Creative Writing with the Crimson League

May 3, 2024

Dialogue that I love has these characteristics

I generally love great dialogue more than just about anything else in a story, especially as a viewer (I love classic Hollywood movies for the dialogue!) and as a reader. While there is plenty of action in Herezoth, my novels tend to be dialogue-heavy because dialogue is my strength as a writer (as I’ve been…

May 2, 2024

Thankful Thursday: Thankful for family time

As I write this, I’m preparing for a second celebratory (birthday) get-together with my family in one week. So I am grateful for that time with the people I love and who love me. I am thankful that they are in my life. I am thankful that they care about me, and check in on…

May 1, 2024

My least favorite things about KDP Select

Yesterday was the positive. Today, the negative. I’m happy, as an author, to be enrolled in KDP Select, and I don’t have any plans to disenroll at this time. That said, there are things I don’t like about it. The main thing I don’t like is the Countdown Deal–the option to lower the price of…

April 30, 2024

My favorite things about KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited

As an indie author, I’m enrolled in KDP Select. My favorite things about KDP Select from Amazon fall into two categories. For those who don’t know, KDP Select is a program that authors can enroll in for a three-month period, then either renew or cancel. Basically, Amazon gives you some things in exchange for making…

April 29, 2024

Character Spotlight: August Hincken

August is one my favorite characters that I’ve written about. She comes so far and she grows and learns so much over the course of The Magic Council: The Fight for Home. I love August on her own, for her own sake. And I love her with Vane. She doubts herself a lot. She tends…

April 28, 2024

I’m glad I watched the “Lord the Rings” movies before I read the books

I started college in 2003–right before Peter Jackson’s “The Return of the King” came out in theaters. That year, my college friends introduced me to Middle Earth via the first two films before the last one came out. I don’t know how I had never given Tolkien any attention in high school. I should have.…

April 27, 2024

How I craft my characters

I admit that the title of this post is a bit like clickbait, because the answer is: I don’t feel like I “craft” my characters at all. For the most part, they just come to me as who they are–what they look like, their backgrounds, their way of talking, their temperaments and personalities. All of…

April 26, 2024

Busy times, blessed times, are times of spiritual struggle

I have always found that times of great blessing, success, and fruitfulness are sometimes times of the greatest spiritual struggles. It’s on my mind now, because I have a lot of beautiful milestones coming up in my author career, and I’m not surprised to be feeling the blahs a bit. “Is this all there is?”…

April 25, 2024

Thankful Thursday: Author Life Goal MET! Y’all, I want to cry right now (as I write this days in advance of publication)!

Let me set the scene . . . I was out of high school, waiting to start my freshman year of college, reading “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” for the first time. There’s a scene where a bunch of characters come to take Harry away from the Dursley’s. (Spoiler ahead if you…

April 24, 2024

Sing, even if it’s off key. It brings hope.

I firmly believe that music is the cry and the call of the heart. I really love a beautiful song called “Simple Song” by Better than Ezra. It starts like this: Floating off adrift through outer space High above the ruins of a suicidal race When somewhere from below there came a song. And suddenly…