MathiasCavanaugh.com

The world is a dangerous place at night.  Demons (corelings) from the core roam free.  The only things holding them back are wards that must be meticulously cared for or else those hiding behind them become food for the demons.

The Warded Man by Peter Brett follows three different characters (Arlen, Leesha, and Rojer) as they grow up and mature in this world; each learning how to combat the demons in their own way.  At times, the story needlessly diverges from these characters and sucks in a few other, not even secondary, characters to provide some other points of view, but these are the three main characters.  These other POV characters appear for just a brief enough period of time that they don’t detract greatly from the narrative. (more…)

I see a lot of authors (generally those who are self-publishing) dismiss bad reviews of their books.  Google the topic and there is no end to the number of budding authors explaining why they don’t care if someone gives their book a bad review.  Or, even worse, why they don’t even read what other people say about their book.

Well, I say that’s a bad attitude.  I think it is a dangerous stance to take where you choose to shelter yourself from criticism.  This is especially true, I believe, for indy, self-published authors.  I think you SHOULD care about bad reviews.

Look, unless you are Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, and going to sell books no matter what you write, then not caring about criticism only hurts you.  Face it, only once you are at a point in your career where you actually don’t have to worry about the critics, because you’ve proven yourself as someone who knows how to write and sell books, should you even remotely consider no longer worrying about the critics.  Frankly, most my fellow authors out there whom I have seen state they don’t care about their critics are not at this point in their careers yet.  In fact, most of them are FAR, FAR, FAR from that point. (more…)

Every day I get asked the same question, “Why are you still editing that novel of yours?”

I don’t think the answer is that complicated.  I simply want to produce a quality story in the end.  And, while I and others who have read Under the Darkened Moon think that the story is good, I personally don’t think it is good enough quite yet.  Although, I do think it is quickly getting there.

For me, there is no rush.  I’ve been writing off and on for over twenty years.  My very first novel, which I started back in high school, had three years invested into it and never got even half way done.  For Under the Darkened Moon, I opened the file (started writing the story) on June 18th of last year.  It is now October, nearly November a year later.  I could have pushed this work out there six months ago, at least according to some opinions, but certainly not my own.   As one person in my review group said, “It’s already better than 95% of what is self-published on Amazon and other sites like that.” (more…)

Last month, as you all know, I wrote about my thoughts concering Harper Voyager opening itself up for direct submissions until October 14th.  I could have easily hit that deadline and had Under the Darkened Moon edited and formatted.  And for a few weeks I was seriously contemplating doing just that and submitting my novel for consideration.

However, after much thought, I have decided not to take advantage of the opportunity.  Yes, even thought his opportunity may not come around again to directly submit to Harper Voyager.  Some people might think that it is foolish for me pass up any opportunity.  But, as I have learned in my life, just because opportunities present themselves does not mean all should be jumped at.  I’ve had my fair share of opportunities that I took simply because they were opportunities and have been left holding the proverbial bag. (more…)

One thing I started keeping a few years ago was what I deemed as the “Liars List”. This list is composed of people who leave blatantly false reviews for books on sites like Amazon.com and Goodreads.

Mostly the “Liars List” contains people who rate incredibly awful books as “great”, “awesome”, or some other unwarranted praise. A few are those who trash books that are actually good. But the majority of them are people who, for whatever reason, give bad books unwarranted praise. Presumably this praise is to try and get people to believe the book actually has some redeeming qualities. (more…)

Some people have asked me why I post “words of the day” entries on this site. Especially words that seem to give your spellchecker fits as it marks them with annoying red underlines.

Examples:
Words of the day: sclaff & lassitude
Words of the Day: kishke & hawse (more…)

Every day I get new followers on Twitter.  I do follow back most (>50%), but I don’t follow back many for various reasons.  Here are the 10 most likely reasons you didn’t get a follow back.

10. You’re a political hack who likes to spout off your ignorant, unresearched, unfounded thoughts on a regular basis.  Note: I’m not on Twitter to listen to such things.
9. You’re obviously just collecting Twitter followers as some sort of meaningless trophy to boost your ego (I.e. you follow 100K people and have 100K followers)
8. A look at your recent history shows you only talk about yourself, don’t RT, or converse with others.
7. Your tweets or profile make it clear you think that Christians are evil, brainwashed people.
6. You tweet 300x an hour, 20 hours a day.
5. The only thing you tweet about is SEO.
4. Your twitter icon is essentially porn.
3. Not only did you follow me, but you immediately sent me a DM making sure I know it and asking when I am going to “return the favor”.
2. Every tweet you make is “Buy my [book/product]”
1. NOTHING you say interests me.

The other day I was introduced to an “Award Winning” author. Really? I though, how interesting. But I knew, as the friend who introduced us immediately turned a face when this “Award Winning” author introduced herself as such, that something was not right.

It took a while, but I was eventually able to broach the subject in the course of conversation. “So,” I asked, “what award did you win?”

The author beamed. “I took second place in my writers group awards for poetry last year,” she informed me.

“Oh?” I said, “That sounds wonderful. So happy for you. You must be thrilled with the recognition.”

“I am,” she grinned, “the other girl I was up against -” (more…)

I know there are rules for using commas. I know there are people out there who jump down your throat it you don’t use one where you “should”. But the more I read, the more more I realize that published authors break these rules all the time.

In essence, the rules for using commas are like the Pirate’s Code in that, “They’re more like guidelines anyway.”

“It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.” – Chapter 19 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy