Blog
Year In Review
My novel started the year at 65,000 words (draft 1.5), increased to 120,000 words (draft 2) to address developmental concerns, and decreased to the current 96,000 words. I feel like it's structurally there and am just looking for things like how many times I've used...
What is the Meaning of Life?
42, of course! Eat well, try to get exercise, make some friends. Something else? You know. The unanswerable question. Fun for the whole family! It's something that I've always been interested in. In college, I signed up for a freshman English course called "The Search...
Music History Novel Research
Felix Mendelssohn. Know him? He wrote Elijah, among other things. Like this: He also has the dubious honor of being singled out as proof that Jews are incapable of true music in Wagner's antisemitic essay on the topic. Fuck Wagner! Mendelssohn's grandfather, Moses...
Writing Process Stuff
Disclaimer: Any writing process that results in finished writing that you're proud of is a valid process! It's also normal that you'll have to experiment with different processes to see what fits. So, when I was at Dragoncon this year, there was a discussion where I...
When can a grrl call herself a bestseller? 😀
So, uh... I intended to have a giveaway on Kobo, Barnes and Noble, and Apple books... but Amazon price-matched me. Hey, I'm cool with that! As a freebie, my book is pretty popular. Like, #4 in Science Fiction Anthologies (Kindle Store) and #10 in Fantasy Anthologies...
What is Mastodon and why should I use it?
I'm so glad you asked! 😀 So, of all the Twitter clones--let's not get into Twitter, shall we?--the current top three are Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads. I don't have a Threads account so I can't speak to whether it's any good or not. Moving right along. Bluesky: I'm...
Immortal Gifts invites readers to re-evaluate the meanings of things such as life, death, freedom, hate and love from the first page. Katherine Villyard manages to capture some of the most poignant questions we ask ourselves as we go through our individual lives. Is it worth being able to live forever if, in the end, we’ll lose the ones we love to mortality? Is Death really the ultimate enemy to life, or is death just life’s misunderstood old friend? To stop hate, do we need to restrict our freedoms? This book makes readers ask and answer tough questions not only about the characters and plotline, but about their own beliefs, understandings, and dreams.