New Roads

Sometimes in life, things change gradually; and sometimes, everything changes at once.

I’m at a point somewhere in between the two, but definitely more towards the “everything’s changing at once” end. All in a good way, though.

I’m not going to go into a lot of detail in this post, but here are a few of the things that are changing in my life right now: I’ve done some major revising of my writing goals that I set a mere month ago at the beginning of the year, I’m getting ready to publish my first novella, and I’m moving. And apparently I thought that doing all of these at the same time would be a good idea.

So, nothing bad, and nothing truly earth-shattering in the grand scheme of things. But still, enough to keep me on my toes. I will keep blogging, Tweeting, and building my brand, though, because I want to continue adding value to my readers and connecting with people all over the world.

I’m excited about following these new roads, and I hope you’ll come along for the journey!

Homophones: Some Commonly Misused Words

Homophones are words that sound the same but are spelled differently. English is full of these little confusing gems, which can cause people a lot of difficulty when it comes to the written word. Spell check likely won’t catch homophones, because the word you’ve used is spelled correctly, but is just the wrong word for the sentence. Here are a few homophones that often cause a lot of confusion:

Principle/Principal

Principle: an accepted code of rules, like the principles of mathematics, or a person who has strong moral principles.

Principal: first and foremost, or highest in rank, like the principal of a school.

Peek/Peak/Pique

Peek: to take a quick look, like peeking around the corner.

Peak: a summit or the top, like a mountain peak.

Pique: to provoke an emotion or reaction, like to pique his curiosity. Continue reading

Creating Fantasy Creatures: It’s Okay to be Unoriginal

Everybody loves Hobbits and Thestrals and Wookies.

A Thestral from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

A Thestral from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

What do these creatures all have in common? They are unique to their particular stories or worlds (as in Middle-Earth, the Harry Potter series, and Star Wars, respectively). It’s fun to read about (or watch) new creatures in fantasy stories, and it’s just as fun to create them. Inventing the name for your new creature, what the adults look like versus what the babies look like, culture and language, what they eat, where they live. All of these are important world-building tasks, especially if you’re inventing a new species from scratch. We all want to be original and have our fantastical races stand out in the fantasy-creatures crowd.

But I’d like to make the argument that it’s okay to be unoriginal – at least to start with. Thousands of years of human culture has given us hundreds of amazing and creative creatures in mythology and folktales from around the world. Continue reading