Prior to the adoption of the Latin alphabet – along with everything else Christian – in around AD 700 – the Germanic tribes in what is now Germany, Scandinavia and other areas of Europe wrote with runic alphabets.

Rune Stone

The runes were in use by Germanic peoples from the first century AD. Historically, runes derive from the Old Italic alphabet. Germanic tribes often served in the Roman army as mercenaries, and no one can deny Rome spent far too much time trying to pacify the area, so cultural exchange definitely took place. This seems to account for some of the simularities between some runes and latin letters. Scholars suggest many other <> for the origin of the letters – - but cannot agree. The debate is long and full of big words and I won’t repeat it here.

Each rune is made of two or more straight lines – normally a long vertical line and other lines at angles to it. The runes don’t make use of horizontal lines. The lack of curves is normal for alphabets at the time – as straight lines are easier to carve into wood or stone.

One of the rune stones in Jelling, Denmark

There are three main runic alphabets:

Eldar Futhark: these runes were in use from 150-800 AD, and consisted of 24 signs representing sounds in the Germanic language.

Angle-Saxon Futhark: from 400-1100 AD, the various speakers of proto-germanic language split into their various cultural groups, and the runes evolved with them. Symbols were added to represent sounds unique to Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-Saxon futhark contains 29 or 33 characters, and is the rune script commonly found in England and Ireland.

Younger Futhark: developed in Scandinavia between 800-1100 AD, and is a reduced form of Elder Futhark, usually with 16 characters. This reduction correlates with phonetic changes in the language of the area at this time – proto-norse evolving into Old Norse.

Later, two new alphabets emerged:

Medieval Runes: 1100-1500 AD. In the Middle Ages, the Younger Futhark were expanded again to include one character for each phonetic sound of the Old Norse language. Most Norwegian runes found today are Medieval runes. It was originally thought runes were used only for monumental inscriptions (much like the Egyptians and their heiroglyphs). But an incredible cache of over 600 artifacts inscribed with runes – but what was unusual was the nature of these artifacts – carved sticks of wood or bone – and the content of the inscriptions – which weren’t monumental in nature but everyday writing – personal messages, business letters, bawdy poems, prayers (some in Latin). From this find arcaeologists now know that in this late period, runes were a common and widespread everyday written language.

Dalecarlian Runes: 1500-1800 AD: Unique to Dalarna – an isolated province in Sweden. Dalecarlian runes were used between 16-20th centuries – mainly to transcribe Elfdalian text.

Runes in Mythology

In Norse mythology, runes have divine origin. The Poetic Edda poem Hávamál , Odin undergoes an ordeal to learn the secret of the runes:

I know that I hung on a windy tree
nine long nights,
wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin,
myself to myself,
on that tree of which no man knows from where its roots run

No bread did they give me nor a drink from a horn,
downwards I peered;
I took up the runes,
screaming I took them,
then I fell back from there.

Another origin myth – from the Poetic Edda poem Rígsþula – recounts the tale of Rig, who sired three sons – Thrall (slave), Churl (freeman) and Jarl (noble) – to mortel women. These sons were the ancestors of the three classes of men. But Rig – like most men – buggered off again to attend to his Godly duties. When Jarl came of age he began to handle weapons. Rig saw this and returned, and he taught Jarl the secret of the runes.

Runes and Magic

I know a twelfth one if I see,
up in a tree,
a dangling corpse in a noose,
I can so carve and color the runes,
that the man walks
And talks with me

Odin recounting a spell in the Hávamál

The earliest runic inscriptions were simple words carved on objects. Some are clearly the name of the object’s craftsmen or owner, while others remain a linguistic mystery. These suggest the original use of the runes was for magic charms and amulets, rather than monumental inscription. A recent study (MacLeod and Mees 2006) shows how runes were used to create magical objects, but suggests the runes were – in and of themselves – no more magical than any other alphabet of the time.

modern rune stones - used for divination in new age and wiccan religions

The word rune itself comes from a root word meaning “secret / hidden”. This suggests the knowledge of the runes was limited to an elite, or considered an esoteric practice.

