Daniel R. Marvello's Blog, page 7

Guest Post: The Magic System of Marsha A. Moore's Enchanted Bookstore Legends

One of my favorite things about reading magical fantasy is seeing how the author puts together a magic system. A magic system is more than just a way to explain how magic works: it's an integral part of the tale that strongly influences the sociology of the story world and the motivations of the individual characters.

Today, Marsha A. Moore is stopping by to share her magic system with us here on the Vaetra Files. I met Marsha through the Magic Appreciation Tour, and I'm glad I did. I love r...

Book Character Trading Cards

First, I'd like to say congratulations to the two winners of my first Goodreads giveaway for Vaetra Unveiled! The books have been shipped and are on their way as I type this.

Now, on to my title subject...

I recently joined an online conversation about book character trading cards. Yep, it's just what it sounds like: trading cards for book characters, done in the sports card tradition. The romance genre already has a nice site appropriately named Romance Trading Cards that lists authors and t...

Vaetra Unveiled Book Giveaway

I'm doing my first book giveaway over on Goodreads. The Kindle edition of Vaetra Unveiled has been doing so well that I decided to celebrate by giving away two autographed copies of the paperback edition. The giveaway ends on October 11, 2012. It only takes a moment to enter, so don't delay!

Enter the Vaetra Unveiled Giveaway

I hope you win!

Sharing my writing makes it real

This morning at breakfast, I was unreasonably pleased to see a thin stack of stapled paper across the table from me. The top sheet was titled "Vaetra Untrained, Part 1." My wife's thin scribbles decorated the margin down the page with her reactions and comments. You see, my wife is my "alpha" reader. Not even my beta readers get to see my work until after she has gone over it.

My flush of pleasure came from the fact that seeing my wife's notes on printed copy meant Vaetra Untrained was finall...

Defending the Integrity of the Book Review System

My little corner of the Internet has been awash lately with news and opinions related to a few famous authors who have been "busted" for using reviews questionably. The commentary has ranged in tone from outraged to unconcerned.

What happened is that a few authors have admitted to, or were proven to be, engaging in the following behaviors:

Paying for positive reviews of their books Using "sock puppet" (false) accounts to write positive reviews of their own books Using sock puppet accounts to...

It might be time to try something new

The Magic Appreciation Tour has a new feature called Magic Appreciation Blog Tours (MABT), and I'm pleased to be the first author to host a blog post for it. Today's guest post is from Cynthia Ravinski who I met when she joined the MA Tour in July.

As fate would have it, I had just been thinking through some ideas for the MABT when Cynthia contacted me about doing guest posts on specific dates in September. I told her about my ideas for the MABT, and she helped me refine them. On August 31, t...

Surprise Discovery about My Audience

I recently got a nice message from a fellow author on Kindleboards.com who told me a cute story. Her 12-year-old son came to her with a list of books he wanted to get. He proposed a point system for his school grades, whereby he would earn books in trade for points. She shared this personal event with me because the future Vaetra Chronicles novels were on her son's list.

This is the kind of story I live for as a writer. We put our books out there into the world, and we never really know what...

Location Lore: The Portal Keep

Vaetra Unveiled introduces an unusual location known as the Portal Keep. The Portal Keep came about when I decided that I needed a method for long distance travel. Allowing sorcerers to teleport (or "apparate" for Harry Potter fans) just didn't feel right for my vision for how vaetra (life-force magic) works in the Vaetra Chronicles. As you'll see in the forthcoming second book Vaetra Untrained, I now have two methods of long distance travel, but both depend heavily upon substantial physical...

I'm not a faster writer yet

I came to a hard realization this week: Vaetra Untrained is definitely not going to be released on my intended schedule of "Mid 2012." As it turns out, Vaetra Untrained (Vaetra Chronicles, #2) is taking as long to write as Vaetra Unveiled (Vaetra Chronicles, #1), so it will be published in about the same time frame, which means it should hit the virtual shelves by January, 2013.

Actually, I'm dedicating more time to writing so I can set a goal of making Untrained available in late December 20...

A World within a World - Guest Post by Will English

I'm pleased to be hosting a guest post by fellow fantasy author Will English this week. We exchanged posts as part of the Summer 2012 Magic Appreciation Tour. Will has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Magic Appreciation Tour, for which I'm grateful.

In his guest post, Will explores ways that video games can help fantasy authors improve their world building skills. I found it illuminating. I hope you will too.

A World within a Worldby Will English

I think that video games, more than any o...