“Full contact,” the instructor says. My gloves and pads are on, my opponent is a black belt, and the wall is lined with watching students – his friends, not mine. I’m the only foreigner here, and as I look around, that knowledge hits me with renewed force. I suddenly wish I hadn’t trained quite soRead the full article
Let me kick off with a message sent to me by a reader, Garrett Kidd. (Used with permission): “Descriptions of martial skills have become so fanciful that they make up the majority of the fantasy in the book. It’s difficult to immerse yourself in a book when such a critical aspect has been done wrong.”Read the full article
As with anyone who writes a series, I receive quite a few questions about progress which I try to answer as best I can, but I thought it would be helpful to post something with a bit more detail the actual process of writing. The process itself isn’t the main reason why the second bookRead the full article
A most enjoyable interview with a fellow writer, now friend, Davis Ashura. Davis: Today, I get to interview Jonathan Renshaw, author of the fantastic Dawn of Wonder, the first volume of his planned Wakening series. But before we get to your book, Jonathan, let’s talk about what you’ve done in the past. There is an old wives’Read the full article
Sometimes you read things in novels that you know are just impossible, especially when you have some experience in that field. Running into something like that can make it a lot more difficult to lose yourself in the story. After completing the chapter on Torval’s bow (the bow made in a day with only aRead the full article
The sequel to Dawn of Wonder is getting underway. The time needed to complete it will depend largely on the length which, at this point, is unknown. The sequel should have many similarities to the first book, but there is more urgency to this part of the tale, as anyone who as read the firstRead the full article
I’ve found that the two expressions – music and story – seem to flow from each other and inspire each other. They move the emotions in different ways, but to equal depths. Given that relationship, I thought it might be nice for readers to be able to feel something of what I felt while writing.Read the full article
A few people mailed, asking how one approaches the business of creating languages, so I decided to share something of my experiences. Firstly, I should point out that while it would have been fun to construct a few complete languages with functional vocabs, it would also have been as useful as varnishing the inside of aRead the full article
About ten years of part-time and two years of full-time writing are done. Dawn of Wonder, book 1 of the series The Wakening, is ready to see the light – at last! Over the years, the entire plot and most of the characters were discarded and reinvented numerous times, but with every reinvention the landscapes and culturesRead the full article