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Nearing the Halfway Point
This week I managed to hit the 40% mark on Alignment, Book II’s first draft. The halfway point is in sight! On average, I’m writing about 1,000 words a day, give or take, which has helped the progress bar continue to advance at a nice pace. It’s crazy to think that by the end of
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Writing Scenes You Hate
Every writer has them, that annoying scene that has to be written despite all attempts to avoid it. For me, they are courtroom scenes. I know there are millions of people out there in the world that love a good courtroom scene, but I am not one of them. I find them void of action.
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2025’s Schedule
Updates and changes are afoot! As you’ve probably noticed, my website has been given another facelift. While it may look rather plain right now, the new look is in preparation to show off the book cover artwork for Awakening once it is finalized. The change also reflects the switch over to making this website the
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Is Writing Fantasy Easy?
I recently saw a comment on a writing community post arguing that the majority of its members wrote fantasy because it was the easiest genre to write. Another commenter suggested fantasy doesn’t require as much research as other genres because you can make everything up. Additionally, someone else added that fantasy doesn’t demand anything from
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Switching Tracks
After much contemplating and deliberation, I have decided to stop querying my debut novel to literary agents and will officially be making the switch to self-publishing. I can say with all honesty that I gave traditional publishing a good try but, in the end, I made the decision to switch for two main reasons: trending
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Into the West
It’s officially gone. Middle-earth News dot com has sailed into the west. It’s a bit surreal to realize all of those interviews and all of the content doesn’t exist anymore. At one point in time, the Twitter account had over 100K followers. Now they’re all gone. When I started the website back in January 2011,
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Should I Take the Plunge?
Tomorrow marks five months since I began querying my debut novel, Awakening. I had decided to try my hand at traditional publishing back in September of 2024, which meant the arduous business of querying literary agents. I meticulously kept track of each query I sent out using a lengthy Excel document that would make anyone’s
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The Next Lesson
As this Saturday draws closer, I can’t help but get excited for the next creative writing class I’ll be teaching. While the first session covered basics like the different forms of creative writing, genres and subgenres, how to stay inspired, and character building, the second session will go into more detail about the actual writing
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Next Gen Authors
I wasn’t sure what was in store for me when I volunteered to teach a three session Creative Writing class to a group of 12-18 years of age teenage girls. Were they showing up just to tick a check on a badge requirement? Did their parents have errands and needed a convenient babysitting service? Would
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A Rough Start
The transition from 2024 into 2025 has not gone as smoothly as I’d hoped. Right before Christmas I contracted E. coli poisoning. I’m not kidding when I say it was the sickest I’ve ever been. It took a solid two weeks to recover during which I missed most of the festive family events. This hit
Arwen McCain 