New blog launch

Well, I've resisted the urge for a while, but here we are. I've finally caved and set up an actual blog (as in, a website where I post more than just snippets from my books). Wait, I know what you're thinking: Just what the internet needs, right? More bloggers!

I've decided to do it for a few reasons. For one, I hope that having this site will help me to keep motivated with my writing. I'm just about finished with my third novel in as many years and I'd love to keep up the pace, but with increasing responsibilities and endless demands on my time, it's hard to make any promises. The idea is that having something like this will get me to keep writing (every few days, if possible), even if I haven't yet invested in the next big writing project.

Another reason for joining the blogging masses is to share some of the things I've learned about writing itself. I'm no professional writer and I can't say I've ever aspired to be one, but I have picked up some techniques along the way that might be helpful for other amateur writers. A surprising number of emails have come through with questions and feedback along these lines, so hopefully making my answers public here will be of some benefit to others.

Third, having a blog like this will help to centralize things a bit. For example, I can put all news related to any of my novels here, like book printings, digital releases, etc. I believe this will make things much easier for visitors to these sites, since they will no longer need to jump from one site to the next just to get the latest scoop.

Finally, I'd like to use this site to host the occasional poll or gather thoughts and expertise from my readers. The feedback I've gotten from all of you has been wonderful, and I'm forever grateful for the time that many of you have put into contacting me and sharing your thoughts. I've gotten lots of great suggestions from fellow writers to improve my writing, and many others have written in with concerns regarding the accuracy (or plausibility, I should probably say) of some of the details and events depicted in the books. Needless to say, this has all been very helpful. Hopefully, having this blog will allow me to address specific issues and garner even more valuable input.