Novels
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“It wasn’t a case of storming heaven. It was a case of letting heaven storm you.” “The Curse of Chalion” by Lois McMaster Bujold Reading through The Curse of Chalion, a tale about a soldier who finds a second life as a saint and secretary to a cursed princess, I came to a striking revelation:…
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“No one ever really gets used to nightmares.” “House of Leaves” by Mark Z. Danielewski House of Leaves is one of those books that has showed up on countless recommended reading lists in my life that, for whatever reason (most likely because it was on so many recommended readings lists), I never got around to…
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I can think of very few tests to your will as a writer than transcribing your written draft into a typed one. Having about three different projects for which I have filled up entire notebooks already, I decided it was time to get a jump-start on the typing portion of my writing by going ahead…
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One of the skills I’ve been trying to cultivate this year is the ability to keep plowing through a manuscript, even if I’m not “feeling it.” The most important thing is that I’m still writing toward an end point; making it perfect and improving it can wait for the edits. I’ve found that I’m very…
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“Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.” –George Orwell. Though I’ve seen this quote many times before, it’s only just now that it truly strikes a chord with me. I stumbled upon it in a recent post over at Invisible Ink, and I just had to…
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One of the most notable after-effects of a trip to the Art Institute is that it never fails to inspire me to try my hand at art again. Now, writing has always been an obvious choice for me. I love it, I’m fairly good at it, I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life.…
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Quite often, especially lately, especially in the insanity that is being upper management for retail during the hoilday season, I find myself wishing on thing more than others. I wish I could be a faster writer. At the start of this year, when I really started to cling to the idea of self-publishing and really…
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Last night, I realized that I’ve been reading an awful lot of political fantasy lately. I’ve got Melanie Rawn’s The Ruins of Ambrai for one, Terry Pratchett’s The Truth for another, and, most influential of all, George R. R. Martin’s A Feast for Crows, which is easily the most political of the Song of Ice…
L.S. Engler 