It is a lie to write in such way as to be rewarded by fame offered you by some snobbish quasi-literary groups in the intellectual gazettes.
With young kids (I have four including the newborn) times passes weirdly for me.
Cale is my signature character in the Forgotten Realms. The most popular character I've written. He's a thief, an assassin, and eventually, a priest who stabs his own god in the chest. Always trying to slip his past, but never succeeding. Dark dude. Brooding dude. Born killer. But honorable, still.
I like to keep the world, to some degree, an implied setting.
I enjoyed The Mirage by M. Ruff. I'm reading Edgar Rice Burrough's Princess Of Mars right and loving it.
I loved The Weird (one of the stories in it inspired Blackalley in Discourse).
Original work has no floor and no ceiling. You can reach essentially zero readers or millions.
Fool!" cried the hunchback. "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia,' but only slightly less well known is this: 'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
The prosperity of a country depends, not on the abundance of its revenues, nor on the strength of its fortifications, nor on the beauty of its public buildings; but it consists in the number of its cultivated citizens, in its men of education, enlightenment and character.
Faith in yourself, in your friends, in your colleagues and most of all, faith in your ability to impact our future is the best strategy I know.
The foundation of your life is luck. Hard work and talent make up the difference.