I read this today and had to laugh. According to Language Log the Marist Institute of Public Opinion has released poll results that reveal the words and phrases that Americans find most annoying. The results were: whatever – 47% you know – 25% it is what it is – 11% anyway – 7% at...
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Books By Alan
Click on book covers for reviews, previews and purchase options.
RealmShift
A race against time and the Devil
"RealmShift is phenomenal. If it’s not already on your bookshelf it should be."
MageSign
Believe in the blood 
"a gritty tale of blood rituals, mystery, and mysticism… grabs hold of the reader and doesn’t let go"
The Darkest Shade Of Grey
You can tell the story.
"...stunning supernatural noir..."
Ghost Of The Black
"Everything about it is bang on"
Write The Fight Right
“The best way for a writer to learn what’s really involved in brawling, short of going down the pub and starting something.”
Powerful Words
Whatever
The Telegraph’s 20 worst Dan Brown sentences
I’m not bitter at the success of Dan Brown. Really, I’m not. I would love to sell one book for every 10,000 books Dan Brown sells and I’d consider myself very sucessful, but I don’t resent his success. Anyone that can sell books in the kind of numbers that the Browns, Rowlings and Meyers...
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Call Yourself a Writer Meme
The lovely Joanna Penn over at The Creative Penn website tagged me with this meme. You can find Jo’s answers here. You can find the original meme (with rules, no less!) here. So, on to the questions then. Which words do you use too much in your writing? An editor once told me, ‘Try...
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Excellent advice for short story writers
I recently entered the Katherine Susannah Prichard Speculative Fiction Awards 2009, an Australian short story competition. Sadly my story didn’t win a prize or a recommendation, but that’s okay. I have another story to put back into the market now and see if someone will buy it. (You have to look for the positive...
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Part 2 of my Author’s Den interview up now
The second part of my interview with Lorna Suzuki over at Author’s Den is up now if you’re interested in having a read. This part talks more about the process of my writing and my rituals and habits. You can find the interview here. .
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Friday guest post – Our Saucy Medieval Heritage by Michael Fridman
For the ever more infrequent Friday Guest Post, here’s something very entertaining from Michael Fridman, fellow Blade Red Press author and all-round interesting fellow. In this post he explores the legacy of language derived from our less than prudish past and some stories that are worth checking out for some olden days racy fun....
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Blog book tour Day 6
Today’s stop on the blog tour is a little delayed due to international time changes, but it’s worth waiting for. I’ve been very excited about this one as it’s something different for everyone, even if you’re a regular reader here. Those kind folks over at Wily Writers agreed to get involved with my book...
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Blog book tour Day 5
Today sees us at the halfway point of the book tour and so far it’s all going swimmingly. Thanks to everyone that’s been following along and those that are hosting me along the way. Some of the timing is a bit up and down, but that’s what happens when you have posts hosted in...
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Blog book tour Day 4
The blog tour rumbles ever onwards and today you can find me over at Publetariat.com. Publetariat is is an online community and news hub built specifically for indie authors and small, independent imprints. I’m a regular contributor over there myself and this time around site founder April Hamilton interviews me about why I chose...
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All you need to know about writing in 1,000 words
There are a lot of things like this out there, but this is one of the best, most succinct and well-written examples I’ve ever seen. I found it via Joanna Penn (you may remember her from Day 1 of the blog book tour) who passed on the link via Twitter (you can find Jo...
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Editor Unleashed Flash Fiction 40 Anthology now available
Back at the end of June I was very happy to annouce that my short story Parklife had won a place in the Editor Unleashed Flash Fiction 40 contest. You can read that post here. All the winning entries have been bought and published in an anthology, which is free and exclusively available through...
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So it begins – Blog book tour Day 1
So after all this planning, let’s hope this thing works out as it’s supposed to. Day One of my virtual book tour has arrived and the first stop is the blog of Joanna Penn. Joanna’s site is called The Creative Penn and is full of stuff all about writing, self-publishing, print-on-demand, internet sales and...
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My blog book tour starts early with Smashwords interview
The virtual book tour that I’ve been arranging starts on Monday. I blogged the itinerary here a couple of weeks ago. I’m very pleased to say that the whole thing has started early with an interview with Smashwords founder Mark Coker. In the interview I talk about what a blog book tour is and...
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Catholics shoehorn relevance into Gore’s plan
I read about this in the Sydney Morning Herald today and it gave me quite a chuckle over my cereal. The Catholic Church, along with pretty much every other religion, is no stranger to desperately shoehorning “facts” into things to keep their dogma relevant. Anyone that’s ever read the Bible knows that it takes...
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A ‘Verse Full Of Scum now a free ebook at Smashwords
I’ve been making a few changes around here with a view to future writing projects. Firstly, I’ve changed the button in the Navigation panel that used to read Serial Novella to read Serial Fiction. This ties in with the new Serial Fiction page. At the moment it’s not very different to the original page,...
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The Word
Welcome to the website of author Alan Baxter.
I write dark fantasy, sci fi and horror, ride a motorcycle and love my dog. I also teach Kung Fu, hence the Warrior Scribe tag above. A friend once referred to me that way and I liked it, so it stuck. Learn all about me and my work by clicking About Alan just below the header.
Our world is built on language and storytelling. Without stories, we are nothing.
The Word is a place to learn more about me, my stories and the words of others. Click the links along the top for all kinds of stuff, search the sidebars for loads of other stuff, click on book covers for reviews and previews, enjoy the blog and don't be shy to share your words, in comments or send me an email:
alan [at]alanbaxteronline[dot]com
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