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January 29, 2015
Book Cover Throwback: CYOAS
This week’s Book Cover Throwback: CYOAS, otherwise known as a Choose Your Own Adventure Series. In particular, Dragonfire by Jody Lynn Nye. The CYOAS folks did two such books set in the the world of Anne McCaffrey‘s Pern:Dragonfire and the other, Dragonharper. (If you’ve never read a CYOAS series, you should at least once. More on them here.)
What I Love about this Cover: It’s youthful theme fits with the CYOAS subgenre. When I was younger, I didn’t care that Anne didn’t write this book hersel...
January 28, 2015
The First 30 Days
Important!
I’m posting this two days before Day 30 because I have a guest author on Friday. I don’t like doubling up posts like that, so we’re going to pretend that January 28th is January 30th. I don’t feel like this topic gets covered enough, so I wanted to take the opportunity cover it honestly and bluntly, for myself and others.January 1st, 2015 was The Day–the day I officially donned the title “Published Author,” and all that goes with it.
30 days later, there are moments when it doesn’t...
January 26, 2015
Monday Night Gaming: Fate Reforged
This week’s Monday Night Gaming: Fate Reforged, the newest expansion for the Magic the Gathering card game.
Normally I cover tabletop games more than I cover something like Magic, but with the new expansion release, I had to tackle it. Especially after I drafted this:
Click image to view larger.
That bad boy is Ugin, the single card in this entire expansion that I wanted. This might not mean much to those who don’t play Magic, but let’s put it this way, this card is worth about $30 all by himsel...
January 24, 2015
Scrivener Saturday – Using Targets
This week’s Scrivener Saturday - Using Targets.
With everyone covering keywords, snapshots, & other options, I feel like targets are easily overlooked, and yet they are quite powerful on their own. In Scrivener, there are two types of targets: document targets and project targets.
Using the outline view, you can see progress bars for each scene or document:
Click image to view it larger.
Those progress bars come from document targets, which are set using the circular target-button in the bottom r...
January 23, 2015
Flashback Friday Goes Dark Fantasy
This week, Flashback Friday Goes Dark Fantasy. I’m back this week to cover Anne Bishop‘s dark fantasy novel, Daughter of the Blood (The Black Jewels Book #1).
This book wasn’t published until 1998, two years after I graduated high school, but it was still an influential book during my formative writing years.
Anne Bishoptaught me two things about writing:
Don’t pull your punches. Write the story you want to tell, even if it makes the reader squirm.Don’t be afraid to kill and/or torture your char...January 22, 2015
Book Cover Throwback: The Golden Key
This week’s Book Cover Throwback: The Golden Key by Melanie Rawn.
What I Love about this Cover: There isso much going on in this cover by the always awesome Michael Whelan. Layers upon layers in this one.
What I Don’t Love about this Cover: I could wish for less of an orange tint to the entire work.
Click here to view other Book Cover Throwbacks.
The post Book Cover Throwback: The Golden Key appeared first on Raven Oak.
January 19, 2015
Reading Updates
It’s time for some reading updates, as well as updates to what I’m writing, watching, and playing.
With the release of Amaskan’s Blood and the promotion that goes with a book publication, I’m woefully behind on my reading!
I read and finished Hugh Howey‘s book, The Hurricane, which is a sweet little YA book about the role of technology in our lives, especially during natural disasters. I didn’t realize when I bought it that it was YA.
While I mostly read SF/F, I have been known to read and enjoy...
Monday Night Gaming: Discworld
This week’s Monday Night Gaming: Discworld Ankh-Morpork.
Two years ago when we were just getting started in our exploration of tabletop games, we played another Discworld game called Guards! Guards!, which was overly convoluted and annoyingly complex in its rule-set for no other discernible reason than “just because.” Despite enjoying the world of Discworld, I disliked the game and would not play it again, so imagine my skepticism when my husband wanted me to play Discworld Ankh-Morpork.
Oddly...
January 16, 2015
Flashback Friday: Dystopias
For this week’s Flashback Friday, I once again welcome back author, J. L. Forrest, here for a guest post on how dystopias influenced him (and others) as writers.
Two weeks ago, from a science-fiction writer’s point of view, I explored the inherent tension between our society’s technological advancements and our social quagmires. Technology outpaces our legal systems, cultural mores, and collective conscience. We struggle globally with irrationality, superstition, racism, sexism, theism, and ot...
Dreaded Differences
I’m the featured author over on The Oak Wheel today. I’ve also got a guest post entitled, “Dreaded Differences,” which talks about the prejudice I experienced growing up and how it influenced the writing of my upcoming novella, Class-M Exile.
Quote from the article: “Sci-fi allows writers and readers to discuss, to warn, and to contemplate our existence and our purpose.”
It’s a good read. You can check it out here:
https://theoakwheel.wordpress.com/2015/01/16/dreaded-differences/
The post Dreaded...
