A look behind the processes. Writing, worldbuilding, planning.
There’s a particular kind of person who moves through the world differently than most people do. Not dramatically differently — not in a way that announces itself or draws attention. It’s subtler than that. It’s in the way they read a room when they walk into it. The way they position themselves in a space…
The Short Version: Fantasy has no shortage of fighters. What it has very little of is martial artists. The difference matters more than you might think. The Longer Version:Pick up almost any fantasy novel and you’ll find someone who fights. They swing a sword, they dodge a blow, they win or lose based on the…
The Short Version: An ancient practice rooted in Buddhist tradition, adopted by some of history’s most enigmatic warriors, and capable — in the hands of a dedicated practitioner — of producing results that are, to put it simply, extraordinary. The Longer Version: If you’ve spent any time around martial arts, particularly the older Japanese traditions,…
The Short Version: I’m not the most creative person in the room. I’m the one who takes what’s already in the room and rebuilds it into something new. It turns out that’s exactly the right skillset for building fictional worlds, at least to some extent. The Longer Version: When people find out I’m writing a…
The Short Version: A role-playing game, a retainer check, a laptop, a tragedy, fifteen years of an idea knocking on the inside of my skull, and one student who finally kicked the door open. The Longer Version: If you want to understand where The Nine Cuts came from, you have to go back to the…