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Books on Writing
- The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction The book at the heart of all this!
- Writing Monsters Advice for SF, fantasy, and horror authors
- The Best of Fantasy Author's Handbook Volume I, 2009-2013
Buy My Books
- Six Guns & Spaceships Featuring my space opera western story “Rendezes”
- Devils of the Endless Deep My trip into the Fathomless Abyss
- Write to the Cover Featuring my story “Bella Lucky and the Titan of Tarvos”
- Australians, Buy Here! Order from Boomerang Books in Australia.
- The Best of Fantasy Authors Handbook …is now available–58 revised and expanded essays from the first five years of FAH!
- Tales from the Fathomless Abyss The anthology that started it all!
- The Haunting of Dragon's Cliff with Mel Odom, a new sword & sorcery barbarian is born!
- Completely Broken A novel of contemporary horror
- Annihilation My entry in the Forgotten Realms series R.A. Salvatore’s War of the Spider Queen
- A Reader's Guide to R.A. Salvatore's the Legend of Drizzt An essential companion to the greatest hero of the Forgotten Realms world
- I Made a Friend An alternate history/dieselpunk story for your Kindle!
- Morbid Dread of the Dawn Read my story in The Pulp Horror Book of Phobias!
- The Dogs Are In the Alley Again: A new horror story in Jitter #7
- Harbinger Asylum: Published one of my poems!
- The Lighthouse Keeper That Left A new poem in Harbinger’s Asylum!
- MegaTraveller: MANHUNT: Thirty-two years late, but better than never!
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- Celebrity Game Table: A detailed look at my Tegel Manor Campaign from 2003.
- Monsters in D&D, Books, Movies… Dicegeeks Podcast interview with Phil!
- Longwinded One Podcast: Episode 158: Philip Athans: The Years of Phil
- Classic Monsters, Modern Love: How a New Generation of Fans is Keeping the Universal Monsters Alive
- Publisher's Weekly “Is the Universe Expanding or Contracting?”
- Hunting for MANHUNT: The behind the scenes tale of my lost MegaTraveller adventure!
- Inside Storytelling: Writing Monsters, Creatures & Villains
- Porter Anderson vs. Movie Examples: With some nice things to say about my Living Dialogue seminar at the Writer’s Digest conference.
- 10 Questions with…ME! I get grilled by Ryan Schneider.
- SF Signal Mind Meld: Aliens I join other SF/F authors and editors on the subject of what makes a good alien.
- Ask the (Book) Editors: Panel video from 2013 Emerald City Comicon!
- Writer's Digest Guest Blog: How to Make a Vampire Not Suck
- Horror Authors: How to Scare the Heck Out of Your Readers A guest post at The Write Life with practical tips for scaring the crap out of your readers.
- Writer's Digest Interview: On Writing F&SF.
- How To Write Monsters With Philip Athans The Creative Penn Podcasts me!
- Roleplaying Tips: Interviews me!
- The Fanitarium Podcast: Interviews Philip Athans
- How to Create a Magic System: M.S. Farzan and Storyteller’s Handbook features The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction
- How to Write Horror: Reading, Breathing and the Long Sentence (at Writer’s Digest)
- Worldcasting: I join the guys from Worldbuilding Magazine for a chat about… everything!
Past Posts
Tag Archives: jay Lake
ONE OF THOSE WEEKS
Another late blog post this week, though I’ve really been thinking about it all day. I could write about this, I could write about that, I could write about the other thing . . . and though I always like to keep it … Continue reading
Posted in Books, conventions, creative team, Dungeons & Dragons, E-Books, how to write fiction, indie publishing, Publishing Business, RPG, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels
Tagged author, authors, best fantasy novels, Books, creative process, Dungeons & Dragons, e-books, editor, Fantasy, Fiction, genre fiction, jay Lake, Mel Odom, Mike Resnick, Philip Athans, Publishing, Science Fiction, Wizards of the Coast, Writing, writing process
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BUY MY E-BOOKS, PLEASE
Tuesday again, so soon? What to write for this week’s Fantasy Author’s Handbook post? Ideas abound, but this morning I thought, hey, maybe it’s time for a little shameless self-promotion. And it might just kill two birds with one stone. … Continue reading
Posted in Arron of the Black Forest, Books, creative team, E-Books, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, The Fathomless Abyss, transmedia, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, author self-promotion, authors, best fantasy for Kindle, best fantasy for Nook, best fantasy novels, Books, creative process, e-books, e-readers, Fantasy, fantasy author on Twitter, Fiction, genre fiction, J.M. McDermott, jay Lake, Kindle fantasy, Mel Odom, Mike Resnick, Nook fantasy, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, Science Fiction, Writing, writing advice, writing process
6 Comments
NIRVANA GATES AND MY TENDENCY TO AVOID GROUPS
What could these two things possibly have in common? A couple weeks ago, in my class at Bellevue College, we were discussing how characters interact with the world they live in, and we went through an exercise inspired by the … Continue reading
