Frank Frazetta’s Influence

The Frank Frazetta Museum

Frank Frazetta’s paintings showed me that art could be primal and terrifying, portraying an ancient and primitive world, where the terror of the unknown lurked in every shadow. If you stare for a while, his paintings can make you forget that civilization exists, surrendering the notion that you’re protected from those monstrous creatures and cruel gods that tormented early humanity. Read more

Simple Markdown Guide for Writers

Writer writing Markdown

You can learn the basics of Markdown in 5 minutes, so I’ll teach you those basics now. Learn a tiny bit of code to make your life easier. Trust me, this is easy. You’ll likely never want to return to a rich text editor again. Read more

Getting into the minds of characters in historical or speculative fiction

Speculative Fiction Difficulty

For those of us exploring past, future, or speculative worlds, we often go to great lengths to avoid physical anachronisms like cell phones in the wild west, but we don’t often consider philosophical or ideological anachronisms. I find doing so gives me great insight into the human condition I may not have discovered otherwise. More importantly, it strengthens and deepens my characters. Read more