Derbent, the Causasus, and the edge of the world. — George R R Martin says that he came up with the idea for his sprawling epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire, when he was on holiday in Scotland. He stood on Hadrian’s Wall and imagined what it must have been like to be a Roman legionary, standing…

There are two paths to ‘success’ on here, and only one is under your control. — When I first found Medium, I was bemused. I scrolled for a little while, passing post after post that promised to teach me ‘how to be successful on Medium.’ …

Don’t give up on your stories, and don’t despair if they get rejected. — I was nineteen years old, right in the middle of my English and History dual-honours bachelor’s degree. I was sitting at the back of a large history lecture hall. We had lectures here once a week, a general overview of the course delivered by a boring speaker (and one by…

The pages before the story have a set order — sometimes. — Open a novel. Go ahead, do it. Right now. Unless you have a very unusual book, the story won’t start on the first page. …

Our immigration rules are holding the publishing industry back — The UK has a very vocal minority who are totally against immigration. Through the Conservatives and UKIP they’ve had an outsized influence on the national debate — culminating most recently in Brexit and the introduction of a new points-based immigration system. I imagine most of them have never actually researched…

Speech marks to spelling quirks — At first glance, there don’t appear to be many differences between US and UK English. Of course, everyone knows that honor becomes honour and defense becomes defence, but how much more to it is there? There are actually many ways that US and UK English do things differently, and it…

By Yog’s Law, you shouldn’t be paying anything. — Early in his career, writer Jim Macdonald was asked how much he’d paid to publish his books. A ridiculous question, of course. No traditionally-published author should have to pay to have their books published. He started a campaign to call out vanity publishers — companies that charge people to have…

Act 2 of Encanto is brilliant, and here’s why. — A couple of days ago, I finally watched Encanto. I know. Better late than never, right? I thought it was going to emotionally wreck me — and I was right. I often tear up a bit at films, but I just surrendered to the sobs. …

Then sorted them into genres and made some Excel charts. — This evening, I embarked on a quest. The mission? To count every book I own, sort it into a genre, and then put the data into a pie chart. …