Many believe the runes were used for divination – as they are in modern new age religions – but there’s no sufficient archaeological or historical evidence this was the case. The three texts which refer to Germanic divination – Tacitus, Rimbert and Snorri Sturluson – give vague descriptions and never refer to runes specifically.

Modern Uses of the Runes

Perhaps the most important figure in modern Germanic esotericism is Guido von List. His book Das Geheimnis der Runen (“The Secret of the Runes”) – published in 1908 – revealed an alphabet of 18 runic symbols. His so-called “Armamen Runes” were based on the Younger Furthark, with new runes invented by List, supposedly revealed to him in a state of blindness after he’d had cateracts removed in 1902.

The Nazis (and neo-Nazi groups) associated themselves with Germanic traditions, and favoured the use of runes. Hitler was fascinated by the work of Guido von List, however his runic alphabet was later replaced by a new alphabet – the Wiligut runes – created by the appointed Nazi runologist – Karl Maria Wiligut. Four runes – Sig, Hagal, Swastika and double rune – were cast into the outside band of the SS Totemkopf Ring – worn by SS members. It’s these runes that are seen as deeply offensive in Europe today.

SS Totenkopf ring - an honor ring. You can just see two of the runic symbols on either side of the skull.

JRR Tolkien – a great lover of the runic alphabet – used Anglo-Saxon runes on the map in The Hobbit to emphasize its connection to the dwarves. He also used the runes in early drafts of Lord of the Rings, but later replaced them with the Cirth alphabet he invented. Following Tolkien’s lead, runes have become extremely popular in fantasy literature, video games, movies and TV shows.

Further Reading

• Futhark on AncientScripts.com
• Meaning of the Runes – in modern Rune Divination
• Rune Tattoo Design website
• Old Norse poetry and sagas

Things you can do with runes

• Write curses to your enemies
• Predict the time of Ragorak
• Send secret messages to your friends
• Turn any word into a folk metal band logo
• Give your sword, guitar, or tandard a suitebly metal name
• Design your own tattoo
• Translate the linear notes to Manowar’s “Gods of War”
• Create a personalised number plate for your “Viking-mobile”
• Write a great poetic saga about your band’s epic journey to defeat the dragon, pillage the villages, steal the princess and drink your way across Europe.

Raise your Horns! \m/
Steff Metal

I’ve been reading your blog for a few months now. It’s very different to the other blogs I read - totally inspiring!

I’m a visual artist, and I’m thinking of starting a blog to help promote my work (I have an Etsy store but no website as yet). But I don’t want to start, make some kind of horrid mistake, and have to do everything again.

So, can you give some advice to a novice – how do I start a blog? What should I do to make a blog a success?

***

I recieve this question and variations thereof all the time. People seem to believe I’m an authority on the matter. They’re wrong. While I’ve created two reasonably successful personal blogs, and written for several business blogs, I don’t know everything there is to know about blogging. I haven’t tried everything. Not by a long shot.

However, I’ve probably had more experience than the people sending me these emails, and I did just finish writing my Grymm & Epic Guide to Blogging. So I can offer a few words of encouragement.

Elvira's Gramaphone, print by artist Blonde Blythe, $5

Blogging is not a one-size-fits-all game. What works for one person will be a disaster for the next. Whenever all the experts say “DON’T DO THIS! IT’S BLOGGING SUICCIDE!”, someone does it and becomes a millionaire. So I can’t tell you how you should start a blog and make it a success. I can tell you how I start a blog, and you can take from that what you will.

The first thing you need to do is assess why you want to start a blog, and what your blog should be about. I go over this in great detail in my blogging ebook, but I’ll summarize a little for you here:

Why do you want to blog:

• You love writing and want to write and publish in an immediate format
• You want to document your crazy life
• You’re interested in start an online business
• You’ve got a funny idea for a blog
• You want to promote your book, music, artwork, game, etc.
• You want to be an internet personality

Your reasons for blogging are very important, as they permeate every facet of your blog. You know you want to promote your artwork, but is that all you want to do with your blog? Why do you want a blog, specifically, rather than, say, spending money on advertising or making a static website?

What is your blog going to be about? You should choose an overarching concept and a niche topic or niche demographic. It’s not enough to say “my blog is about my life and everyone in it.” I wouldn’t read that unless you were hilariously funny, because I don’t know you, so it doesn’t have any relevance to me.

Who are you writing for? Your friends and family? The artistic community? Customers and clients of your artwork? twenty-somethings? fifty-somethings? Metal-lovers? Cupcake-lovers? The nature of your blog changes depending on the audience you choose.

Many artists / business people make the mistake of blogging about what they know – running a business. Unless you plan to run a business telling people how to run a business, writing a blog with advice for emerging artists probably won’t help you sell paintings. Writing a blog with interesting article about gothic artwork – it’s history, personalities and techniques – will attract people interested in gothic artwork, and will probably help you sell your own art. See how it works?

Once you’ve figured out your angle, you need to choose a blogging platform. For people with zero experience producing content online and no desire to learn more about creating websites online, I recommend blogger. It’s free and extremely easy to use. Alternativly, wordpress.com (also free) and livejournal (although I only recommend livejournal for very personal blogs – business blogs don’t work so well there.)

Beware though, that all of these free blog platforms place limitations on the functionality of your blog. Also, they’re all hosted on a subdomain (suchandsuch.blogspot.com instead of suchandsuch.com). You don’t have total control over what your blog looks like and the content you publish on it. I don’t like this – I prefer being creative and in-control.

I always choose my own domain, which I buy through my hosting company. I use self-hosted WordPress to run my site and manage my content. I LOVE it and always recommend it.

Now you’ve got your blog all set up, you get to start the fun part – writing! Yaaay! Happy dance! Keep a long list of topics you’d like to blog about near your computer. That way, when you sit down to blog, but you don’t know what to write about, just look over your list to find ideas.

Create a blogging schedule, and stick to it – whether you blog once a week or five times a day (I recommend 3-5 days a week to build blog traffic). I’ve found consistant blogging to be the way to bring in traffic.

When writing your blog, don’t forget to add other types of media – pictures, videos, music, interactive games and polls, quizzes … the possibilities are endless. Don’t limit yourself to only words on a page – especially if your medium is visual – or your readers will get bored.

To promote your blog, find other blogs who cater to the same audience as yours, and comment on their posts. If you make enugh intelligent comments, people will click through to look at your blog. I earn a lot of traffic by writing guest posts on other, more popular blogs. You could also try promoting yourself on Twitter – it’s working wonders for practically every blogger I know.

I’ve only scratched the surface here, but I must quit now, or I’ll write out all 45 000 words of my ebook, and then no one will buy it and I won’t be able to afford to go to Wacken next year. And that will make me a sad metalhead :(

You can find more information (250 pages of more information) about writing a blog and building a following in my ebook Grymm & Epic Guide to Blogging, which is on sale THIS WEEK ONLY for $15 bucks.

So, readers, I ask you now, why do you blog? How and why do you choose the topics you write about? What mistakes have you made, and what advice could you give to this novice blogger?

Super Snuggles and Shoggoth Kisses \m/
Steff

Grymm & Epic ebooks is my line of ebooks about the heavy metal life. They are like my blog posts, but much, much longer. I wanted a way to talk in-depth about topics I’m passionate about, and since I’ve already written five ebooks, the format works for me.

I’m launching Grymm & Epic ebooks with the most EPIC ebook I’ve ever written – the Grymm & Epic Guide to Blogging. This mammoth document of doom contains 250 pages and over 45 000 words on creating, maintaining and growing a blog.

You can read more about the Grymm and Epic Guide to Blogging in the Steff Metal Shop.

Why Grymm & Epic?

My ebooks are GRYMM because you won’t find any corporate salesy stuff or “I know best” – just honest, down-to-earth advice from a fellow businesswoman / blogger / metalhead about what works and doesn’t worki in my rather crazy and exciting life.

