Recent content by Miles Lacey

I just borrow words from Maori, Tahitian, Hawai'ian and Tongan. The island the story I'm writing is set in is Pounamu. Pounamu is the Maori word for greenstone. The enchanted magical rock the island is famous for is called pounamu and the indigenous people are called the Pounamu. The highest...

I do about 95% of my reading sitting on the toilet. I would conservatively guess about three thousand books over a lifetime. These days my eyesight isn't great so I don't read as much now.

The idea for this law was inspired by this: https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-demand/video/jimmy-kimmel-blasts-bill-englishs-pizza/ I used to work for politicians in the New Zealand Parliament. I incorporated a lot of the more "unorthodox" behaviours of those politicians into my work in progress.

I work in an Italian restaurant so I am well and truly cured of any desire to see, eat or read about pizza in any way, shape or form but I can't see any reason why you can't have pizza in your novel. I eat quite a lot of Indian food because I work next door to an Indian takeaway that makes...

It is possible that AI has come up with better story ideas than the original poster but it's not who - or what - comes up with a better story idea that matters. It's how those story ideas are executed that matters. Your imagination and storytelling skills will bring those story ideas to life...

To me AI is a tool, nothing more. Like any tool it can be used for good or bad. A hammer can be used to hammer nails or pull them out. It's also good for bashing things with, including people. I did write a 15,000 word story using AI not so long ago. It was to see what it came up with. It...

I had a calendar that had 13 months made up of 28 days, divided into four weeks of 7 days and a stand alone day for New Year's Day. Every four years there was a second New Year's Day that was called something along the lines of Leap Day. The day(s) of the New Year was marked by major...

Keep it simple. Only add detail if something deviates from what would be expected, it's vital to the story that we have those details or if it's the observation of a character during a quiet period.

Zen Cho is based in Birmingham in the United Kingdom but the book was published in the United States. It was written in English except for the dialogue which was written in Manglish. If she wanted to boost her sales having a glossary for the Manglish words would've achieved the same result...

It may seem as if the author of Black Water Sister has made the main character lesbian so she can sell a few extra books but that isn't the case. The author of the book is Malaysian and her intended audience are people from southeast Asia, in particular Malaysia. Considering that being LGBT+...

Just one thing to keep in mind when looking up population figures for a city in 1900. The boundaries of the city in 1900 may not be the same as now so it would be a good idea to check what was, or wasn't, part of that city in 1900 as opposed to now. For example, in 1900 Berlin had an area of...

I have non-white characters because my WIP is set on a tropical island and I happen to find creating cultures based on those of southeast Asia and the Polynesian islands (which are much closer to home than Europe and North America) more interesting than those based on European cultures. As for...

Here are some of the road blocks I've faced over the years: 1. Past experience of publishing stuff that was trashed by others. 2. Reading too many "How to write..." guides. 3. Reading too many mind-blowing examples of great first lines and first paragraphs. 4. Being intimidated by fantasy...

Mythology is how groups explain things from why the length of daytime varies during the course of a year to why a woman having her period is considered unclean. Below are a few examples of how I've introduced mythology into my writing without an infodump or a "As you know..." introduction...

There are countries in which English is widely spoken where the Abrahamic faiths are not the major religions. In India Hindus use capital first letters when they refer to categories of deities as well as the deities themselves when writing in English. Matters are further complicated by the use...