Call of the Creator: Fantasy Writing from a Christian Worldview

This evening, in an effort to get caught up on my 5th grader's science project that is coming due, we spent an hour or so investigating the effect of viscosity on boiling point of a selection of liquids. My son had chosen  four different household substances, all he perceived as having varying levels of viscosity, to boil and measure the temperature at which they did so. One of these chosen substances was vegetable oil. As he measured the oil to pour it into the saucepan and heat, I told him to hold on a second. In all my years cooking, I have never once seen vegetable oil boil. It has smoked. But bubble to a steady boil? Never. So I quickly did a little snooping around on the internet, and soon informed my son he would not be using vegetable oil as one of his subjects. What does all this have to do with fantasy? Or writing? I promise, I'm getting there. I learned in my quick Google search that it could potentially take raising the oil to three hundred degrees (Celsius, m...

So, some of you may be wondering, "Hey, what has you so busy you can't get us our installment of the Windrider serial, you slacker?" And I do apologize that there's been such a gap since last time. Consider this my solemn promise I will have the next episode up and for consumption on January 15th. The thumbnail image above is part of the "other" stuff I've been focusing on. Those of you who traverse the same web-roads I do may already know that Port Yonder Press is going to be releasing a book later this year called The Book of Silvari: An Elven Anthology (sometime during the summer/fall of 2011.) I have been blessed with the honor of providing illustrations for at least one of the stories in this work, particularly, Ruth Mills' excellent fantasy yarn "The Renewal." It has been a great joy working with Ruth to convey a couple of the most cinematic moments in her work...and hey, I can't complain abut having an illustration credit in t...

As I huddle in my trusty dining room chair, bathed in the bluish white glow of the computer monitor, I'm stricken by how much has changed over the past few years...and yet, how much has not. As for what has changed... Three years ago on this night, I wrote the first word of what would eventually grow into The Sword of the Patron , my first novel, which today hunts for a publisher willing to bless it with printed pages to call its own. Like all things that start small and on a whim, my little experiment in storytelling grew and changed. What began as one novel split like a single celled organism and grew into two, when I learned I had far too much story to cram into a first-time novelist's meager pages. Two books then birthed the concept for a third, though this story remains in its infancy while I tend books one and two. Amusing, given that prior to that day in 2007, I had continually told myself I was no writer. That novel I started three years ago has undergone multip...

As I suspected, all things December have made editing the next episode of The Windrider pretty much impossible, so I'm just dropping in here to give a quick update on what's going on in my writing life. November and December generated a couple of rejections for both a short story of mine and my novel, the former which I took quite hard, actually. Why? Because the reasons they rejected the story were spot on. It's hard to hear you gave somebody a peek at your ugly baby...but fortunately, in this case, I have power to make that ugly baby a real looker, if I do it right. For this particular story, I had experimented in writing above my ability in an epic lore style, and little character-driven me just shouldn't write that way. At least not at this point in my journey. So what am am doing about that? I'm attacking that short story, which I believe will be a novella by the time I'm through, to deepen the characters, add a more specific sense of wonder, and hopef...

I'm a subscriber to  David Farland's "Daily Kick in the Pants," and email newsletter that goes out...well, daily...and offers a wealth of practical advice to writers. I've gotten some priceless tidbits of wisdom and motivation from his offerings. Well, today the "Daily Kick" dished up a line that felt more like a kick in the teeth. (No fault of Mr. Farland's...he calls things like he sees them, and he's just being frank without any malice toward me or any other reader.) David Farland said something in just  few little lines that sunk a sword into my gut. He wrote that his agent believes Tolkienesque fantasy to be dead and unsellable. What? I can't help but wonder at the plausibility of this statement, given the number of teens who every day who discover Middle Earth for the first time, and how if you hang around at least the younger readers of fantasy, how there is still a deep, tremulous excitement over worlds populated with elves, dw...

Well, several days have passed since I flew home from the ACFW conference in Indianapolis, so I had better get around to a short reflection on my time there. I know I have said this before, but it bears saying again. If you are a writer...or want to be one... go to a conference! Granted, not just any conference. A reasonably recognized one where they will have top-notch faculty is of course a better use of your time and money. But nowhere but the uncommon setting known as the writer's conference will you learn so much or have the chance ot rub elbows with so many great and influential people as you will on one of these sojourns. At the ACFW conference this year, I had the chance to: Pitch my manuscript to three people who either would never take an unsolicited email from me, or else never would have found that email in the pile of messages that clamor for their attention. Two of these connections resulted in a solicitation of either a full or partial manuscript. Sit under t...

Duchess Delquessa Ildonian leaned against the stone frame of her chamber's window, while her glance roved over the rolling terrain outside the palace. Rain fell in a steady thrum, shrouding the grasy hills and the winding road through them with a silver veil. "Mistress, surely," her waiting maid's voice chided from behind her. "You must pry yourself from that window for a morsel. I worry over your insistent return to that spot, day after day." Delquessa's gaze lingered upon the horizon. "Why sends he no word? Could the campaign stretch this overlong?" "I assure you, I know not, mistress." The maid's footfalls neared. "Who among elves can fathom the minds of men?" Not I, Elyrin, not I." Welcome to a quick excerpt from one of my current projects--a 10,000 word short story I hope to submit for a short story anthology to be produced by  Port Yonder Press this fall. As my new critique group looked over this part...