Hi, book friends! Have you heard of the book Machine of Death? It’s a collection of science fiction stories (edited by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo, and David Malki), and all of the stories revolve around the same premise: there is a machine where you put in your blood sample, and it will spit out a …
Need a good character name for the hero of your latest short story? Or maybe your fantasy series has rival clans of assassins, and the families need some awesome last names. Coming up with good character names can be hard, but no worries! Here are four creative last name generators for the writer in all …
Hey, book friends! I hope you guys had an amazing weekend 🙂 The week ahead is full of Christmas hustle and bustle for me, and I’ve loved seeing all of your beautiful holiday-themed posts on Instagram. I wanted to give you guys a little story gift, too. I had such a great time putting together …
Brains are weird. We get all ready to write, and we even know the kind of story we want (swords! sorcery! fantasy realms!). But the minute we go to hammer something out on our laptops, we get stuck. Ugh! Not to worry–sometimes you just need a little warmup to get your brain on board 🙂 …
With so many magical stories in North America alone, I knew my books had to have some Mexican myths thrown into the mix! While I was weaving the latest danger into Devil’s Den, I stumbled into some really cool Youtube videos where people are speaking Nahuatl (historically known as the Aztec language). In fact, over …
Finn was really cute and I love the name, too! —@lifeofpages_ Yes! I was so happy to see this comment in a reader’s review of Murmur. Good names are so important, don’t you agree? (Also, geez—I can only imagine what it’s like to name a real-life baby. So much brainstorming.) Here’s the low-down on how I …
When I was four years old, I had a phase where I really liked dressing up in different outfits and then changing them again after 20 minutes. Life was short, man! How else was I going to wear ALL THE THINGS? (I would also pretend to be Vanna White on the show Wheel of Fortune. …
Where did you get the inspiration for the Murmur books? A reader sent in the question above, and I think it’s an especially awesome question for fantasy fiction books. Where do all of these pieces come from? For me, I think the ideas for the Wildheart books draw from a couple of wells of inspiration: …
Hello, bookish friends! I have to confess–winter is a tough time for me to stay motivated. I mean, the freezing cold alone makes me want to curl up in a blanket and hibernate until spring. And when the work stress and sniffling sick co-workers got to be too much this week, I knew I needed …
Hello, bookish friends! Here’s a rough draft excerpt from a Finn/Will story I’m working on..hope you enjoy! ****** Forbidden to shift at home, Finn turns to biker’s son Will Branson for help. Will takes Finn to Jack Corbin’s house. Making friends is hard. ****** It took two seconds for Finn to ruin everything. He hadn’t …