The Music of Styx!

Last week, I received a special treat. A reader, Aaron V., sent me musical compositions he had written that were inspired by my books! All authors dream of getting fan art, but fan music is more than I ever hoped for! With Aaron's permission, I thought I'd share his compositions with all of you:

The Mysterious Side of Delilah

Tea Medley

Miscellaneous Styx Excerpt

Miscast Spells Excerpts

Styx Theme

Delilah's Theme

Why I'm Running Off to Become a Hermit

Okay, okay, so I'm not really running off to become a hermit, no matter how much I want to, but I am doing the modern-day, cyber equivalent. Let me explain.

Last week I got up early, opened my curtains for probably the first time in several months, and sat in the sun, typing up a blog post. A thought hit me: "Wow, it's so quiet!" It was warm enough that the heater was momentarily off; no music or videos were playing in the background, no one was talking. It was so peaceful, so non-distracting. I got a lot of writing done that morning, because I could actually focus on writing, rather than noise.

Magic by Any Other Name

I, like most fantasy writers, think a lot about magic. I mean, a lot. I love thinking about different magical systems and how they work, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how they can be employed to make the coolest story possible. Dark magic, light magic, elemental magic, you name it. Magic cast with wands, or words, or motions. Magic that comes from special creatures or from the hearts or minds of humans. I love magic. What I don't love is when writers have weird hang-ups about magic.

The most notorious example of this is when a character says something along the lines of "It's not magic, it's bending/semblance/alchemy/etc." I assume this is an attempt by the writers to make their magic system seem more interesting and original, despite the fact that it's clearly magic with a different name. I wouldn't mind this, except that by coming out and stating "it's not magic", you're acknowledging that your setting has the concept of magic. So... what exactly is the distinction between "totally-not-magic" and, you know, regular old magic?

Thoughts on Slice of Life

A frequent lamentation of many writers is, “I have all these characters, but no plot!” or “I’ve come up with this awesome world, but have no story!” Though this may cause trouble if you really wanted to tell a gripping and exciting tale from the get-go, I don’t think it’s necessarily a problem in and of itself. This is because not all stories need a plot, or at least what many people might consider a plot. These stories focus on the small moments of life and relationships, and fall under the genre umbrella of slice-of-life.

When a Plot Hole is Not a Plot Hole (or, at Least, When It Doesn't Matter)

Much like 45 million other people, I have recently viewed Bird Box. I also watched The Ritual and re-watched A Quiet Place. All of this got me thinking about the horror genre, yet again, but it’s too soon for another “Thoughts on Horror” post. Thankfully I also watched a Youtube video about world building in the Divergent series, which gave me an idea for a more far-reaching analysis not just of horror, but of genre and plot holes in general.