Royce Sears-Sci-Fi/Fantasy Author

Cover Art Possibility-- Any thoughts?

Top Five Things Husky Owners Deal With Nor is Maya Captain Morgan is NOT impressed 5.) The cat (Captain Morgan) is NOT impressed 4.)Outside! Outside! Outside! We Must Go Outside!  Walk! Walk! Walk! (it's a never ending struggle) 3.) The demanding look they give you when it's time to go outside and all you want to do is write. 2.) When you're umm..'gettin busy' and you worry about the dog stealing your place in bed, then having to fight them to get it back. 1.) That Look your dog gives you when they've just told you about their day and you don't understand. (Why don't you understand? I'm learning your language..why can't you learn mine? Stupid Hooman)

Excerpts from my short story--"Welcome to the Brethren" ...Captain Eric Roush, a name and a man who no longer existed, had commanded a mere cargo vessel hauling other people’s junk through the lonely void of space until a few months ago. He’d taken on the occasional smuggling job, forging a container’s manifest to make a little extra money here and there, but he’d never gotten caught. He thought he’d slipped under the radar, but someone had noticed, and it wasn’t the authorities.... ...The name she had given him was Anne Bonny, but a search of the name revealed nothing more than the story of an 18th Century pirate who marauded the Caribbean Sea with her lover, John (Calico Jack) Rackham. Anne was a mystery, a welcome mystery to be sure, but a mystery nonetheless.... ...“Before you can drink that, we must strike a bargain, come to an arrangement, seal the deal, you understand?  My employer can take care of those money problems…if you agree to work for us.”...

I've implemented a complete website overhaul.. www.roycesears.com Any suggestions? Ideas? Things to make it better

The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner My rating: 0 of 5 stars There are many good tips for writers within these pages once you get past the author's pedantic attitude and overt sense of literary snobbery. I found, since I have not taking many formal writing classes, this book provided me with some of the "rules" for writing for publication that were more esoteric. I highly recommend this book for just about anyone, but especially for folks who find themselves drawn to the writing craft who may not have taken advantage of creative writing classes in their education background. View all my reviews

You are perusing books at your local bookstore again..(You seem to spend a fair amount of time at the bookstore) You pick up a book with some eye-catching cover art depicting Native American Warriors riding enormous dogs (as big or bigger than a horse) toward a beaten and bloodied young man lying on the ground--and an army of men giving chase behind the fallen youth.  You read the back of the book to see what it's about.  Does this catch your interest better than the last one?  Seventy-five years after the world was devastated by a mutating virus of extraterrestrial origin, humanity is an endangered species, but an ancient prophecy, a young man, and a Warrior of the People may be the keys to healing both the human race and the planet. Otaktay, a young Warrior of the People, a nomadic Village of survivors following what’s left of the Native American traditions, finds himself swept along by his prophetic vision of a young man whose coming was foretold by a lost and ...

You're browsing your local bookstore and you pick up a book with some interesting cover art. Intrigued, you turn it over and read the description on the back: Seventy-five years after the world was devastated by a mutating virus of extraterrestrial origin, humanity is an endangered species, but an ancient prophecy, a young man, and a Warrior of the People may be the keys to healing both the human race and the planet. Otaktay, a young Warrior of the People, a nomadic Village of survivors following what’s left of the Native American traditions, finds himself swept along by his prophetic vision of a young man whose coming was foretold by a lost and forgotten prophecy of the People . Otaktay’s vision leads him on a journey far from his home, in a world dominated by bloodthirsty predators that were once human beings, to find the young man of his own prophetic vision. To the south of Otaktay’s Village, Jadyn and Jared, two brothers struggle to survive with their small family of...

As I read this article it conjured images of Bruce Willis pressing the button in the action packed, science-weak, movie "Armageddon." While the concept of preventing an asteroid impact by drilling a hole and blowing it up made for a great sci-fi story, I'm sure there are many more feasible options, especially if we take the threat seriously. I'm reminded of the speech the President gives in the movie, "...And yet, for the first time in the history of the planet, a species has the technology to prevent its own extinction..." That statement has never rang truer, but we have to commit the resources to it for it to become a reality.  Asteroid Day

I've always been a night-owl. I work nights as a Registered Nurse, and I do my best writing at night. It's interesting that something like this could be hard-wired into us from the beginning. https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/dna-may-determine-if-youre-early-bird-or-night-owl?tgt=nr

It's hard to imagine a planet 14 times the size of Earth that isn't gaseous. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/largest-rocky-world-found

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/physicists-find-signs-four-neutron-nucleus

--We do not recommend a prologue unless its absolutely essential to the story. After taking a long, hard look at "The Elegance Of Nature-Prophecies of the New World"--they were right. (Of course they're right, they editors, and they do this all the time. I'm a Registered Nurse-Writer Wannabe at this point) The prologue was not necessary to tell the story, but it sounded so good...So at this point, I'll quote Joss Whedon-- "CUT WHAT YOU LOVE Here's one trick that I learned early on. If something isn't working, if you have a story that you've built and it's block and you can't figure it out, take your favorite scene, or your very best idea or set-piece, and cut it. It's brutal, but sometimes inevitable. That thing may find its way back in, but cutting it is usually an enormously freeing exercise"--Joss Whedon. --Avoid Info dumps, ensure your prose matches normal character thought patterns. I find it sad that it took a glar...

Maybe I'm a little too excited about this, but I'm thinking of it as a writer's score card--in a way. Can you write to make it understood? Analysis for a new short story that was submitted for publication review with Fantastic Stories of the Imagination ,entitled "Welcome to the Brethren."  Reading Text ... Reading Ease A higher score indicates easier readability; scores usually range between 0 and 100. Readability Formula Score Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease 75.1 Grade Levels A grade level (based on the USA education system) is equivalent to the number of years of education a person has had. A score of around 10-12 is roughly the reading level on completion of high school. Text to be read by the general public should aim for a grade level of around 8. Readability Formula Grade Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 6.7 Gunning-Fog Score 8.9 Coleman-Liau Index 8.9 SMOG Index 6.4 Automated Readability Index 6.2 Average Grade Level 7.4 Text Statist...

I discovered a rather handy website while perusing my new Pinterest account. The website, Readability-Score.com  examines a selection of text and provides a Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease Score, along with several scores that assess the Reading Grade Level based on different formulas. Out of curiosity, I put "The Elegance of Nature-Book I: Prophecies of the New World" to the test. Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease: 72.3 (A higher score indicates easier readability; scores usually range between 0 and 100.) Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 7.6 Automated Readability Index: 8.2 A grade level (based on the USA education system) is equivalent to the number of years of education a person has had. A score of around 10-12 is roughly the reading level on completion of high school. Text to be read by the general public should aim for a grade level of around 8. All in all - A very handy tool to have at our disposal!