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On Writing

Happy Anniversary, Loser

Today marks the 12th anniversary of my first ever book publication. It comes at a pretty crappy time in my life. You can tell by the lack of activity here that I haven’t done much in recent… couple of years. At least not on the public side of things. I write this while riding the tail end of COVID and taking stock of what the hell I’ve been doing with my time. It’s not an easy answer. It’s also not something I find easy to share. In many ways, it feels like admitting defeat, when I’m still here, fighting the good fight. Just in a different way.  So WTF happened? Short answer: I burned out. Slightly longer answer: I burned… Read More »Happy Anniversary, Loser

Origins (or How Alianne Became a Writer)

Hello, hello! *taps mic* Is this thing working? It’s been a while, so…  Okay, first thing: If you didn’t know, production has finished on the Prince of Deceit audiobook and it’s now available wherever you get audiobooks. It’s so amazingly done by the talented Charlie Sanderson, who also narrated Dragonblood. You can check out the sample below. With this, the Dawn of Ragnarok series is well and truly finished. 🙂 It’s been a long journey, and I couldn’t be happier with how it’s turned out and where it ended. <3  Now I suppose it’s time to move on. But before I do that, I wanted to look back for a second. I am a huge proponent of “don’t forget your… Read More »Origins (or How Alianne Became a Writer)

It’s Not What You Think: My Epic Writer Fail

In preparation for my two book signings this year, I was forced to notify my day job that I would be gone for a few days and had to endure some obligatory small talk which quickly turned to a question I damn well should know how to answer by now but still don’t: How many books have you written? Intellectually, I know all they wanted to know was how many books I’d published. Because they don’t care about anything not published, and they shouldn’t. There’s a reason why I didn’t publish it, after all. But on an emotional level, I took that question literally and started a futile internal effort to quantify everything I’d ever written since the very first… Read More »It’s Not What You Think: My Epic Writer Fail

Writing Tip: The Right Story is Worth the Struggle

Two things I can tell you about writing fiction: It’s hard work It only gets harder When I say it’s hard work, I mean it takes far more than just jotting down what your imagination dictates. The greater part of writing is rewriting. There are stories that practically write themselves, and once you get to the end and read it again, the plot is pretty much good as is. But then there are stories you agonize over every step of the way. You rewrite them a million times and when you finally get to the end you realize you need to rewrite it a hundred times more. That’s just the nature of the beast. The thing about it is you… Read More »Writing Tip: The Right Story is Worth the Struggle

…as if no one will ever read it

I haven’t done a real blog post here in a long time. Forgive me. Life, work, and other concerns have distracted me from what I enjoy doing most. Truth be told, I haven’t been writing much lately, either, and that hurts me the most. But certain things have happened in recent weeks and months to put me in one of my philosophical moods again, and very much on the defensive. Not of myself (much) but of the creative writer in general. So let me tell you a story or four…

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Back To The Basics

One thing no writing manual will ever teach you is balance. How do you balance your imagination with the business side of things, on top of your other life responsibilities, and do it all without working yourself to madness? I can tell you it’s really, really, ridiculously hard to do–and I have it fairly easy, all things considered.

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The thorn on the rose (and in my side)

I write this post for authors. Forgive me, dear readers, for pulling back the curtain behind which you may or may not want to see. I don’t do it to garner sympathy–I don’t do that–I just think better on paper, so to speak, so this is my way of trying to work through an issue I know other writers share. Maybe someone out there knows of a solution I haven’t thought of yet. Never hurts to ask, right?

Last chance to close the tab before we begin…

Still here?

Cool. 🙂 Read on.

Read More »The thorn on the rose (and in my side)