When I approached writing my latest novel, Union Station, I wanted to make the magic an interesting part of the story. And so I thought for a long time about how magic works in stories, what other media included interesting systems of magic, and how I could utilize that in my writing.

My latest novel, Union Station, is set largely in the Los Angeles area and much of that is focussed in my hometown, Long Beach, California.

Union Station is the story of Thomas Jackson, a rare books dealer with a secret.

Ahead of the new season of Stranger Things, I have begun to rewatch the series, finishing the first season the other night. It’s solid through and through, but there are some moments in particular that are so beautiful and true, that it got me thinking about the beauty of storytelling and how something dreamy and nostalgic can ringer truer than reality.

I wrote before about the world of Olkhar and my tendency to be a serial world builder. Apparently every couple years now, I create an entirely new campaign world for D&D and telling stories in.

The latest is called Jaga, a world set in a dark age but where the players rapidly learn is built atop the ruins of at least several other civilizations.

I recently read a great independently published fantasy novel, and it got me thinking about other wonderful self or small indy press books.

Walter Bishop is my favorite all time character from television, movies, literature… everything. As a writer I long to write a character who is that much fun. So it got me thinking, why do I like that character so much, what traits does he have in common with other characters I like, and most importantly how would I go about creating a character like that: can it be done intentionally? Aren’t all characters character created with the intent of being a great character?

There is a tradition among my people (writers) of taking to social media before the holidays to remind everyone that books make great gifts.

Since my recent book, Ten for the Ages, contains a mashup of different genres in a fantasy setting, it required it’s own playlist aside from the general Fantasy playlist I sometimes use especially when writing adventures for my D&D Campaigns.

“You know, we used to believe that trees competed with each other for light. Suzanne Simard’s field work challenged that perception, and we now realize that the forest is a socialist community. Trees work in harmony to share the sunlight.”

…the best two fiction books I’ve read this year are The City We Became and The Fifth Season.

What I’ve been thinking about lately though is this: there’s a strange fine line between not being able to write and writing quite a lot.

To quote the giant in Twin Peaks, “It is happening again.”

But it’s a strange thing when you’re level 30, and tasked with defeating the end boss, but the guardsmen are all level 40. Why can’t one of them save the world? They’re wasted guarding the streets of this city with abilities like those.

My younger sister died last week. It was sudden and I’m still in shock and maybe I’ll write about that later, but right now I’m thinking a lot about grief and its effect on creativity.

It turns out I’m a sucker for gamification, and it seems this is a good thing.