There are a lot of things that influence us as children, things that help to shape us into the people we will become. Friends, family, television (oh, you rotten temptress), religion, and sports, just to name a few.

For me, it was books. Specifically science fiction and fantasy books. They got me through boring afternoons and kept me up too late at night. They took me to faraway (and sometimes imaginary) places and introduced me to people different than myself. As such, I credit books for much of who I am today, for better or worse.

[Dive in...]

Some novels relate the events of a few days, or even less, while others span generations. Yet no matter how long a time period your story covers, there is always something that came before. Those events that impact the storyline are called backstory.

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One sultry evening in the autumn of 2005 while vacationing in Disney World, my wife and I passed a theater. The film playing was Serenity. We had seen a few episodes of Firefly on TV before it was cancelled, so we were familiar with the show. Having nothing better to do, we bought two tickets.

I was enthralled. Before the end credits rolled, I was determined to get the complete first (and only) season of Firefly as soon as possible and catch up on what I had missed.

[To join the Shindig...]

In the last couple years I’ve attended two major conventions, World Fantasy in San Diego (2009) and Dragon Con in Atlanta (2010). This year I decided to dial it back with a slate of smaller local and regional conventions.

My decision was made partly out of financial pragmatism. Big conventions, unless they are held in your hometown, can be expensive to attend. Including airline tickets and three or four nights at a host hotel, you can be talking more than a thousand dollars. Also, I wanted to see how some of the local cons compared.

First, I want to talk about the Big Ones.

[Read more about The Big Ones....]

There are a lot of things I love about writing. The fame, the fortune, the hordes of screaming fans...*cough* Please pardon me as I clean up the soft drink I just snorted through my nose.

Really, writing is both a wonderful and terrible choice for a career, but one of the best parts is an experience so sweet and pure that it truly rivals the other great pleasures in life. No, it’s not the first time you sign a book for your father.

I’m talking about flow.

[To ride the flow, click here...]

The most frequent questions I’m asked at book signing and other public events are about writing and publishing a book. How long does it take to write a novel? Where do you start? And what happens after you’re done? In this blog I’ll cover some of the different aspects of the process from my perspective. I’ll start at the beginning: the story seed.

[To watch the seed grow....]

My earliest attempts at writing fell largely into two categories: emulating my favorite authors, and stories based on roleplaying games. For me it was a natural progression from reading fantasy to roleplaying to writing. My first novels were little more than extrapolations of these mutually-bound activities. (What if Sir Galahad existed in a Gary Gygax world? What if a team of adventurers acted like the characters from Mission: Impossible?) Those novels were (thankfully) never published, but I learned a great deal from them. Let me sum up some of those lessons.

[Focus fire here for more on this...]

I’m sure many of you writers have heard the old adage, “Write what you know.” I have, over and over, but I’ve always wondered, what about us speculative fiction types? Are we supposed to enroll in NASA so we can experience a spacewalk before writing about life beyond Earth’s gravitational field? Should we don suits of medieval armor and traipse across the countryside looking for dragons to slay (and dodging the men in white coats)?

[To see how to avoid a padded room....]

There is a memo stuck beside my computer screen. It’s the only writing advice hanging in my den. Four words in capital letters.

“Character is the story.”

I don’t know if it’s a maxim or an article of faith, but whenever I get stuck in my writing, when I can’t make heads or tails of what I’m trying to say, I go back to the characters. For all the theories about plot and structure, narrative versus dialogue, I don’t give much of a damn about a story if the characters don’t grab me. In fact, characters are usually the first thing I remember about my favorite stories. They’re like old friends.

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Dr. Sheldon Cooper on the television show The Big Bang Theory explains physics as “the study of the universe and everything in it.” Most days, that sounds like my job, too.

As writers, one of our most important duties is to create settings which entertain, enlighten, and (most of all) captivate. In essence, we are asked to do the impossible—to create a fictional world  every bit as nuanced and detailed as the real world. No, strike that. We are tasked with creating a more nuanced and detailed world because many readers pick up our books to escape reality.

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