We're another episode closer to the finale of Game of Thrones and I'm following up last week's post about ending a story from a writer's perspective. Today, as I'm writing the final pages in my sequel to Headless, I am working to make it a great ending for my readers. There's nothing better than setting …
Category: Novel
Okay… Here’s an Update
What am I doing? In my journal here, I've started posting Japan-related things that tie-in to my novels, thinking that might interest my readers. But it was nearly crickets on my UFO catcher post last week! Maybe I took a wrong turn. So this week I'm just going to give a quick update on what's …

UFO Catchers
Photo by jpellgen (@1179_jp) on Flickr, Creative Commons, some rights reserved When you think of UFO catchers do you think about James Spader in that movie Alien Hunter from 2003? (which I never saw). Or perhaps the new Roswell, New Mexico TV show (which my nephew stars in, by the way!). Do you imagine people …

Fish for Breakfast
Image by murakumo28 on Pixabay When I lived with a family in Yokohama back in 2009, we had fish for breakfast every day. While this is an odd concept for most Americans, and, I expect, most Westerners in general, it’s pretty normal in Japan. Being an island nation, fish is definitely a staple protein. The …

The Snake Woman
Artwork by Matthew Meyer, yokai.com In light of my recent article at Science Fantasy Hub, I thought I would write a bit more about one of the Japanese monsters I use in my book Headless. In Headless, there are three specific monsters that are featured. One of them is from Japanese mythology and the other …

Thanks For Helping!
The promotion to help raise money for my niece to be a student ambassador with People to People is over. I had hoped for better, but I'm grateful for the four sales we got. As you can see by the above graph, I don't make a lot of money on my books yet, which is …

You Can Help My Niece be a Student Ambassador — Today through Valentine’s Day
Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash My niece is raising money to be sent to Europe this summer as a student ambassador with People to People. Since I don't yet have a fat bank account, I am doing the best thing I could think of to help. All proceeds from my Amazon and Audible book sales …
Continue reading You Can Help My Niece be a Student Ambassador — Today through Valentine’s Day

New printing of Headless! What’s changed?
Headless has been out for almost two years now, and it finally has a shiny new cover. And I do mean shiny. This paperback printing is glossy! I think it looks great. Along with the cover, there were some minor changes made to the interior, which are listed below. This is actually the third printing. …

Notes to Myself
A note to myself from the first draft of the Headless sequel, Part 2: Sometimes I've got to get the story out and fill in the fights later. The blacked-out bits are to avoid spoilers. But the fights are something I do enjoy writing very much. Now I get to flesh this particular one out. …

The Thing About Akio
I was talking with a co-worker who was about five chapters or so into Headless, and he compared Akio, one of the two main protagonists, to Hooch from the movie, Turner and Hooch. Hooch is the dog. I have not seen the movie, but I think his comparison is appropriate. He said that Akio is the …