by Joseph Malik | Jul 14, 2016 | Writing Craft
When historians look back on my writing career, they will likely concentrate on this post, right here, as the moment that I first officially pissed on the leg of the establishment. Normally when I say things like what I’m about to say, I just drop into the front...
by Joseph Malik | Jul 11, 2016 | Writing Craft
MS Office updated just now. And Word’s grammar checker got even stupider. Now the subject-verb agreement is all jacked up: if you insert a negative adverb, it modifies the verb to correlate with a third-person subject pronoun. This means that auto-correct turns...
by Joseph Malik | Jul 11, 2016 | Writing Craft
I want to talk pacing. This is a thing that I haven’t really noticed anyone else do, although I’m sure that other writers do it, too. Maybe we all do, in our own way. I have a musical background, so I compose my books like a work of classical music. Not...
by Joseph Malik | Jun 28, 2016 | Dragon's Trail, Worldbuilding
Lots of compliments on the map. So let’s talk maps a bit more. Part of making a good fantasy map is developing the terrain well enough that you can draw it from memory a couple of times freehand and have them more or less line up. I have a couple of advantages,...
by Joseph Malik | Jun 17, 2016 | Dragon's Trail, Worldbuilding
Holy crap. So, I’m sending the finished — no, really — manuscript out to my editor next week. The cover is in the final formatting stages. I have a marketing plan and budget in place. And yesterday I started working on Book II. Sort of. Book II was...
