Recent content by Insolent Lad

There are a vast number of open license symbols/wingdings out there. Some examples can be found on Google Fonts. There's one in the URW++ Ghostscript bundle (the self-publisher's typeface starter kit). There is QT Dingbits. There are a very large number of Manfred Klein offerings from the early...

I'll answer THE one standalone first: The King of Elfland's Daughter, by Lord Dunsany. At least at the time I first read it. The novel showed me there was more than the epics of Tolkien and Eddison and such (though I quite like those), that fantasy could be introspective and thoughtful. If...

A longish bit (a chapter, actually) of which I am somewhat fond, from my children's chapter book, Daisy Days: In the deep cool waters of Placid Pond, Old Pike dreamed. It was a wordless dream, a dream of the dark depths, of sunny surfaces where mayflies danced. It was a dream of memories. Fish...

That's what I write under a...female pen name, that being Sienna Santerre. I really chose to use the pen name there (initially, anyway) because I set it in the time and place I grew up (Naples FL) but once I'd created it for that reason, it also gave me the freedom to be more explicit than in my...

I use a couple pen names, one for rather light SF and the other for somewhat steamy mainstream work. I do not make any real effort to hide who is behind them, in that I consider my 'real' name (which also appears on a bunch of books) to be a created identity as well. That is, Stephen Brooke the...

Many characters are just part of the landscape (or 'furniture,' as Evelyn Waugh called them). They don't need to be distinctive, they don't even need to be remembered, really, and a name, although perhaps unnecessary, makes them a bit more real for the moment they appear.

I'm currently reading an old book of Algonquin myth/folk tales, and people (whether 'normal,' sorcerers, or in some sense divine) are forever shape-shifting into animals and back. And sometimes into trees, mountains, etc. The trickster/god of mischief, Lox, typically becomes a wolverine, but...

Never write down to your audience. Even if they're kids. Don't attempt to psychoanalyze/explain a character's actions. They should speak for themselves. Attempt to limit the number of jokes. Always difficult for me!

I feel a certain sneaky cowardice needs to be an innate feature of the true mustache-twirler. That is one of the things that sets them apart from other villains. When it comes to cartoon/Disney characters, Scar from The Lion King pretty much epitomizes the type.

I moved over to Mastadon (having finally and permanently given up on Xitter a while back), specifically mastodonbooks.net. Yet to see whether it's effective for marketing but the vibe is way, way better.

I occasionally drop in a book cover or a graphic poem or something of that sort but I'm not very ambitious about promoting the writing there. Instagram is mostly where I post pictures of the designs I offer on tees and merchandise, which is an whole other business (though the two overlap...

Anything over 7500 words, I (and others) would categorize as a novelette. Which is, strictly speaking still a short story, just a long one, that can run up to 15,000 or maybe even 20,000 words. That probably isn't what most expect when they ask for a short story.

In my primary mythos, I have a very hard magic system (pretty close to SF) and the only price for those with the inborn ability is that it is physically and mentally demanding, and can lead those without proper preparation to madness (the glimpsing of the infinite other worlds can do that...

Certainly a cold work environment would help. Zombies would not complain about working in freezing temperatures (though they might be even stiffer than usual). Locate your factories in an arctic zone and there is no cost for refrigeration (though shipping might be more costly). Some sort of...

It would help considerably if this is an actual being that manifests for its worshipers. :)