Let me tell you a story about good ideas. When I first started teaching developmental editing, I taught a beginning class for a year or two and it became very popular. The sponsoring organization asked me to teach an intermediate class. So I did that. Finally that asked if I could teach another class, again…

People sometimes wonder how someone as feral as I am came to be a writer, which is all about connecting and communicating with other people. For me, the connecting and communicating with others is more of a bug in the process than a feature. I mean I want people to read my books because otherwise…

One of the things I love about Old English* is how it gives you a little bit of insight into how early medieval people thought. Like, there are a lot of names for swords: Beaduscearp (“keen in battle”) and Beadulēoma (“light of battle”), among others. They named their swords the way some people name their…

One of the things that annoys me in series characters is when they start off like the rest of us, living paycheck to paycheck, worried about the bills and how to pay for the car repairs and then halfway through the series they win the lottery and don’t have work anymore. I don’t mind when…

One of the things I have always enjoyed about reading romance is the happily-ever-after. I’m perfectly fine with terrible pain and trauma happening to all of the characters so long as they kiss and hold hands at the end. And as a romance writer I often enjoy figuring out how I’m going to get these…

Once upon a time, the word gramarye (“grammar”) meant magical lore. Over time it took on the meaning of “the set of rules that govern how a language is written and spoken,” but I love that ancient link between language and magic. From the time I was old enough to read I’ve felt the deep…