My ebooks are EPIC because they are monsters. I don’t believe in selling $10 or $20 ebooks with only 50 pages of text. You’ll find my ebooks will be about the length of a book you buy in the shop.

To celebrate the launch, I’m offering a special price for THIS WEEK ONLY, for anyone who wants to buy Grymm & Epic Guide to blogging through the Steff Metal website. I’ve priced this book at $19, but you can buy it for $15, if you follow the link below. After seven days, the price goes back to $19.

So yeah. If you’re keen, take a look and let me know what you think!

I would love to have a new ebook out every month, but because I write so bloody much, this won’t happen. You might see the next ebook out in a couple of months, or it might be six months away, I just can’t say. I can tell you it will be the “Grymm & Epic Guide to Cookery” and will be filled with lots of wicked ass bad recipes and ideas for metal dishes and parties.

Over the next few months I’ll also be editing the ebooks I’ve already written Freelance Writing Success will become the Grymm & Epic Guide to Freelance Writing, the Gothic and Halloween Wedding Planners will become Grymm & Epic Guide to Wedding Planning, etc. (Only 33 Mistakes Writers Make about Blind Characters will remain as it was). If you’ve brought an ebook from me before, you will be automatically sent an update of the ebook.

A few other exciting things are happening in the world of Steff Metal, including an incredible site redesign, which we shall be revealing in a few weeks.

Keep it Grymm \m/
Steff Metal

Grymm Brutal Technical Goregrind Glossary … of Doom.

Black Metal:

n. sub-genre of metal that originated in Norway and was made infamous by the antics of bands like Mayhem, Satyrican, Darkthrone, Emperor and Burzum. Hell bent on creating an antithesis to all that is good in the world, Black Metal explored themes of Satanism, evil, chaos and Nordic pagan culture.

Musically, it is characterised by simplistic riffs, fast blastbeats, and tremolo picking and resembles the sound a laptop computer makes when you throw it into a swimming pool. Its participants decorate themselves with corpsepaint, and can be found burning down orphanages and eating each others brains.

Bogan Pride!

Bogan:

n. Homo sapiens boganius, (see also. metalhead) originated in Western Australia and was a term used to describe a group of neanderthalic individuals who inhabited the shores of the Bogan river. Throughout the ages, the term ‘bogan’ has come to be associated with all those dole-bludgers who wear black, live in state-housing in west Auckland, litter their front gardens with used-car parts, drive Kingswood station wagons, meet their nutritional needs with meals from the local chippie and $2 steak and cheese pies, suffix their mates’ names with ‘azza’, and listen to heavy metal music.

In recent years, many metalheads in the antipodes have claimed the word “bogan” as a synonym for metalhead, in an attempt to create their own cultural identity. So far, this has been of mixed success.

The bogan is an often misunderstood mammal, and his habitat and diet have not been well documented by scientists who favour more glamorous research projects like monkeys and badgers, which also smoke less pot and smell more fragrant.

Corpsepaint:

n. When Black metal musicians paint themselves to look like dead clowns or walking, electric guitar-playing corpses. Not to be confused with Kiss makeup, since Kiss are too disco to be krieg.

Corpsepaint Birthday Cake

Dead:

n. The lead guitarist of popular black metal band Mayhem, Dead committed suicide in 1991 by blowing his brains out with a shotgun. His suicide not read “excuse all the blood”.

Death Metal:

n. The aural equivalent of soft tissue being forcibly extracted from the skull cavity by decidedly non-musical instruments. Death metal bands have brilliant names like Necropotomus and Hot for Corpse and Satan’s Suicidal Death Cunt Satan. Sprouting from Death metal is Brutal Death Metal: Death metal with more extreme sounding names.

Emo:

A fatal error would be to confuse a metalhead with an emo. The distinction here should be clear as emos aren’t actually considered human. To be confused with a prepubescent, androgynous, squared-spectacled, weeping, wrist-slitting, chuck-Taylor toting, pink-and-black-striped-sock-wearing monster with a running nose and tissues stuffed up the sleeves of its My Chemical Romance shirt, sporting a meticulously coiffed fringe that looks like a droopy unicorn penis is a mighty insult to any proud metalhead. I warn you that if you ever make this mistake, you will only make it once.

