Horses are legends of fiction. Novels such as Black Beauty and movies such as Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron have graced the storytelling market for years. And horses are almost always the preferred mode of transportation when it comes to fantasy novels (except, of course, when there are dragons). But over the years, something began […]

Family.  The mere word has the power to create a multitude of feelings—hope, excitement, frustration, love, anger, and a whole barrage of memories and mixed emotions.  And this is exactly the power that writing strong family relationships can have. The characters that you weave together and craft are influential, sparking emotion in your readers and […]

Imagine your best friend. The person that makes you laugh and cry and do crazy things that you wouldn’t do with anyone else. The person who had the most influence on you as a person. The person who impacted your life most, or who you would be totally different without. And now imagine your life […]

Have you ever read or watched The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings and thought, “Wow, the man who penned this was a true master at his craft”?  Maybe you’ve wondered how you can write like J.R.R. Tolkien: make scenes memorable, characters engaging, and weave themes naturally through your stories. If you’ve asked these […]

Have you ever poured your heart and soul into writing a scene, spent hours polishing it to perfection, and then sent it off to a group of readers who immediately skim that section?  Yeah, me too.  It’s easy to play it off and blame it on the “writer brain” which always seems to get attached […]

Writing romance is one of those big writing topics that everyone talks about. And yet actually writing it well isn’t so easy. If writing Jane Austen-worthy romance and relationships that leave fandoms squealing about it for years was easy, everyone would be doing it. And writing strong romantic relationships is so much more than just […]