Posted in Arron of the Black Forest, Books, creative team, Dungeons & Dragons, E-Books, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, The Fathomless Abyss, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, Books, Brad R. Torgersen, Cat Rambo, creative process, Dungeons & Dragons, e-books, editor, Fantasy, Fiction, Forgotten Realms, genre fiction, J.M. McDermott, jay Lake, Magic: The Gathering, Mats Minnhagen, Mel Odom, Mike Resnick, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, Science Fiction, Wizards of the Coast, worldbuilding, Writing, writing advice, writing exercises
2 Comments
FALL INTO THE FATHOMLESS ABYSS
It’s up! There’s nothing more satisfying than having a book out there for sale. It’s done. It’s out there. And I’m happy with it. That last bit? That’s the hard part. I’ve written here about some of the trouble this … Continue reading
Posted in Books, creative team, E-Books, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, The Fathomless Abyss, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, Books, Brad R. Torgersen, Cat Rambo, creative process, e-books, e-readers, editor, Fantasy, Fiction, genre fiction, J.M. McDermott, jay Lake, Kindle, Mats Minnhagen, Mel Odom, Mike Resnick, Nook, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, shared world, worldbuilding, Writing, writing advice, writing process
1 Comment
DEVILS OF THE ENDLESS WRITING PROCESS
If you’ve been following Fantasy Author’s Handbook for the past few months, you’ve heard me talk about my love/hate relationship with my current work-in-progress, the Fathomless Abyss novella Devils of the Endless Deep. I started with a report on my … Continue reading
Posted in Books, creative team, E-Books, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, The Fathomless Abyss, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, Books, creative process, e-books, editor, Fantasy, Fiction, genre fiction, J.M. McDermott, jay Lake, Mel Odom, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, Science Fiction, writer's block, Writing, writing advice, writing process
4 Comments
TO SWEAR OR NOT TO SWEAR
Authors have an awful lot to think about when we sit down to write a book or short story (or script, or whatever), and one of those things is audience. Who is it you expect to read this book? Believe … Continue reading
Posted in authors helping authors, authors to writers, best fantasy blogs, best genre fiction blogs, best horror blogs, best science fiction blogs, best websites for authors, best websites for writers, Books, Dungeons & Dragons, fiction writing blog, fiction writing websites, help for writers, helping writers become authors, horror novels, how to write fantasy, how to write fiction, how to write horror, how to write science fiction, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, websites for authors, websites for writers, writers to authors, Writing, writing advice, Writing Community, writing fantasy, writing horror, writing science fiction, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, Books, children's book, creative process, editor, Fantasy, fantasy-romance, Fiction, Forgotten Realms, genre fiction, jay Lake, medieval, middle grade books, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, Science Fiction, Wizards of the Coast, worldbuilding, Writing, writing advice, writing process
11 Comments
HEALTHY BODY/HEALTHY MIND
Last week, wrapped in some whining and ranting and raving, were embedded some of those delightful little devils, New Years Resolutions. Believe me, I’m not going over all that doom and gloom and impotent rage stuff again. On my to … Continue reading
Posted in SF and Fantasy Authors, The Fathomless Abyss, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, creative process, Fantasy, jay Lake, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, resolutions, Science Fiction, watch less TV, Writing, writing advice, writing exercises, writing process
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EXCERPTS FROM THE FATHOMLESS ABYSS
THIS JUST IN: Tales From The Fathomless Abyss is on sale NOW for the Nook! THIS JUST IN: Tales From The Fathomless Abyss is on sale NOW for the Kindle! Just this morning I posted Tales From The Fathomless Abyss … Continue reading
Posted in Books, creative team, E-Books, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, The Fathomless Abyss, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, Books, bottomless pit, Brad R. Torgersen, Cat Rambo, creative process, e-books, editor, Fantasy, Fiction, genre fiction, J.M. McDermott, jay Lake, Mats Minnhagen, Mel Odom, Mike Resnick, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, Science Fiction, shared world, worldbuilding, Writing, writing process
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THE FATHOMLESS ABYSS
Finally, one of my notorious “secret projects” revealed. First, the amazing cover art by Mats Minnhagen Whose idea was it? The idea for a shared world collective was a combination of Mel Odom, Joe McDermott, and me, I suppose. The … Continue reading
Posted in Arron of the Black Forest, Books, creative team, E-Books, Publishing Business, Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, SF and Fantasy Authors, The Fathomless Abyss, Writing, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy
Tagged author, authors, Books, bottomless pit, Brad R. Torgersen, Cat Rambo, creative process, e-books, editor, Fantasy, fantasy settings, Fiction, genre fiction, J.M. McDermott, jay Lake, Mats Minnhagen, Mel Odom, Mike Resnick, Philip Athans, Publishing, Publishing Business, Science Fiction, shared world, worldbuilding, Writing, writing process
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Fantasy Author's Handbook 