A diagram to help you spot an Emo

Euronymous:

The lead singer of Norwegian black metal band Mayhem between 1983-1993. Often cited as the founder of the black metal scene and instigator of the infamous church burnings across Norway. Euronymous was the first to find Dead … well, dead … and instead of calling the police he shot several rolls of film and then cooked his bandmate’s brain into a stew and ate it. The photos of Dead later turned up on the cover of the Mayhem bootleg Dawn of Black Hearts. Euronymous was stabbed at his Oslo apartment 23 times by bandmate Varg Vikernes.

Folk Metal:

n. Any kind of metal sub-genre mixed with folk instruments. Most band members dress up as elves, peasants or trolls. Folk metal is mostly as silly as it sounds. See bands like FinnTroll, Skyclad, Korplikanii.

Goth:

Metalheads are not – and this is very important – ever to be confused with Goths, who wear black also, but their black is BLACK, black like the lining of a coffin, black like their mascara, black like their souls.

Instead of adorning themselves in cheap cotton effigies touting skulls and pentagrams and slogans like ‘The Time to Kill is Now,’ Goths prefer velvet, and lace, and chiffon, and even vinyl.

Many metalheads actually refer to themselves as Goths, but the Goths know better. For example, while the majority of Goths will tout H. P. Lovecraft as their favourite author, most bogans – who are a wholly illiterate race – have only seen the film adaptation, whilst stoned.

A Goth

Grymm:

adj. Grymm is a metal word and is used to describe something ‘metal’ or something that is rad, awesome, cool or wicked. Note the ‘metal’ spelling. Synonyms: see tr00, kvlt, grymm, nekro, evil.

Hardcore:

n. Take metal, subtract everything that might be mistaken for music, add fifteen-year-old boys who can’t get laid and an insipid sounding name. Voila!

Holden HZ Kingswood 1977

Kingswood:

n. The Holden Kingswood was once the staple model of the larger-sized cars produced by Holden. A drive down any West Auckland street reveals a rust-encrusted Kingswood lurking under every carport.

Krieg:

adj. German for ‘war’. Krieg is metal slang popular in Europe. SynonymL Grymm.

Kvlt:

adj. Cult is used to describe metal bands who have become popular on the underground, similar to cult movies or books. The grymm and nekro spelling evolved over the usage of cult in internet metal forums. Many online communities filter swear words, so posters use alternative spelling, eg. Fvck, kvnt. These alterations spill over onto other popular slang, as a kind of 1337 in-joke that isn’t actually funny.

Metal Couture:

The Metalhead can be easily identified by his attire; huge, clunky steel-capped boots and ripped, straight-leg jeans, usually with an attractive oil stain smeared across the buttocks. His torso will be covered with an immaculately faded black t-shirt depicting one of the following:

1) Logo and cover art of a heavy metal band
2) Logo and tour art of a heavy metal band, with tour dates slashed across the back
3) Logo and picture of band members looking staunch
4) Logo of a bogan associated product – Yamaha, Zildgen, Jack Daniels, Harley Davidson
5) A humorous statement containing the word ‘fuck’.

If the weather is less then savoury, the bogan chooses a leather jacket, a black oilskin, long black trenchcoat, or (strictly for older bogans) a denim jacket covered with patches from famous heavy metal bands.

Metal Couture

Metal Chick:

The metalhead female is a rare and unique creature; and can at first glance be difficult to distinguish from a female Goth (see Goth). Both will dress in equally laced, corseted, zippered, vinyled attire. A bogan male must spend so much time painstakingly removing a female’s garments that he will inevitably fall asleep before intercourse. This is one of the many reasons the metalhead race is in perpetual danger of dying out.

The only indicator that you have stumbled across a true metalhead female is her constant punctuated use of the goat (see Throwing the Goat), and her fondness for swearing and bourbon swilling.

