Dialogue doesn’t just reveal a character; it reveals their world. Dragons of the Ashfall takes place in a steampunk world of gears and coal. I wanted the vocabulary the characters used to reflect the setting, so I invented a number of idioms. “I’ll be out in a gear’s turn,” means the person will be outContinue reading “How You Say What You Say”
Tag Archives: Writing
Dragons of the Ashfall
It wasn’t always a novel. Once it was a short story. One of the first that was published that bore my name. It premiered in Wings of Change. Its title: “A Dragon Bigger than My Stories.” It was about a girl in a clockwork city. She was ground down. She longed for solitude. And thenContinue reading “Dragons of the Ashfall”
Publish or Perish
Publish or perish. When you work in the academic world, thou shalt publish paper after paper to prove that thou art worthy of thine position. It’s not just the academic world, though. When I was younger, I thought Stephen King was slightly insane. Most people I read, like Robert Jordan, produced maybe a novel aContinue reading “Publish or Perish”
Glamorous Work
Sometimes the life of an author is glamorous. People trying to get selfies with you. Demanding autographs. Movie studios calling with multi-million dollar deals. All of which I’ve experienced day-in and day-out for years now. Some of that might be exaggeration. Ah, but not everything is always so glamorous. Thursday morning my wife and IContinue reading “Glamorous Work”
Farewell, Reading
In a normal year, I read a novel a week on average. I set them aside through the year to do an end-of-year review of what I’ve read. I think I’ll be failing this year. My year usually starts in July. That’s just how I count it. By this point I should have a goodContinue reading “Farewell, Reading”
Jonathon Mast: Author 