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Showing posts from December, 2013

Holiday Cheer & Dark Fantasy

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Greetings Familiar Friends! It is fully the holidays-which is also a little crazy.  As I indulge in rich snacks, am formulating literary darkness and chaos for my poor characters.  I am a little crazy too-from a literary perspective- as I am working on 3 novels right now- Fires of Rapiveshta, Bard Maiden of Rhulon (my heroic female dwarf!) and now a dark unicorn tale called Blood of the Unicorn.   What a merry tale of mayhem is brewing in my world of evil kings, dark gods, goblins, stoic warriors, murderous changelings, worried familiars, exasperated sorceresses, brave heroes & heroines, murder, and brutish trolls.    I have a busy holiday seasons ahead of me.  As I post ideas to my cork boards in study , as I have 4 of them above my desk one for each book and a general madness board, I will hope your holiday is more peaceful as I go a little mad with spiked eggnog and  story plots.  Have a lovely holiday! Verna McKinnon

Writing Resolutions & Mental Yoga

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Greetings Familiar Friends, Along with a recent promise from my publisher, Joe D, that we have the book cover in good hands for Tree of Bones (my 2nd novel in my Familiar's Tale series) and the end of the year looming, I am feeling hopeful about the coming New Year.  I admit I have been a bit lazy and unfocused in my writer's journey.  If you think about it, writing is a lot like yoga.  It is a practice in which perfection is never an issue.  It is about growth and becoming a better you.  Writers suffer a great deal from the pitfalls of the art-stress, rejection, delays, edit hell.  But we continue despite this imperfection.  The more we write, the more we improve as writers.  It is a journey that never ends.  It is not a linear craft.  It is a craft of many changes and starts and stops.  But, if we are talented, we grow and improve as authors.  Your imagination and skill stretches and expands.  Yoga is much the same way (along with being a salvation after hours of si