Nekro:

adj. Synonym for Grymm. Latin for ‘death’. As metalheads think death is krieg and Latin is kvlt, nekro is used in lots of metal words: necropolis, necrophilia, necrophagia. Necropocalypse. Note the grymm spelling. Alternative spelling ist krieg.

Post-hardcore:

n. Don’t be fooled, it’s really emo.

Power Metal:

a sub-genre of heavy metal that grew out of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal scene, and is heavily influenced by bands like Iron Maiden and Saxon. Power metal emphasizes tight musicianship, ball-clenchingly high male vocals, and songs about slaying dragons that are so cheesy they make live action role players cringe. Examples: Blind Guardian, Kamelot, Helloween, Nightwish, Rhapsody of Fire.

Throwing the Goat:

des. ph. If you are ever approached by a bogan/metalhead, the most appropriate and friendly opener is to throw him the goat and comment favourably on his choice of t-shirt.

Throwing the goat is not a literal action – which would be ungainly and result in many livestock-related injuries – but rather a hand gesture where one clenches ones hand into a fist, while extending the pinkie and index fingers, forming the ‘goat horns’, and thrusting this ‘goat’ into the air. You can accompany this action with one of the many metal words; tr00, kvlt, krieg, grymm or nekro.

Tr00:

adj. “True” is used to describe metal songs or bands that stay true to the metal ideal, as opposed to false metal, which is played by wimps and posers and is homoerotic in nature. Synonym for kvlt, and evolved along the same process.

Varg

Varg Vikernes:

n. One of the most notorious metal musicians of all time. Varg was a prominent leader of the Norwegian Black Metal scene and conceived the one man band, Burzum. He has recently been released from prison after stabbing his bandmate, Euronymous, 23 times.

Numerous reasons have been cited for the murder, including self-defence, power struggles, a girl, and Euronymous’ wearing of a rather ‘un-krieg’ white sweater. Varg is also allegedly responsible for several of the stave church burnings in Norway.

Viking metal:

n. Folk metal (see folk metal) with Vikings. Vikings ist krieg. German declensions ist kein krieg. Examples: Bathory, Einhajr, Ensiferum.

This is Part 1 of an ongoing project. What do you think?
\m/ Steff \m/

I always wanted to be a writer, but I don’t know where to begin. I’m in my third year of an English major at college and I don’t have anything to show for it except for some better-than-average marks and several short stories the school Lit magazine won’t touch with a ten-foot clown pole. Should I stick around for a MFA? Do you have any advice on how to get started as a writer?

***

I sure do!

First, I’ll tell you my story, since I can only offer you advice based on my own experiences.

I went to university to be an archaeologist. I loved every minute of my four years there. I took papers on museum ethnography, social anthropology, gothic literature, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, love and death in classical literature … and a really terrible, terrible English paper called ‘Reading, Writing, Text.’

While at uni I wrote a few short stories and submitted some poems to the English dept. magazine. Some were accepted, despite their obvious crappiness. I poked at my novel a little when I had a spare moment, dreaming of the day I accepted my Pulitzer.

Photo by Alial Hasani , a Jordanian metal blogger and photographer.

In my third year I noticed an ad in Student Job Search: ‘Content Writer Wanted for Real Estate Newsletter’. Money for writing? I’d never heard of the concept. I applied with a sample piece about how I was obsessed with Dr. Phil (I know – pathetic) and got the job.

I had to write two 400 word articles per week on general interest topics, and I got paid $40 per piece. I kept that job till I finished uni. I enjoyed getting my monthly check so much I decided to submit articles to magazines.

I wrote my first articles on topics I studied at uni, music I listened to and problems I encountered. Somehow – despite knowing nothing at all about the query letter – I sent out several query letters to editors, and I ended up with a few projects, and a few checks. I was hooked.

When uni finished I simply stepped up my writing pace, and I started reading about writing online – on industry blogs and in discussion forums. I finished my novel and won a competition to pitch it to a HarperCollins editor, which was a massive ego boost! I’ve since finished three more novels with a forth half done. I’ve also self-published five ebooks, which sell through my websites.

