One of my favorite artists on Deviantart.

I was heavily influenced by my first attempt at a novel. I started a fantasy novel back in high school, and... well... it really sucked. It was a plotless, clichéd mess.

Humor is important for is pacing. If your whole book is just drama drama drama, it's going to wear down the reader.

She was a wicked thing sometimes. All full of want. As if the shape of the world depended on her mood. As if she were important.

Reading can almost be viewed as empathy training. Movies have better action scenes, sure. But books are uniquely suited to showing you the inside of another person's head. That is the root of empathy. That's the first step to understanding you're not alone in the world.

I'm not implying that fantasy is for kids. I'm saying that more and more people are finally realizing that there's more to fantasy stories than elves and wizards and goblin armies.

Now that I understand how publishing schedules work, I can understand why many authors have the sophomore slump. A year is a long time to wait for a sequel, but it's a short, short time to WRITE a sequel.