Drawing on the Dark

(Spoilers for Stranger Things, Season 2, and X-Men: First Class.) I’ve finally gotten to Stranger Things on my Netflix queue, a series my teen has been talking about (non-stop) for months. I enjoyed both seasons. It felt like a cross between The Goonies and Aliens, both among my favorite movies. I liked the show’s adoration…

Wicked Dance Interview

Now that Wicked Dance is available, I'm delighted to have author Olivia Boothe on my blog today to talk about her book and the process of writing it. *** Me:  What was your inspiration in coming up with the plot in the story? Olivia:  Growing up, dance was a way for me to escape. My…

What Scares Me: The Implacable Villain

For the ongoing (unending) rewrite of Throwing Fire, I’ve been thinking a lot about what scares me. I want my main character to be really, really scared. More scared than he’s ever been before, even in a number of life-threatening situations. What induces that level of fear? Part of the problem with the current draft…

Pets in Space 2

I'm delighted to welcome USA Today best-selling author M.K. Eidem to my blog today to talk about her new release, Pets in Space 2! *** As Embrace the Romance: Pets in Space 2 is coming out I thought I should introduce my fans to my grand fur babies. So this is Bo, he is a…

Writing A Sympathetic Anti-Hero

I love anti-heroes. I like heroic characters, too. But anti-heroes really float my boat. I think I first became enamored of anti-heroes as a teen reading Nancy Collins (Sonya Blue) and Tanith Lee (the demons of her Flat Earth novels). Then along came Richard B. Riddick, who will probably always be my favorite anti-hero (although…

Learning to Disengage

A Cyberstalking Story It’s been an interesting year so far (in the sense of the supposed Chinese curse, “may you live in interesting times”). As I’ve said in a previous post, my family was affected by the Manchester Arena bombing, which led me to withdraw from most of my writing-relating activities to focus on the…

The Politics of Rage

Lure and Stars Avail(Image used under Creative Commons Licence.) I’ve been offline for a while. My family was affected by the Manchester Arena bombing, and it’s taken me a while to emerge from the pall that cast over our lives. I’m not ready to talk about that yet, and I’m not up to writing a…