The only writing course I took at uni taught me nothing about being a writer. I learned everything from trial and error, reading on the internet, writing, and sending off my work to editors and agents.

I learn by doing, so for me, sitting in a classroom talking about writing didn’t teach me anything. My archaeology degree gave me new skills, crazy experiences, and heaps of interesting factoids to write about. My non-writing degree helped my writing career more than a MFA (or MCW in New Zealand) ever could.

I can’t tell you what’s best for you. I can only talk about what worked for me. Because of my specific experiences, when people ask me what they should study at university if they want to be a writer, I say “anything but writing.” I believe if you really are a writer, you learn everything you need to know by writing, not by sitting in a lecture theatre talking about writing. Unless you’re going to be an English teacher, an English degree will be naught use in the real world.

If you want to be a writer – really be a writer – you need to write. And then, you need to submit. Aspiring writers often forget the submitting stage, because it involves the bane of every writer’s existence – rejection. When you start submitting, you start getting rejections letters, and they bruise your tender ego something terrible, especially in the beginning.

I recommend you start discovering the realities of the writing life while you’re still at uni. Sign up to FundsForWriters free newsletters, read up on writing query letters, (I pack lots of info into my Freelance Success ebook). Use Duotrope to find short story and poetry markets. Read industry blogs. Join a writing discussion forum.

Try this for a few months, and reassess how you feel about writing. Which mediums do you enjoy? Which do you detest? I’ve discovered that I enjoy novel writing, magazine articles, ebooks and copywriting the most, and short stories the least. I concentrate my effort on those four areas.

You may discover you no longer want to make writing a full time career, but you enjoy it as a side hobby. You may discover a knack for writing non-fiction you never knew you possessed, or a knack for blogging.

You can’t make a decision about the future without arming yourself with information first. Learn the realities of the writing life before you decide to dedicate another two years of university and several thousand dollars to your pursuit. Above all else – write. Always write.

Resources

• Holly Lisle’s website contains over 100 000 free words about writing fiction. She also stocks some excellent ebooks on writing (including one of mine).
• The free writing newsletter Writers Weekly contains articles, markets and information for writers of all walks of life.
• The Swivet is agent Colleen Lindsay’s blog and a great industry blog to start reading. The sidebar contains over 150 links to other blogs, sites and forums for writers.
• Nathan Bransford is another blogging agent
• Miss Snark bites down on foolish writers.

Super Snuggles and Shoggoth Kisses

Steff

http://www.scifinow.co.uk/news/war-of-the-words-shortlist-announcement/

Yay!

I fly out to Turkey tomorrow. That’s a little scary considering all the flooding that’s been happening there. I shall let you know what’s been happening soon.

See you soon!
Steff

Top Ten Reasons Metalheads Make Good Authors

1) Where else will you find flowery, three-page descriptions of your male protagonist’s sleek, beautiful butt-length hair?

2) Verse chorus verse chorus verse chorus EPIC SHRED SOLO OF DOOM chorus = action consequence action consequence action consequence EPIC LIFE-ALTERING CLIMAX OF DOOM consequence

3) Characters assess their every action on a scale of ‘What Would Count Grishnakh Do?’

4) Stories are always set in far-off frostbitten lands in Europe where scantily-clad women constantly run around with stiff nipples

5) Manuscripts will be handwritten, in human blood, for additional kreigness. This will not be a matter of choice, as the metalhead author will have spilt his Jack Daniels in his laptop keyboard, and his unemployment check wouldn’t have arrived so he can’t afford ink

6) All brilliant authors are reclusive alcoholics. All metalheads are reclusive alcoholics. Coincidence? I think not.

7) For the first time ever, “bashing emo’s” becomes a legitimate plot device.

8) The ‘About the Author’ page is almost as long as the book, and consists of a run-on list of every band the author considers adequately metal.

9) All your hero’s problems are solved once he remembers the lyrics to a Manowar song.

10) You’ve spent more time deciding on the lineup for the arena tour to promote your book, than actually writing the book itself.

Super Snuggles and Shoggoth Kisses
Steff