Taylor Hohulin's Blog, page 4

The Cloud – Cover Reveal

When the bomb dropped, everything changed.

Even worse than the mountains of salt where oceans used to be, worse than the armies of mercenaries, worse than HydroSystems Worldwide’s rise to power, was the Cloud.

In the area closest to the bomb’s blast, the very fabric of reality has been damaged. The poison air can steal a person’s humanity, even as it gives great power. The Cloud is home to a deadly cult and nightmarish creatures, and it is fifteen-year-old Ethan Denby’s only hope of surviva...

Progress Bars and Horrific Drama

This is a picture ofone of my favorite features in the software I use to write.It tells me how much progress I’m making toward my overall word count goal, as well as how close I am to my dailygoal. I enjoy watching those bars grow, little by little, until I have a completed novel in front of me.

Lately, though, the bars have been taunting me.

They’re moving much more slowly than I’m used to. You can see in the top bar that I’m just over 4,000 words into my new project, which isn’t too shabby...

Fossils, Idea Jenga, and Space Eels

Ideas are weird things.

First, there’s the question of where they come from. People ask artists all the time how they come up with the stuff they come up with, and by and large, the answer is just an eloquent version of “Darned if I know.” You can’t go to the idea store and pick something out. You just have to hope something comes to you and that you see it for what it is when it does.

Then there’s the question of what you do once you get an idea. It feels like you’re dealing with something s...

The Best Stomachs

One of the first things I told my college roommate was that I liked really weird music.

It wasn’t a warning. I wasn’t telling him he might want to get some earplugs for when I started cranking my homework playlist. I wasn’t even apologizing ahead of time for what he’d have to listen to, since I obviously couldn’t wear headphones.

No, I was bragging. My love of weird music wasa badge of honor.

I cranked my Saviour Machine albums, partly because I thought they sounded cool, but mostlybecause th...

Stitching The Moments Together

Earlier this year, I wrote about somethingI call thetime discrepancy. You can read the wholebloghere, but the gist of it is that I end up spending way more time writing my stuff than anybody does reading it.

Take this blog, for example. I spent a few days trying to figure out the best way to make the point I’m going to make, and it was hours before I couldfigure out how to start the darn thing. We won’t even talk about how much time I spent writing, deleting, rewriting, debating comma placeme...

Here’s Something I Definitely Didn’t Write

I want to tell you about something I definitely didn’t write. Here’s a picture of it:

Thisdefinitely wasn’t inspired by J. A. Konrath’s 8-hour ebook challenge.

I definitely didn’t write it on weekends and when I needed a change of pace, with the sole purpose of having fun and making myself laugh.

It’s about a pizza delivery guy who is also the lead guitarist of a pretentious metal band and accidentally absorbs a god and becomes a superhero. There are illustrations.

It’s available on Amazon r...

Christian Music Roundup – October 2015

I need to have a word with all these Christian musicians. These guys are doing an awful job of evenly distributing their releases. I could’ve done this entire post just on albums that came out the last weekend of October, and it would’ve been a solid list of albums. Two of the albums in my list this week are from October 30, and one is from October 31.

Seriously, Christian music. Get it together. I listened to, like, eight different albums this weekend. That’s a lot. If you’re going to jam pa...

Your Art Betrays You

One of my favorite songwriters of all time is Terry Scott Taylor. He’s one of those guys who isn’t widely known, but the people who do are familiar with his workhold him in very high regard.His main project is a band called Daniel Amos, but he’s also sung and written for The Lost Dogs, The Swirling Eddies, and probably a smattering of other bands I’m not even aware of.

Terry’s lyrics are often hard to decipher. They’re filled with metaphors and allusions to various semi-obscure theologians an...

Christian Music Roundup – September 2015

September was an insane month for new music. Usually I end up withone or two albums each month that are worthy of being highlighted that I have to leave off for the sake of space, but not this month. This month, I had four.

And they were all pretty solid albums.

When four highlight-worthy albums get bumped from your top five, you know it’s been a good month. So if you want to see the five albums that made the cut, check out the column I did over at JesusWired here.

I recently learned that thi...

From Finishing to Fumbling

Almost 30,000 words later, I think I’m finally back in rough draft mode.

I started writing the conclusion to the Marian Trilogy a couple months before I released The Hunted, but it was slow going. At the time, I chalked it up to my attention being split: I was drafting one book while polishing and promoting another. It was going to be hard to get much of anything written as long as I had another project so close to publication.

But then I published The Hunted, and even after the post-release...