Fantasy Books of the Decade

As I finish my scene outline and start to dive into the meat of writing, I’d like to take advantage of Stephen King’s second most important thing to do when you want to write (with #1 being “to write”):  Read more books… And not cliche and cerebral books on how to write (although I’ve read plenty of those and actually would still advocate reading them), but read the stuff you want to write…

Which brings me to the point of this:

You guys are my social network.  What authors/books can you recommend?  I grew up on Christopher Stascheff, Alan Dean Foster, Robert Aspirin, Anne McCaffrey, and Mercedes Lackey.  In my adult years, I’ve added in LE Modesitt Jr, George RR Martin, and Patrick Rothfuss.

If I’m looking for fantasy, who else should I be checking out?  I’m comfortable with Teen or Adult assuming it’s good.

Novel Word Count: 17,000

What We Throw Away

I wanted to share with you all this story I wrote for Perfect-The-Days. The person who runs this blog does a lot to bring world issues into the spotlight and graciously accepted my story. Please go check out the story, and check out many of the other great posts you can find on her page!

Perfect-The-Days

Hunger is the major risk to health worldwide. One in nine people do not have enough food to keep them healthy. The main causes behind this situation are poverty, unemployment and wastage of food. Often we are led to believe that “beggars” should not be given monetary assistance because they would drink “booze” and ruin their lives. We question as to why they are not employed, and surprisingly we also find the answer. We consider it to be their laziness. Yet there is more to this issue. On one hand is the lack of employment and on the other hand is the exorbitant price of food. It is charity that could bridge the gap and we should develop kindness and compassion in ourselves. This is a powerful and effective short story by Jon Stephens which discusses this issue.

Today was going to suck. There was no way around it. Jason…

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Inspiration

So in the same week as my ill-fated writing prompt, Roger Shipp was starting his own over at his blog.  This one includes a first line and a picture.  Here’s my stab at it.

Inspiration

“It seemed like a good idea at the time?”

Nicolas nodded. “Yeah…”

“And the string runs between here and Chicago?”

“Yeah.” His eyes were open wide, joy dancing in the depths of those darkened cavities.

“And they look like light bulbs?”

Once again. “Yeah.”

Farriday rubbed a hand against his forehead. How long had he put up with this? How long had they been maintaining the code? “Do you have any idea what’s going to happen when we flip that switch? These people’s lives will never be the same. You’re willing to do that?”

To Nicolas’s credit, he didn’t churn out another monosyllabic reply. Instead, he watched his companion, eyes glittering. He stuck out his tongue and dabbed it against the his top lip. Farriday had seen that look before. Nicolas chafed against their directive. He wanted to feel like he was a part of something that was going somewhere.

He wanted to not feel abandoned.

To his own surprise, Farriday realized he felt a similar thrill of anticipation. In the long run, would it really matter?

Farriday placed a hand on the switch. “Okay then. Let’s do it.”

“Yeah.”

He flipped the switch and the world changed.

The 6 Things I Learned After Publishing My First Book

This is my first reblog, but I loved this post. I too want to be a traditionally published author, and I think this post really goes the distance in helping to illustrate just how much work it will take!