Writing a novel tests an author, but crafting a back-cover blurb may be the greater challenge. For The Strandlock, I wrote over 92,000 words to tell a fantasy story and had fun doing it. Creating the blurb took more revisions and rewrites than I expected, and was worth it. What…
In fantasy novels, world building often begins before the first word of the novel is written. Considerable effort goes into bringing these fictional places to life. That was true for The Strandlock. World building for The Strandlock was the most enjoyable part of the creative process. A New World The…
The map is always one of my favorite parts of a fantasy novel. Having majored in geography in college, I love seeing the terrain and place names of the world the author has created. For The Strandlock, that world is a place called Spira, and it has its own map,…
The old saying is that you can’t judge a book by its cover. But you can’t sell a book without a great cover. That meant having a strong cover for The Strandlock was one of my priorities. Experience with Cover Designers/Illustrators I’ve been fortunate to work with talented cover artists…
The first words of The Strandlock were not typed on a computer. They were written by hand in a notebook thirty-three years ago. That notebook contains the earliest surviving pages of a story that began taking shape in 1993. I was working full-time and wrote on the weekends and in…