L. MacNaughton's Blog, page 20
October 12, 2014
Ask an Author: World Building and Exposition
Ever wanted to know how a science fiction or fantasy author builds an imaginary world? Authors like J.R.R. Tolkien, Stephanie Meyer, J.K. Rowling, Frank Herbert, William Gibson and scores of others are renowned for the worlds they’ve created. What makes them so intriguing? I’ve been invited to join a handful of other authors at MileHiCon […]
October 10, 2014
+5 Toolbox of Nerdly Awesomeness
Last Christmas, my trouble-making brother got me hooked on the new Pathfinder fantasy card game. (The best part: it’s cooperative. You and your friends work together to try to beat the deck. Plus, you can play the same character every game, gaining greater powers over the course of a long ongoing story arc. Really neat.) We play […]
September 29, 2014
The Myth of the Peaceful Writer’s Life
I know so many writers who claim that they need absolute silence in order to write. I used to be one of them. As I write this, we’re having a hardwood floor refinished in the room directly above my office. If you’ve never had a floor redone, I envy you. You probably still have your […]
September 15, 2014
Win The Spider Thief paperback from IndieHouseBooks.com!
You could WIN a free paperback copy of The Spider Thief: Omnibus from IndieHouseBooks.com! Click here to enter. > IndieHouseBooks.com: The Spider Thief begins with a con artist suffering amnesia. That’s an unusual choice for thriller. What made you want to write it? Laurence MacNaughton: This might sound crazy, but it really happened. Not too far […]
September 12, 2014
Andres held the long pistol steady . . .
“The gold spider,” Andres said in a resonant Spanish accent. “Her power will belong to me.” The crisp mountain air washed over Ash like a torrent of cold water. It whispered across waves of tan grass, carrying the scent of old pines, making him feel alive again. The porch boards creaked as the gunmen crowded […]
August 10, 2014
The Short, Sad Saga of Mississippi Jones
Some names stick with us. Bridget Jones, Holden Caulfield, Nero Wolfe — these names are all indelibly stamped into our literary consciousness. Those names are evocative. Memorable. Unique. Some writers are incredibly good at coming up with names. I am not one of them. Left to my own devices, I end up naming characters things […]
July 8, 2014
How to Create Your First Booktrack (and Get 2,000 New Readers)
When I first heard about Booktrack.com from my literary agent, Kristin Nelson, I was fairly skeptical of the idea. Ebooks with music and sound effects, really? But then I tried the Booktrack of the short story Dagon by H.P. Lovecraft. I’ll be honest—I was blown away. Hearing the waves lap against the side of the castaway’s lifeboat, hearing his […]
July 1, 2014
The Spider Thief is FREE This Week!
Who else loves free ebooks? The fine folks over at Freebooksy.com hand-picked The Spider Thief as a featured title today, so I might as well brag a little bit . . . AND give away a bunch of ebooks! Free on Amazon.com today. The Spider Thief: Omnibus collects all four of the original novellas into one […]
June 18, 2014
BookGoodies.com: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
I once got to hear Orson Scott Card talk about his writing method. He went on at great length about how the voices of his characters talked to him. The voices told him to do this, he said, the voices told him to do that. As he droned on endlessly, a friend leaned over to […]
June 11, 2014
The Weird Thing You Didn’t Know About Amazon UK
Did you know that book reviews on the Amazon UK site don’t appear on the regular Amazon.com site? That means any book can have two entirely separate sets of reviews. You have to admit, there’s something slightly weird about that. But it’s good to know that our friendly neighbors across the pond are enjoying The Spider […]
