If I think back to my early childhood, my book pickings were based on whatever I found in the school or local library. Once I started working my first part-time job, I began to buy books. But I am a child of the 80s, so in my teens, the internet was still developing and my purchases of books were limited to brick and mortar stores. At that time, I think I mostly read books that I found in second-hand stores. Prior to Kindle, there was no way I could afford as many books as I

I have a confession. I am a slow reader. My reading habit is to go to bed with the book, by which point I am falling asleep from a full day of writing, marketing and teaching and can barely finish a chapter. Occasionally, I have some time on the weekends to sit on my sofa with a book, but more often than not, I am just busy meeting friends or working on my projects. If I remember rightly, I did not meet my Goodreads challenge of 2018. I managed eight books out of my target of

Caged Birds is a short story I wrote as a submission for an anthology in Korea. They rejected the story with a letter expressing that they liked my poetic style, but didn’t think the story was right for their anthology. I understood. They wanted more of a foreigner’s perception or experience in Korea. I didn’t want to write that. I didn’t want it to become a piece containing all the things that bother me—which I feared it would be. We foreigners will always be outsiders here,

Before I share about my writing journey, I want to thank Rachel for allowing me to guest post on her blog for Bane of Ashkarith’s blog tour. I appreciate the support she’s given by allowing me to be here today! So thank you for helping me out with the blog tour and supporting the launch. My writing journey started very early on. Since I was homeschooled, my mother was able to do a lot of different activities and extra-curricular work that I wouldn’t have done otherwise. One o

My name is Elizabeth Jade, and I’m a children’s author and animal lover.  I was born in the UK in 1998. My early schooling didn’t go well, and I was home-schooled from the age of seven.  I stumbled into writing at fourteen when I struggled increasingly with depression and anxiety, but it wasn’t until I was eighteen that I discovered my struggles in school were due to Aspergers—an autistic spectrum disorder. I always knew I had a unique take on life.  People have never made se

I read a tweet from another author battling with how overwhelming it is to see so many writers in the online community. Although the writing community is a supportive place filled with advice, guidance, sharing and constructive feedback, the tweeter felt discouraged by the size. She was another needle in an ever growing haystack. I can relate to her feelings. I am sure many of us have heard that voice in our head discouraging us to continue with our passions. You are not good

About the Author Joanna White earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing for Entertainment at Full Sail University. The Valiant series is her first published work, which first started off being updated on a website called Wattpad. She lives in the country of Missouri with her husband, where she continues to work on her other upcoming books. Writing has been a passion since she was ten, when she wrote her first book. Ever since then, writing has become her life

We’ve all heard the phrase: don’t judge a book by its cover. And we know it’s true. Sometimes covers are misleading. They can tempt us into believing we have found our next favourite read, only to wind up deeply disappointed. Covers are like the tantalising smell of freshly baked bread. We are drawn to them. At least I am. I have heard so many compliments for my first book’s cover, and I completely agree. The Watcher of the Night Sky has a gorgeous cover. I have to thank the

I am terrible at keeping up with posting due to my overfilled schedule and burned out brain. Today, I am lucky to have a lot of unexpected absences in my teaching schedule, allowing me the time to quickly sit down and write this. So, what's new? Some of you may have noticed my new logo! I must have spent at least one week straight slaving over this. I came up with endless designs and pestered friends and relatives to give their feedback on them. I wanted to make it open to ot

Hi lovelies, Today I write to share with you something I just found out! My first novel, The Watcher of the Night Sky, was awarded IHIBRP's 5-star recommended read award! Now I have this wonderful badge to attach to my cover :D These awards are created by the fabulous J. B. Richards and you can find her review here: https://bit.ly/2SEz75c. Let's hope I win some more awards over the next few months - the title has been nominated for a few and will start to get some notices

When I was a teenager, I was part of a youth theater group - then known as Kayos. If you look closely in the first image above you will see me in the newspaper cutting wearing a tiara. :D We put on amateur musicals and plays in the local theater of our home town - The Greenock Arts Guild (closed as of 2012). At that time, I was into creative things. I wrote my own songs with my friends, and in my free time attempted to draft terrible novels that were pretty much replicas of T

**This is a long post. I didn't intend it to be. But through writing it I felt myself opening up and sharing more.** Do you ever find yourself feeling a little stuck in a rut? My working life has always gone that way. I find a job that is challenging and new, and then reach the point where there is nothing more to learn, leading right into a sense of itchy feet. My lack of complacency builds until I get too antsy and I know now, since this has been a repetitive cycle, that it

The scorching heat is blasting us here in Korea; it reached almost 40 degrees Celsius last week, and the rest of the month will be somewhere between 33 and 40. Add in the humidity and it is quite unbearable to be outside. It is so hot that the normal swarms of mosquitoes don't exist. That's right. The mosquitoes are AWOL. You're not going to find that many people outdoors during this time of year. People shut themselves inside their homes or spend the day in an over crowded,

The Bow of Hart Saga is set in the world of Denaria with its own history, people-groups, religions and history. Part of the back-drop for the first book of the series, The Bow of Destiny, is the history of the mystic order of Withlings. This religious order worships their deity, Eloch, by learning to spiritually abide in his presence. Their catch-phrase, "What is needed is given," best describes the outlook of Withlings; they can only serve as Eloch provides. While this premi

As many of you know, I live in South Korea. As such, I don't really have the chance to go to book fairs or do book signings and such. I have to rely on internet marketing and networking to get my name into the big bad literally world. Thankfully I have a student who works in journalism, and she told me about Seoul International Book Fair! I'd never really considered going to book events here - considering they wouldn't be in English and I'm not really paying attention to the

Yes, you read that right. Today's blog post is a grumpy one. Why? Because I am in the worst mood today. But she's so happy all the time! What's wrong with Rachel? :O Frankly, technology. I have wasted the better part of last night and today (it is now 4pm!) fiddling with some glitch in my blog that is causing elements to move and not be where they should be. The footer won't recognise the blog element and thus jumps up and blocks off half the post *sign*. Then, looking throug

Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings.” This quote came to my mind the other day while organising the new character pages on the website. See more here: ARONIA. I began to feel some regret for my characters. There are some that I wish I hadn't killed, though I know it had to be done. While working on book 3 I keep thinking, is there a way to bring any of them back? Especially since some of them