Every December I am reminded of how difficult it is to get anything done during the holidays. Agent Rachelle Gardner once suggested that writers should plan out how much time they think they’ll have to write during the holidays – and then divide that in half. Even that may be generous, and this December is…
I recently re-read J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit for the first time in probably ten years. Once I got past the older and awkward narrative viewpoint (in Tolkien’s defense, the omniscient point-of-view was in vogue back in 1937, especially for what was considered a children’s book), I was reminded of how rich and wonderful the story…
The Wayward Herald looks forward to the post-NaNoWriMo month of December and revival within the blogosphere on the topics of writing, publishing, and, or course, historical and fantasy fiction. But the end of November 2012 also marks the end to one of the great fantasy book review blog sites around: Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review. Sailing to…
This week I finished reading Devil’s Lair by David Wisehart, a historical fantasy novel that’s part grail quest, and part return to Dante’s Inferno. It’s an engaging read, and my full review follows this image of the book’s cover. Part Grail Quest, Part Return to Dante’s Inferno. The premise of Devil’s Lair is that…
The Wayward Herald remains convinced that the number of interesting blog posts on which to comment decreases substantially during National Novel Writing Month. Fortunately, that will soon end, and that is one thing for which the Wayward Herald is thankful this week. Dante looks back on Purgatory at the end of NaNoWriMo. The Wayward Herald is…
Growing up, I never paid much attention to the origin of Thanksgiving. Other than what I may have learned from elementary school, all I ever recall knowing was that it was a big feast between the pilgrims and the Native Americans sometime after the English landed at Plymouth Rock. Only in the past few years…
The other day I was looking at the top shelf of my bookshelf and realized it contains a number of beautiful hardcover books, but they’re not necessarily my favorite novels (due, in part, to the fact that I keep my Bernard Cornwell novels together, and every book I own of The Warlord Chronicles are all…
The concept of my early week posts under the guise of The Wayward Herald is to highlight interesting blog posts and other information I’ve encountered from the blogosphere in the prior week. But these days, there’s been a dearth of interesting posts, and I attribute that to NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month – which…
This week, I’m featuring my first ever guest post, a great article by Sci-Fi Bloggers about Patrick Rothfuss’ fantasy series, The Kingkiller Chronicles. Sci-Fi Bloggers is an online magazine covering all things science fiction and fantasy: movies, TV, books, video games, comics and more. It’s well worth reading! The fantasy genre has a hard time fitting in with most…
I have long been a fan of Blake Snyder’s Save The Cat! as an excellent resource on storytelling, and plot in particular. This week, in preparation for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), author Bethany Myers posted an article titled Plot Like A Pro, a creative piece applying Snyder’s 15 elements of story structure to Harry…
A while back, I was doing research on Vikings for my next novel, which will be the sequel to Enoch’s Device. In the course of that research, I spent some time on Norse mythology, since many a tenth-century Viking would have clung to the worship of Thor or Odin instead of embracing the Christian faith…