. I… Continue reading The Call of Adventure: Mapping Story Structure
There are only two kinds of plots in true science fiction: Science is a Hero, and Science is a Villain. In Science is a Hero, there is some problem or other -- an asteroid is going to hit the Earth, the Galactic Empire is falling, there's a Plague IN SPACE!! -- and the heroic characters… Continue reading Man vs. Machine: John Henry, Science Fiction, and the March of Progress
In a series of posts a few years ago, I talked about the function of fiction. What is it for? What purpose does it serve? After all, it’s all a pack of lies — and what’s more, it’s lies that everyone knows are false. In that article I argued that fiction’s primary purpose was to… Continue reading Fiction and the Shamanic Journey
Axon Firings 